Proclaimer Blog
Serving Undiluted Wine
I am working slowly through 2 Corinthians in my Quiet Times in the mornings, and was this morning reading chapter 2, verses 14-17. The scholars struggle with the transition from the end of verse 16 to verse 17, and I can see why. At the end of verse 16, in response to the awesome responsibility of being a minister of the gospel, Paul exclaims, "who is equal to such a task?" ("Who is sufficient for these things?"). Who indeed, if our words are an aroma among those who are being saved, to move them on from life to life, and an aroma among the perishing, to hasten them on their way to perdition? What an extraordinary burden and responsibility! What eternal consequences hang on our preaching!
But why then does Paul immediately go on to say, "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit"? C.K.Barrett (A&C Black series) has a penetrating comment here. After explaining that the verb translated "peddle…for profit" is used of crooked wine dealers "watering down" their wine to make an unfair profit, Barrett comments that "it is only those who" water down or adulterate the word, "who can claim to be self-sufficient." If we water down the word, change it, spin it, so that it says the kinds of things we would like it to say, well, we can certainly manage that without any divine help. That is easy. But it doesn't move the saved on from life to life; and its rejection does not hasten the perishing to perdition. In fact, it achieves nothing of any eternal consequence.
But, as Barrett goes on, "those who handle the word of God in its purity know how inadequate they are for the task." Indeed they do, as all of us who struggle week by week with expository preaching know. What a challenge, not just an intellectual task but a spiritual and life-changing challenge – to ourselves before it is to others! Well may we exclaim, "Who is sufficient for these things?"