You are a letter from Christ. 2 Corinthians 3.1-6

Company sales numbers had just come across her Blackberry; sure enough, Amy had moved to number 37 in the country. Thirty-seven? Is that good or
bad? It meant 37^th place out of 500
pharmaceutical sales representatives in a large company. The
results were quite measurable and they were good.

Meanwhile, Dylan (15), got a progress report for his second quarter academics—all A’s except for a ‘C’ in Geometry. The grades said it all; he was doing
great as a high school freshman, but was struggling to succeed in
Geometry.

While on the baseball field, Danny (12), moved from number 4 in the batting lineup to number 7. Why? His on-base
percentage had dropped; he was in a slump. His batting
average proved it; the numbers just didn’t lie.

All three of these instances are real-life scenarios from my children's lives, where results are quantifiable and an individual’s success is immediately clear . . . or
not.

In Paul’s day, church growth experts were not plotting the average Sunday attendance on a bar graph, nor were commendations quickly e-mailed from one Mediterranean town to another. Instead,
letters of
recommendation were sent along to vouch for a worker’s
qualifications, character, and performance, to which Paul writes, “Are we beginning to commend
ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of
recommendation to you or from you?”

Paul then describes the standard of commendation for the spiritual leader—the lives of those he leads, and his point is a powerful
one: “You yourselves are our letter,
written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ,
the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of
the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

So while the Judaizers were strutting around with letters of recommendation from big name people in the Jerusalem church, Paul counters with real evidence. The
test of ministry is changed lives. And Paul
states with such beautiful symbolism, ‘you yourselves are our letter,
written on our hearts. . . you are a letter from Christ, the result of
our ministry.’ I love that. What seals that
letter? The Holy
Spirit.

We must look back and remember just how depraved the Corinthians had been when Paul first got there. (recorded in his first letter to the
Corinthians) The young Christian church had issues of
immorality, infighting, and factions over which leader to follow. Pagan
practices had slopped over into church practices until Paul corrected
the folks; there were abuses in the serving of communion, favoritism,
and so on. But by the grace of God, and the working of the Holy
Spirit, the Christians had grown and matured.

Paul says to you and to me, ‘you are a letter from Christ—people are reading you . . . they are reading your faith and your practices . . . you are a
reflection of Christ to the world.’ How are you doing? I
am afraid I fall woefully short, but at least some of these Corinthians
were representing the gospel well. But, lest anyone think
Paul was boasting of his superior leadership and pastoral skills, he
writes, “We are
confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are
qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be
ministers of his new
covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the
Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new
covenant, the Spirit gives life.”

And so Paul gives any glory to be had to God, including his own qualifications. He cites the great work of the Holy Spirit in giving new
life to those who follow God by trusting in the work of Jesus Christ. Thanks
be to God who always leads us in our triumph.

You are a letter from Christ to others—how are you doing?

Christine