Sermon on 2 Corinthians 10:1–18: Recognising authentic Christian ministry
A sermon from Latimer Church on how to identify genuine Christian ministry, using Paul's defence of his apostleship in 2 Corinthians 10.
Summary
This is a sermon, likely delivered by James de Costobadie (Costa), Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, working through 2 Corinthians 10:1–18. The sermon addresses the challenge of distinguishing authentic Christian ministry from false or distorted versions, a concern Paul faced in the first-century church at Corinth where so-called "super-apostles" were undermining his authority and teaching a different gospel. The preacher argues that Paul's response reveals two key marks of genuine Christian ministry: a "gentle boldness" modelled on Jesus himself, and reliance on the power of the Word of God rather than worldly weapons of influence and rhetoric. The sermon draws on the extraordinary power of the sun as an illustration of the divine power at work through the preached gospel, and closes with Paul's own transformation from persecutor to preacher as the supreme example of that power.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: You cannot judge a church by its cover
You would have heard that saying that you can't judge a book by its cover, and it's certainly true. Some books have very boring covers but they're great books, and other books have wonderful, beautiful covers and they're really awful books. You cannot judge a book by its cover, and the same, sadly, is true of churches.
Some churches look incredibly impressive. They have nice buildings, they have good marketing, they have excellent music, they have a big social media following, they have well-attended services with good-looking leaders and powerful preachers, and yet despite appearances, they distort authentic Christianity and they misuse the name of Jesus. Other churches look decidedly unimpressive — perhaps only small gatherings of people meeting in some old school hall, perhaps a badly designed website, perhaps no social media account whatsoever, and a rather average-looking preacher giving a rather boring sermon. And yet Jesus is proclaimed, and God is honoured, and lives are transformed. You see, you cannot judge a church by its cover.
And therefore, being able to recognise genuine Christianity is vitally important, and it is at the very heart of this letter to the Corinthians. Paul is writing to the first-century church of Corinth, and already in this church there were false teachers who had arisen and they were teaching something other than the true message about Jesus. But these leaders who were teaching this false gospel were impressive. They were powerful orators, they were popular people, they were strong leaders, they had impressive personalities — kind of winsome, charismatic preachers. And as Paul writes this letter, he sarcastically calls them in chapter 11 "super-apostles." And not only did these super-apostles teach a message that was different to the message of Paul, but they also directly attacked Paul and critiqued his ministry and called into question his character. Paul was under direct attack.
And so he writes this letter — 2 Corinthians — largely to defend himself and his message. He wants the Church of Corinth to be educated so that they would know how to assess Christian work rightly, how to recognise authentic Christian ministry, and how to spot inauthentic Christianity.
Why this matters in New Zealand today
And I want to put it to you tonight that actually that is something we need desperately here in New Zealand. There are over three and a half thousand churches roughly — it's hard to get an exact statistic — across the country in New Zealand. And I would love it if you moved somewhere and I could just say to you, "Oh, you should just pop into the church." And yet the reality is I actually wouldn't say that to you, because I'd have absolutely no confidence that if you just popped into any church in New Zealand you would have authentic Christianity represented to you.
I know of churches where the pastors do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. I have heard of churches that are much more like performances, and there is no preaching or opening of the Scriptures, and if the Bible is opened it's only because the pastor has cherry-picked a verse to say what he or she wants it to say. I know of churches where there is no pastor or leader and the churches are on the decline. And so it is really important for us that we are able to assess authentic Christian ministry rightly. We must all think carefully and wisely so that we can do this work of assessing.
You would think that if Paul was writing to the Church of Corinth about what makes authentic Christian ministry, he might address the letter just to the church leaders — maybe to the denominational leaders, maybe to the parish council, maybe to the staff team. But he doesn't. He writes this letter to the whole church, because he wants every Christian person to be able to spot authentic Christianity.
First mark: Gentle boldness (2 Corinthians 10:1–11)
And so in chapter 10, Paul addresses accusations made directly against him. And as he does so, there are three things we learn about authentic Christian ministry that I want to draw your attention to.
Number one: authentic Christian work is marked by bold gentleness — or gentle boldness. In verse 1, it seems that these so-called super-apostles accused Paul of being kind of two-faced. So if you have a look at verse 1, Paul says, "I appeal to you — I, Paul, who am timid when face-to-face with you, but bold towards you when away." That's what they were saying about him. He's two-faced. He's kind of big and impressive in his letters, but in person he's a little bit pathetic. He writes strongly and boldly, but he's nothing to look at, and he's no clever orator.
In verse 10, he says something very similar. He says, "For some say, 'His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive, and his speaking amounts to nothing.'"
We don't really know what the Apostle Paul looked like in physical appearance. We've got no description of him in the Bible. And yet one historian, writing around 160 AD, describes Paul like this: he was a man small in stature, bald-headed, crooked in legs, healthy, with eyebrows joining, and nose somewhat crooked. The old mono-browed Apostle Paul. Now, we don't know whether that's necessarily a description that is right or accurate, but it does seem that he wasn't a particularly impressive person. And so he can write these impressive letters, but when you see him and you meet him and you hear him speak, he doesn't really measure up to the super-apostles. And in addition to his unappealing appearance, his sermons weren't much better — certainly not compared to these apostles who were winsome and clever orators.
So these super-apostles come in, these false teachers, and they're all too quick to point out all of Paul's flaws. He's not much to look at. His sermons are boring. His letters might impress you, but if you've heard him speak, you'd tell him to stick to writing. It's not a very nice thing to say — and please don't give me that feedback, unless I'm in a robust kind of a mood. Paul is a little bit like a teddy bear in person, they say, but then behind your back a grizzly bear. He's a little bit two-faced. Well, that's the accusation.
Paul starts to defend himself in verse 2. Have a look there: "I beg you that when I come, I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be towards some people who think that we live by the standards of this world." You see, Paul's longing was that he wouldn't actually have to show his boldness in person. He begs them to listen to his bold letters so that when he does go to visit this church — which he plans to do — he doesn't actually have to be bold, because they've responded positively to what he's written. They've obeyed him. They've changed.
We've seen, as we've worked through 2 Corinthians, just how bold his letters can be. We saw his boldness in the last couple of weeks as we looked at chapters 8 and 9, where Paul doesn't mince his words. He says, "I'm going to test your love for Jesus by how much money you give, and you'd better give more than the Macedonian churches." He's bold. In chapter 6, we saw his boldness when he tells the Corinthians to have absolutely nothing to do with these super-apostles. Or if you read through his first letter — the book of 1 Corinthians — again you see his boldness perhaps even more clearly. He tells them to get rid of sexual immorality. He says that they should have excommunicated a man who was rejoicing in sexual immorality. He rebukes them for their misuse of the Lord's Supper. He calls them to live holy lives. And he's bold in the way that he addresses them.
But the reason he's so bold is because he actually longs to be gentle. When he does visit this church in Corinth, he longs to be able to embrace them as his dearly loved children. He longs to find that they've done what he's urgently called them to do in his letters — which, much like a parent, might boldly and firmly warn their child: "If you carry on doing that, you're going to be in trouble." And the reason they do it is they long that the child wouldn't carry on, so that they can embrace them warmly.
Well, that's Paul. He tells us that that's what he's doing back in chapter 2. If you flick over a few pages, chapter 2, verse 3, Paul says, "I wrote as I did so that when I came I would not be distressed by those who should have made me rejoice." Or verse 4: "I wrote to you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you, but to let you know the depth of my love for you." And he says the same thing again at the end of the letter. So if you flick to the end, chapter 13, verse 10, he says, "This is why I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority — the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down."
So you see, Paul says: yes, I am bold in my letters. I don't mind saying the hard thing that you need to hear. But I'm bold now so that I don't need to be bold in person. He's not afraid to be bold if he needs to be. So have a look back in chapter 10, verse 11. He says, "Such people" — those who accuse him of being unimpressive — "should realise that what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present." So he's not afraid of being bold, but he longs he won't have to be. He will deal with those who refuse to change in response to his boldness.
So you see there's a kind of gentle boldness in the way he speaks to the Corinthian church. Now, to the super-apostles, this seemed to them to be just a sign of Paul's weakness. They accused him of being kind of all talk — just a kind of windbag who says all this stuff but doesn't follow through with it. But Paul says that they are judging him by worldly standards.
Worldly power versus Christian leadership
You see, the world says that real power is actually seen in the person who just gets stuff done. They don't talk about it, they do it. That was particularly true in Greek culture in the first century. Classic Greek literature couples meekness and humility with the attributes of a servant and servanthood, but meekness and humility stood in contrast to the noble and dignified. Strength was not seen in being timid or humble or gentle, but rather strength was seen in being heavy-handed — throwing your weight around, calling the shots, getting things done.
And our world today is actually much the same. So you think of the boss at work who doesn't really care what the employees think. He just gets everything done. He fires people who need to be fired. He barks orders at people. He pushes his weight around, doesn't have to take no for an answer. And as he leads in this kind of way, he leads the company to great success. Now he or she may not be so popular with the employees, but in the world's eyes he would be applauded as someone who's successful — a strong, powerful leader, valuing strength and success over humility and gentleness.
Well, it is a great tragedy when that worldly standard of strength creeps into the church, and when church leaders are harsh with church members, and they throw their weight around to get their own way, and their philosophy starts to become: you either get on this bus or you get run over by it. They lack gentleness and humility, and their own ego controls them. That's a great tragedy.
It is, however, also a great tragedy when a church leader has no boldness whatsoever, and when they lack the courage to rebuke or call for correction. They're so timid and so eager not to upset anyone that they'll never point out sin, they'll never say the hard thing, they'll never call for repentance. They never speak out about the things that are wrong, and they just let everyone do as they please because they don't want to upset anyone. That is also a great tragedy.
And so you see there's this danger in being too harsh, but there's also a danger in being timid. And Paul says: I'm both bold and I'm gentle. Yes, I'm bold in my letters, but I'm bold in the hope that I can be gentle. I'm bold in the longing that you would change and my boldness would no longer be necessary.
Jesus as the model of gentle boldness
And his model for getting this balance right between being bold and gentle is Jesus himself — Jesus, who is the perfect example of gentle boldness. So he says in verse 1, "By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you."
There aren't many direct observations of Jesus's character made by the gospel writers. If you read the biography of Jesus, you can kind of pick up his character by the things he does and says, but there aren't many commentaries about what he was like as a person. But there is one place where we get a description of what Jesus was like. Matthew chapter 11, verse 29. Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." This is how Jesus describes himself: humble, gentle. Jesus's desire for people is that they would find rest for their souls. This is his desire for you tonight. This is his desire for me — that we would find rest. And so he's gentle, not harsh. And he's humble, not arrogant.
As you read about the life of Jesus, you see that play out. You see him move towards those who are needy, vulnerable, overlooked, outcast, broken, and he treats them with gentleness and humility. But his gentleness and his humility does not mean that he's not bold. Jesus said some of the boldest things in the Bible.
Just think for a moment, if you're familiar with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 to 7. There are some wonderful gentle things Jesus said. He says that we must love even our enemies — a wonderful, gentle command. But alongside it he says really bold things, like: if your right hand is causing you to sin, cut it off, because it is better to go into heaven maimed than into hell. He says something so bold that on the last day, on the day of judgment, there will be people who come to him and say, "Lord, Lord, we did so many good things in your name," and he will look at them and say, "Away from me, you evildoers, I never knew you." He's bold, isn't he? But he's gentle. He does these bold statements with humility, and the aim of his bold words was that the people listening would repent and be saved and find rest for their souls.
So you see this tension — boldness and gentleness. The aim of any boldness in a Christian leader must not be driven by a desire for their own ego. It must not just be a kind of flashy show of power and influence. The aim is not to tear people down, but to build up the people of God. The aim is not harshness, but gentleness. And so authentic Christian ministry is marked by this gentle boldness — a willingness to say the hard thing, but to do so gently. The purpose is building up. That was Jesus, and that was Paul.
Second mark: The power of the Word, not worldly weapons (2 Corinthians 10:3–6)
Secondly, authentic Christian ministry is shaped by the power of the Word, not by worldly weapons. We're introduced to the language of war and weaponry in verse 3. Have a look. Chapter 10, verse 3:
"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
You see, Paul sees his fight against these false teachers as being like a war — a war of words, fighting for influence and authority. And in such a war, the weapons of the world are things like slander and dishonesty, duplicity, gossip, tearing other people down to make yourself look good. They're the kind of weapons we see too often in politics — flashy orators who tear down their opponents but lack transparency, who make false promises to win the favour of people but don't follow through. Those are the weapons of the world to establish power for themselves. And they were the weapons that the super-apostles were using — flashy speakers, clever orators, impressive people slandering Paul and promising things they couldn't deliver.
But Paul says that we fight this war with entirely different weapons. And he says that the weapons he uses have divine power to demolish strongholds. So picture a stronghold — a big tower and a thick wall around a city, heavily guarded, a safe place, well defended. Paul says that the power of his weapons just demolishes them, explodes them. Nothing can stand against Paul's weapons.
So what are these weapons that Paul uses? Well, we're not told explicitly in these verses, but I take it that the weapon Paul wields in this war against the false teachers is the simple message of Jesus and him crucified. It's the message of the gospel. Paul's message is the message of Jesus and him crucified — the Word of God. And we know that that's the case because he tells us in other letters.
Have a look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 18, where Paul says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." Or famously in Romans chapter 1, Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes." Or as Paul has already written in this letter, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, he says, "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ."
You see what Paul is saying? He's saying that the same power of God that created light at the very beginning of creation is now at work through the message of Jesus, so that as the message of Jesus is preached and proclaimed, God in his power shines his light into the hearts of men so that they see the glory of Jesus. They see Jesus for who he is.
The extraordinary power behind the gospel
Now think about that — it is extraordinary. The same power that created light is at work through the message of Jesus. So think for a moment about the sun. The sun, apparently, is so large that 1.3 million Earths would fit inside it. That's how big it is. It makes up 99.8% of all of the mass in our solar system, which means that everything else — any other planet or star or comet or anything else — is just the leftovers, 0.2%. It's huge.
The sun releases energy every second that is the equivalent to billions of nuclear bombs going off. Every second, billions of nuclear bombs. The Manhattan Project, which produced the world's first nuclear bomb in the 1940s, was humanity's fastest, most expensive, and most brilliant collaborative effort. At one point during the project, they employed over 140,000 people to work on it. Billions of dollars, the best minds of a generation, building on forty years of physics — and at the end of it, they produced one nuclear explosion. The sun outputs the energy of billions of them every second. And it didn't take a committee. It didn't take any genius. It didn't take any budget. All it took for the sun to be in existence was God speaking four words: "Let there be light." And boom, there it was. And it's continued to this day and will continue.
And so when 2 Corinthians 10 says that the weapons of our warfare have divine power to demolish strongholds, it's not an exaggeration. No stronghold of proud human reasoning is stronger than the Word of God that made the sun. The same power that created the sun is now at work through the message of Jesus.
And so as the message of Jesus is preached — the message of him dying for our sins, the message of him being raised to life, and the message which calls on people to repent and believe — that message carries with it the power to transform the hearts of people. Those who may appear to be strongholds, resolute in their opposition to God, can be radically changed. Their strongholds demolished, their arguments shattered, and their ambitions to stand against God absolutely destroyed, so that they are left with no choice but to surrender themselves to the will of God.
Every thought taken captive
And notice the captives of this war are the thoughts of people. Notice verse 5: "We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." People once hostile to God are now brought to obedience to Jesus through the message of Jesus.
The person who has been transformed by the gospel thinks entirely differently to how they used to think, because every thought has been taken captive. And so the person who's been transformed — they no longer think about how they can make a name for themselves. They no longer think about how to get rich and successful. They no longer think about how they can tear people down in order to make themselves look good. They no longer think about how to chase their own dreams and have their own way. They no longer think about retirement as a means of enjoying life and nothing more. No, instead, every thought is taken captive to Christ. They think about him — how to please him, how to live for him. They think about what they can do to help more and more people come to know Jesus. And they think about what they can do to help those who already know Jesus keep loving Jesus. And they are radically transformed by the powerful Word of God, and every thought that stands against God is destroyed.
Paul himself as proof of the gospel's power
Perhaps no one knew that better than the Apostle Paul himself. If you know the story of Paul, he was a man who started his life very hostile to God. When the first Christian martyr was stoned to death, Paul was there nodding in approval. Paul gave his life to hunting down Christians who claimed Jesus rose from the dead and locking them in prison. He was a stronghold against God. But then he met the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9. And all of his pretensions were broken down. Every thought became captive to Jesus. And the man who gave his life to persecuting Jesus was transformed into one who preached Jesus.