The Lord provides proof that Moses and Aaron have power by
giving the sign of the staff turning into a serpent. Pharaoh is unimpressed as his magicians can
do the same. Aaron’s serpent devours
theirs but Pharaoh is unmoved. The first
plague is accomplished through the agency of Moses and Aaron. Moses strikes the Nile and Aaron stretches
out his staff over the other waters and they turn to blood. Again, Pharaoh’s magicians duplicate the
feat, which only makes matters worse for the people. Pharaoh has proven that he is not a man who
cares about his own people, making their lives more miserable simply because he
wants to control these Hebrews.
God’s will for marriage is lifelong commitment. We are to become one flesh with our marriage
partners for the rest of our lives.
Divorce was something that was allowed by God through Moses because of
the hardness of the hearts of the people of God. Would that be the same hardness of heart
Pharaoh had? Jesus appeals to Genesis to
understand God’s will for marriage, an earlier standard than the law given to
Moses. Sin has hardened all our hearts,
God’s will has not been done since the first sin, and divorce is an
accommodation to that reality. As
Christians we have to go back to that original standard and acknowledge that
deviation from that is sin, just like every other sin in our lives. We should grieve broken marriages and in our
day one way of being salt is for the church to be deeply committed to marriage
with the compassionate outlook that sin does indeed separate men and women
within marriage. We should be able to
point out sin and deal with it ruthlessly but sometimes sinners are
unrepentant, spouses commit adultery not only with their bodies but with their
hearts and reconciliation requires not only confession but repentance, turning
away. Our hearts need to be broken and
pliable not hardened for that to be a possibility.
(We made a rather large leap from I Corinthians 14 to 2
Corinthians 2 here. Some of that is due
to the fact that we are in Lent still and 1 Corinthians 15 deals with the
resurrection. We will come back to 2 Corinthians 1 next week during Holy Week.)
As Moses and Aaron not only speak the words God told them to
speak, their authentication is in power and signs. Paul says that his work is authenticated by
his life and the lives of those who have come to Christ through his
teaching. He doesn’t need other men to
send letters of introduction or authentication to the Corinthians, they
themselves in persevering in the faith he delivered to them are all the
authentication he needs. Is this a
polemic against churches commissioning those who will serve in the local
church? I don’t think so but Paul
clearly felt no need as an apostle to seek such commissioning, he had been commissioned
directly by God. There were witnesses to
that fact and there were witnesses after the fact by the results of his
ministry. Paul himself set standards for
those who would be allowed to minister in the churches he had established and
we see those standards in the letters to Timothy and Titus. All that being done, however, fruit is what
matters. The word is a wonderful thing
but we can be peddlers of the word, professionals who are well-trained, without
being sincere and commissioned by God.
I long for your
salvation, O LORD,
and your law is my delight.
Let my soul live and praise you,
and let your rules help me.
I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.
and your law is my delight.
Let my soul live and praise you,
and let your rules help me.
I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.
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