Adequate

Humility was what was on my mind today as I have been working toward this post, but reading in 2 Corinthians 3:1 – 6 led me to change directions.  The sequence of events here is striking.  Paul is writing to arrogant people, people whom he worked to establish in the faith.  These folks should be beating the proverbial path to Paul’s proverbial door to find out what they should be doing to further their relationship with Christ.  But here Paul is having to, at some level, defend his right to speak to their behavior.

The contrast to me is stark and the application is clear if not easy.  Paul countered arrogance with adequacy.  He exhorted the arrogant Corinthian church with boldness sourced not in an overblown sense of importance – remember that yesterday we saw that he considered himself “a nobody” – rather he had confidence in the adequacy of Christ’s work in his life.  That gave him hope, and from that hope he spoke boldly (3:12).

So the application – and this is easier to write than it is to do – is to confront arrogant by being adequate, adequate in Christ.  That is one does not demand audience rather one speaks boldly from what Christ has wrought in their lives.  The tension I usually feel is that people may not respond to what I say.  That does not matter.  What matters is that I engage – not from any sense of greatness or privilege but from the adequacy that Christ has given me through the Spirit.