Title: The Bride of Jesus Christ
Contents
Sunday, August 9, 2009 Sermon
Text 2 Corinthians 11:1-15
Title: Being the Bride of Christ
Verse 2 I am zealous for you with the zeal of God, because I have arranged to offer you pure virgins to one husband, Christ.
1. Historical Background
False teachers have appeared in the Corinth area.
Titus 1:10-16 false teacher, false teaching
1:10 Of the many who are disobedient and vain and deceitful, this is especially true of the Circumcision.
1:11 I will shut their mouths, and these people, in order to gain an unclean gain, teach the wrong things, and destroy whole families.
1:12 A certain prophet of the Cretans said, "The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and idlers for their stomachs."
1:13 This testimony is true; therefore, rebuke them severely, that they may strengthen their faith,
1:14 lest they obey the fables of the Jews and the commandments of those who betray the truth.
1:15 All things are clean to the clean, but nothing is clean to the unclean and unbelievers, but their heart and conscience are unclean.
1:16 They confess God, but in deeds they deny him; they are abominations, disobedient, and forsaking every good work.
Heretics are systematically tearing down the church.
The Apostle Paul commands not only Titus but also Corinth to shut the mouths of these false teachers. The concern of false teachers is not whether believers who believe are built in the truth and their families are blessed in the truth. Their real concern is how they can profit.
The false teachers had neither the strength nor the will to overcome the secular culture with the true gospel. Rather, like the Cretans, they were ruled by lies, evil, greed, and laziness.
False teachers were hypocrites. Although outwardly clean and unclean were strictly separated, their hearts and consciences were filthy. Outwardly they boasted in their knowledge of God, but their lives were proving that they did not know God at all, did not obey the truth, and were not genuine people who were zealous for good works.
Corinth is the region bordering the port in present-day Greece.
Corinth (Greek: Κ?ρινθο?) was an ancient Greek city-state and modern city.
It is located on the Peloponnesian Peninsula in south-central Greece, 78 km southwest of Athens and on the Isthmus of Corinth that separates the Gulf of Saronicus and the Gulf of Corinth. In ancient times, ships sailed along the coast of this isthmus to avoid the rugged reef, but now there is a canal.
A canal created by removing the first shovel by mobilizing 500,000 slaves during the reign of Emperor Nero.
They resisted the ministry of the apostle Paul (false teachers). The Apostle Paul tries to destroy the church built with tears and sacrifice without fear. They persecute Paul, the true disciple of Jesus, and disparage him with reckless lies, spreading rumors that Paul is a fake disciple.
The characteristics of false teachers cleverly tempt the members of the Corinthian church to focus on promoting themselves, their ceremonial systems, and merits, without paying attention to Jesus.
Chapter 11 verse 2
“I am zealous”
: Originally meant to have a strong affinity for ___. people, things. real estate. food. honor, money. It is the essence of being eager to have a strong affinity for everything.
In the Jewish custom of marriage, there is a friend who represents the purity of the groom and a friend who represents the purity of the bride. These two friends are guarantors and matchmakers that unite the two to unite the bride and groom. They create and send out wedding invitations that bring guests to the wedding venue. I work in preparing for the wedding ceremony.
In other words, if Jesus is the bridegroom, the bride is the church. As the surety of Jesus, the bridegroom, Paul shows strong zeal. It means that I have a strong affinity with Jesus as a surety to welcome the bride. In other words, I will do everything in my power to preserve the bride so that the bride whom Jesus will meet is clean and pure. In other words, we will preserve the church as the bride.
Ephesians 5:27 “to establish before him a glorious church, without speck or wrinkle or such, that it might be holy and without blemish.”
This expression of the bridegroom's friend was not unique to Paul.
John the Baptist also said this.
“You are the ones who bear witness to what I said, that I am not the Christ, but was sent before him. It is the bridegroom who takes the bride, but the friend who stands and hears the bridegroom's voice rejoices greatly. I was filled with such joy." John 3:28,29
Not only John the Baptist. It is also expressed in the Old Testament
Isaiah 54:5 “This is your husband who made you. His name is the LORD of hosts, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. will be called the God of the whole world.”
Isaiah 62:5 “As a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so will your God be pleased with you.”
Ezekiel 16:8 “As I passed by you, I saw that your days were lovely, and I covered you with my clothes and covered your nakedness, and I swore to you and made a covenant with you to make you mine, saith the LORD.”
Hosea 2:19 “I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice, in favor and compassion.”
Jesus Himself Speaks
“Then the disciples of John came to Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guests mourn while they are with the bridegroom? But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast” (Matthew 9:14,15).
Conclusion: Just as Paul argued and defended for the church with a passionate heart, let me also have this kind of heart for the church!
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In verse 3, Satan deceived Lee with a trick. Interpretation of verse 3 says, “But I fear that in some way you will deviate from your pure and pure devotion to our Lord, as Satan deceived Lee in the Garden of Eden.”
Satan is a deceiver. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing, a hindrance disguised as an angel of light.
Satan used false teachers to proclaim half-truth for the purpose of replacing the whole truth.
It challenges all the true work of God. This is a high-level strategy to destroy the church.
In verse 4, the Jesus preached by the false teachers was not the Jesus Paul preached. It was another Jesus. He preached a spirit other than the Holy Spirit. The salvation they preached was different from the salvation Paul preached. It is arousing more false beliefs than fakes.
There were false teachers at the root of that false belief. They deceived the Corinthians by the Jesus statue they made. Paul did not tell them to submit to the image of Jesus he had made. He offered his heart to Jesus, whom he had obeyed, and asked him to have faith in Jesus, who allowed him to die. Not the Jesus Paul made, but the Jesus whom Paul was faithful to. I pray that you do not believe in the Jesus statue made by the pastor, but believe in the faithful Jesus that the pastor lays down his life for.
Satan produces false prophets and teachers, and false Christians. To do so, he falls stumbling upon Paul, the true teacher and apostle, who become obstacles. That way, their purpose will be more easily accomplished.
The Apostle Paul tried to become a sacrifice for preaching the gospel with his own mercy, saying that it was because he was not qualified for something, and turned it upside down to oppose it. He argued that he was rejecting the example of the church because he was not a true apostle. Because the false apostles are interested in money, it is not appropriate and difficult to be with Paul. Because they were in a corner, they tried to refute and denounced Paul as a false apostle to cover up all their evil deeds.