YOU ARE THE LETTER 2 Corinthians 3-4 First, the best thing I can do for you with this lesson is to encourage you very strongly to read these chapters in the Message or the New Living Bible. They do an excellent job in catching the meaning in free-flowing English. I hope you have all discovered the free Bibles available for your cell phones and tablets. I recommend the You Version of the “Holy Bible.” In the Apple store it's the red book. After downloading it, click on the second icon at the bottom, which says “Read.” Then you can select whatever book it comes set on, and a menu of all the Bible books will drop. The app will save the first five or six versions you read in at the top, but there are dozens underneath. If you read another language, you can find it there. I read Spanish and some German, so sometimes I compare those. You can also download free Bible Hub and Bible Gateway. You can google a bible verse and the search will usually land you at the Hub and show you first the NIV, but you'll see others too. I do it frequently when I don't remember the exact wording or location. >>>Remember a major purpose of Paul was to defend his doctrine and authority against some false apostles who had come in teaching heresy and putting Paul down. In Chapter 3 he begins by saying he needs no recommendation because THEY are his letter of recommendation. What did he mean? Before Paul came to Corinth, there was no church and no Christians. Paul won people to Christ and formed them into a church. He had stayed there until he felt it was on its feet. When he got a letter from them asking questions, he answered it (1 Corinthians). Their very Christian existence and transformed lives witnessed to the power and truth of his gospel. Has your life demonstrated the power of the risen Christ to transform life? Are you a public testimony to becoming more and more like the image of Christ in you? I find it a strong evidence of the truth of the Gospel that I can recognize those whom the Lord has touched by their speech and general behavior. The rest of chapter three is devoted to showing the superiority of God's new covenant in Christ. This leads me to believe the false apostles attacking Paul's ministry and message were Judaizers, those who taught one had first to become a Jew and keep the law before adding Jesus to your life. Chapter 4 begins with a powerful statement about integrity in Christian leaders. Paul says we preach transparently without trying to manipulate people. That's even more important in today's climate of fake news and skulduggery. A good deal of skepticism today about “organized religion” is the feeling that preachers etc are in it for their personal gain in money and power. Often they are right. Verse 5 tells us that the gospel is that Christ is Lord and we are His servants. In a nutshell, that is the Christian position. Verse 7 - “Earthen vessels”(KJV) or jars of clay (NIV). Part of the continuing miracle of the incarnation, we have the eternal message in a very temporal and limited body. We are very limited in what we can do. Therefore we MUST depend on God to bless our message and bring forth fruit. Verse 16 – We don't lose heart. Our clay jars may be drying and cracking, but their contents are being refreshed day after day. Remember the widow Elijah chose to stay with during a famine. Her jars of flour and oil never ran out...eternal biscuits! All the trouble Paul has been enduring (he catalogues them in chapter eleven) have been supremely worth it. Why? Because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ and sharing that Word with as many as will receive it.