Before continuing, I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the many new blessings. I’m a new church owner and services will be starting later this month. Now you will able to put a voice to the words I have shared with y’all over the past five years. Hope you come out.
2 Corinthians 3:6 (The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life) is allegorized in its interpretation to mean that Scripture is a dead letter and only the Spirit is what is important. So we need to heed new and fresh words from the Spirit. But this is not what the Apostle Paul is saying. Again if we read it in context (before and after the portion that is lifted out to mean something other than the author wrote) we find the true meaning.
2 Corinthians 3:6-8 “who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?
Paul is making a distinction between the Old Covenant written on stone and the New Covenant that is presented inside us by the Spirit. The old (the law) brought death, because no one could keep its directives, whereas the new brings life through the life-giving Spirit. The letter (the law) killed because no one was able to keep it. It made us guilty, while the New Covenant sets us free from the condemnation of the law. The law was fulfilled in the only person who could have fulfilled it, the God/man Jesus Christ. Now we have the spirit of God inside us all because of this new covenant that is superior to the old covenant.
*Give, and it will be given to you
This is not about money or goods. Read in context it makes the meaning apparent. Luke 6:35-38: “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
This has nothing to do with giving money to be more blessed. It has to do with mercy and grace. It is given to your bosom, the inner man to make you filled. If you give another mercy or grace it will be given to you. If you are a gracious forgiving person in your life when it is necessary, then God will bless you with the same.
*Jesus told us not to Judge. “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” No he did not. Read in its context, vs.2-5 goes on to refer to hypocritical judgment. A brother who has a beam in his own eye should not be judging the brother who may have a mote in his eye. In other words, you cannot judge another for his sin if you are guilty of the same sin. However if you take care of that sin you can help your brother.
The fact that His (Jesus’) whole ministry was a judgment against the Pharisees who wanted him to agree with their way of practicing Judaism. To the Pharisees he said to their face, “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt. 12:34). He stood up to them to their face and called them “hypocrites,” “blind,” “blind guides,” “whited sepulchres,” “serpents,” and a “generation of vipers.” (read Matthew 23 to find out who the real Jesus is, not the tolerant scrawny mild manner milksop that some portray). John 3:19-21 “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” That’s judgment is it not?
Till next week,
God Bless
Rev. Dr. Robert L. Harrison, Ph.D – pastorrobharrison@gmail.com, @drrobharrison (Twitter), Robert Bob Harrison (Facebook)
