{"id":5050,"date":"2025-11-19T08:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T13:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5050"},"modified":"2025-11-19T08:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T13:52:09","slug":"2-corinthians-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/19\/2-corinthians-11\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Corinthians 1:1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Each day this month we\u2019re looking closely at one of the 1:1 verses of the Bible \u2013 exploring what we can learn from chapter one \/ verse one of various Old and New Testament books.<\/em>

2 Corinthians 1:1<\/strong>

\u201cPaul, an apostle\u00a0of Christ Jesus by the will of God,\u00a0and Timothy\u00a0our brother, to the church of God\u00a0in Corinth,\u00a0together with all his holy people throughout Achaia.\u201d

Over the centuries, people have been unfailingly impressed with Jesus.\u00a0

That\u2019s still true today. The vast majority of those who practice non-Christian religions or who identify themselves as Nones (as in, \u201cI believe in None of the Above\u201d) think Jesus was a remarkable human being.

Those same people just aren\u2019t very impressed with Jesus\u2019 followers.<\/em>

The disconnect between the faith we profess and lives we lead has been a scandal from Day One of the Jesus Movement \u2013 something that jumps out in the apostle Paul\u2019s opening sentence of the correspondence we know as 2 Corinthians.

Paul greets the fledgling band of Christians in Corinth, \u201ctogether with all his holy people<\/u><\/em> throughout Achaia.\u201d The words \u201choly people\u201d represent the Greek words tois agios<\/u><\/em>, which have traditionally been rendered \u201csaints.\u201d Paul is writing to the saints in Corinth and its surrounding regions.

Who exactly does he have in mind?

The word \u201csaint\u201d has had an interesting history.\u00a0During Christianity’s early centuries it came to represent a woman or a man of exceptional spiritual maturity.\u00a0Well into the Middle Ages, in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican traditions, the word \u201csaint\u201d designated a deceased Christian of such purity and virtue that he or she could actually intercede for struggling Christians here on earth.\u00a0

It seems clear that the apostle Paul has something different in mind.\u00a0The saints in Corinth were ordinary followers of Jesus. They were rank and file disciples, including beginners, stragglers, and strugglers.

Not only that, they were Grade A sinners. Both of Paul\u2019s surviving letters to the Corinthians are exercises in exasperation. He can hardly fathom the immaturity, recklessness, infighting, sexual immorality, and pettiness of these would-be disciples.

In one regard, they\u2019re blending right in with their environment. Corinth, a bustling seaport, was widely regarded in the ancient world as a moral cesspool. In every surviving Greek play, any characters who hail from Corinth are portrayed as drunk. \u201cTo Corinthianize\u201d was slang for sexual line-crossing.

Yet Paul opens his letter by addressing these novice followers of Jesus as saints.

They are not yet living as they should be.

But God says they are already \u201choly ones\u201d \u2013 for the simple reason that they belong to Christ.<\/em>

It\u2019s worth noting that the word \u201csaint\u201d in the New Testament never applies to someone who is dead, but always to those who are living \u2013 and always to a group<\/em> of living persons at that.\u00a0On the pages of the Bible, holiness is closely connected with the idea of separation.\u00a0Someone who follows Jesus is therefore one who is separate, or set apart, from the world with regard to priorities, thinking, and behavior.\u00a0

So, look around the next time you\u2019re at a gathering of people who have enrolled as lifelong learners of Jesus.\u00a0Take a deep breath. You are in the company of God\u2019s set-apart ones. We are God\u2019s Plan A to fulfill his mission on earth.

Seriously?\u00a0<\/em>

An increasing number of American saints appear to have concluded that it\u2019s not all that crucial to hang around with other saints.\u00a0More than 40% of self-described Christians report that they seldom, rarely, or never attend church \u2013 a trend that was in play even before the pandemic.\u00a0

So why can\u2019t I simply walk away from the messed-up people and hypocrites who inevitably surround me wherever I go to church?\u00a0

The simple answer is that the Bible tells me that I am not myself by myself<\/em>.\u00a0 It pleases God to accomplish my spiritual transformation by means of other broken people \u2013 through their partnerships, their prayers, and even (in ways we often cannot foresee) their most grievous failures.\u00a0

Along the way, most of us will have to address a condition that silently erodes our souls. It\u2019s called At Leastism.

There\u2019s something twisted in fallen human beings \u2013 and that would be all of us \u2013 that takes great comfort in comparisons.

An alcoholic, for instance \u2013 while lamenting the obvious downsides of dependance on drink \u2013 looks at a drug addict and thinks, \u201cAt least I\u2019m not strung out on crack.\u201d A cocaine addict looks right back and thinks, \u201cAt least I\u2019m not a fall-down drunk.\u201d Sex addicts think, \u201cAt least I\u2019m not fat.\u201d People who cheat on their taxes think, \u201cAt least I don\u2019t cheat on my spouse.\u201d

A church attender shrugs off his imperfections by thinking, \u201cAt least I\u2019m not like my neighbor who has no time for God.\u201d The neighbor is thinking, \u201cAt least I\u2019m not close-minded and judgmental, like Mr. Religious over there.\u201d Methodists, Baptists, and Lutherans think, \u201cAt least I\u2019m not Presbyterian.\u201d

OK, point well taken.

Recall the Pharisee in one of Jesus\u2019 teaching moments who says, \u201cAt least I\u2019m not like that tax collector over there.\u201d The tax collector, meanwhile, is crying out to God in desperation: \u201cHave mercy on me, O Lord, a sinner!\u201d

Jesus makes it clear that At Leastism has to die. In all of us.

We are all sinners in desperate need of mercy and forgiveness. Nevertheless, if we are in Christ, we are also saints \u2013 not because of personal spiritual performance but because God, according to the sheer wonder of his grace, has given us the gift of that astonishing identity.

Why do we need each other? As many have observed, people generally sin alone. But we heal together.

In the movie Gladiator<\/em>, the central character Maximus stands in the Colosseum arena surrounded by a small group of frightened men with drawn swords. He says to them, \u201cWhatever comes through those gates, if we stay together, we can survive.\u201d\u00a0

That is God\u2019s word to all of his set-apart ones.\u00a0

We cannot stand by ourselves.\u00a0 \u00a0

But by the power and grace of the God who unites us, we can increasingly become the saints he has called us to be.\u00a0 \u00a0

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Each day this month we\u2019re looking closely at one of the 1:1 verses of the Bible \u2013 exploring what we can learn from chapter one \/ verse one of various Old and New Testament books. 2 Corinthians 1:1 \u201cPaul, an apostle\u00a0of Christ Jesus by the will of God,\u00a0and Timothy\u00a0our brother, to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1029,493,436],"class_list":["post-5050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-11-series","tag-church","tag-saints"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5052,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5050\/revisions\/5052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}