May 12th, 2012
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Much More Wonderful!

Please see the links to our EXTRA Bible Study notes at the bottom of the page.

Opening Prayer

Loving Lord, I will never fully understand Your extravagant love, but I embrace it. Speak now, for Your servant listens.

Read 2 Corinthians 3:7-18

[7] Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, [8] will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? [9] If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! [10] For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. [11] And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts! [12] Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. [13] We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. [14] But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. [15] Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. [16] But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. [17] Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. [18] And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

Meditate

“Renewal often begins by testing the wind: discerning where God is already at work and by becoming willing co-laborers with him (2 Cor. 6:1)” (Howard Snyder).

Think Further

Sometimes we struggle with the Old Testament, but without it we would not understand much of the New. Here Paul encourages us to move from the Old to the New, rejoicing at the dazzling new insights the lasting presence of the Spirit brings (8). Moses’ fading face represented the temporary nature of his meeting with God. Now God is forever with us. Why would anyone want to go back to the old limitations?

Apparently, elements of the Corinthian church did want to return, giving more credit to the former way and suspicious of what they saw as Paul’s unauthorized innovation, especially when it touched the “specialness” of being a Jew. In response, Paul is careful to emphasize that Christ fulfills the old; he does not deny or ignore it—surely a model for our use of the Old Testament. A new era has come, but building on the old, much as AD years build on the BC years in history. Christ is the fulcrum of this progression; his coming issues in this new era.

If Christ brings a changed paradigm of faith, he is also the agent of change in our lives through his Spirit. Verses 17 and 18 are a glorious statement of spiritual formation through encounter with the Holy Presence. Our faces glow like Moses’ without the fading; we are transfigured like our Lord in a foretaste of the day we will meet him face to face, “our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him” (18, The Message). A veil, representing blindness to God’s truth as well as shame in his presence, has been removed. What magnificent freedom! What a challenge to let the Spirit get on with the work of making us more like Christ!

Apply

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). How does this challenge and instruct you?

Closing prayer

Father, I thank You that I’m not what I was, but I’m not what I should be, either. Continue to guide my spiritual formation.

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