Say your pastor is moving on to a new church. Should the pastoral search committee of that church review his educational achievements?  His years of experience?  Should they hear him preach?  Certainly.  But how about a look at the congregations he’s pastored?  In other words, should they examine the results of his ministry?

This is what Paul tells the Corinthians . . .

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?  Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody                    (2 Corinthians 3:1,2).

Paul just wrote some pretty heady stuff about himself and his team.  Like, “through us [God] spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him” and “we are the aroma of Christ”.

But Paul denies he’s commending himself.  He doesn’t need letters of recommendation. The Paul-belittling, heresy-preaching itinerant “apostles”, who’ve appeared in Corinth, have them.  And the Corinthians are impressed.  Why doesn’t Paul need them?  Because the Corinthian believers themselves are his letter.

This is the church that gets enmeshed in sin, reverts to pagan ways, turns against Paul.  Yet Paul claims this church commends him as Christ’s apostle. Remarkable.  How can they be Paul’s recommendation letter?

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3).

The adversarial “apostles” carry letters probably from Jerusalem.  The Corinthians are a letter from Christ.  The “apostles” carry letters written with ink.  The Corinthians are a letter written with the Spirit of the living God. 

The tablets contrast brings to mind the New Covenant.  Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord had promised a coming time “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Jacob . . . I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:31,33b).  The Old Covenant, given through Moses, was written on tablets of stone; the new, established through Christ, is written on “tablets of human hearts.”  The Holy Spirit gathers up Old Covenant moral commands and inscribes them on believers’ minds and hearts.

Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant– not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life  (2 Corinthians 3:4-6).

Paul’s assurance isn’t self-centered arrogance:  in humility he confesses it comes “through Christ” and only this gift makes him confident “before God.”  Therefore, he can freely admit he has no competence for ministry in himself; God alone is his competence-source.

Specifically, God makes Paul competent as a minister of a new covenant–not a covenant of “the letter”, but a covenant of “the Spirit”.  For “the letter kills . . . ” This suggests that some of Paul’s adversaries may be buying into Old Covenant law-keeping.  Whether true or not, is Paul criticizing the Old Covenant as a killer?  No, as an external covenant which demanded obedience but provided no internal power to obey.

Take, for example, “Do not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14).  It prohibits the act, but offers no power to combat lusts and corrupt thinking.

But the covenant which Paul ministers is “of the Spirit [who] . . . gives life.”  According to the New Covenant he “gives life” means he empowers the believer to practice what God’s law commands.

It’s this covenant of which God has made Paul a competent minister.  And it’s the life-giving Spirit of this covenant that has made the Corinthian church (with all its big-time “warts”) his recommendation  letter.

* * *

One take-away is for pastoral search committees:  investigate not just a prospective pastor’s education for ministry and experience in ministry.  Investigate the results of his ministry.  Since this pertains to few of us and requires much more writing, I’ll not elaborate, but move on to a take-away that hopefully does.

You and I–we’re living miracles.  I’m not talking about an external miracle, like physical healing.  I’m talking about an internal miraculous act of God the Holy Spirit.   The Spirit of the living God has written on our hearts.  That makes us a communication from Christ.

What are we communicating?  Do we display the holiness, righteousness and goodness of God’s law (Rom 7:12)?  Even through our stumbling and bumbling and slowness to live out what the Spirit has written in, is the grace of God in Christ visible?

O God, in my prayers for a physical miracle, I’ve treated  my heart miracle as a little thing.  Please forgive me. Continue to impress on me the desires of the Spirit.  Make me sensitive to his longings.  May I be a letter that glorifies you.  And, please, fulfill to the uttermost the purpose of your “heart writing” in me.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.