Walking Away From God

2 Cor 11:1 - 6 (RSV)

¹I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! ²I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband. ³But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. ⁴For if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. ⁵I think that I am not in the least inferior to these superlative apostles. ⁶Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not in knowledge; in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.

When I was a child our block was my play ground. We had an alley that formed an I-shape. There were to allies connecting Iowa Street to Virginia, which ran East and West and a single ally connecting the other two, which ran North and South. On our block there were more than ten children who were my approximate age. Besides the these pathways there were several backyards where play occurred. This was just before the advent of that grand distraction someone called television.

I would say to my mother, “I’m going outside to play.” She then would give me my boundaries. “We’re about to have supper, so stay in the backyard.” Sometimes, if I protested, she would extend my boundaries, “Stay where I can see you.” That meant I could go to one of the neighbor’s adjacent to our yard or the first intersection of the ally system.

In the course of play, new opportunities would immerge that drew me beyond the boundaries set by my mother. I doubt that I thought twice when I violated her clear instructions. She would call, but I would be too far away to hear. She would walk down the alley and call again. Then I would hear and I would come home to face her moderate wrath. “I thought I told you to stay where I could hear you.” I would lie or pretend to misunderstand her instructions. “I thought I could hear you from there.” We both knew I was lying.

This is how it is with the Gospel. Paul preached it clearly to the Corinthians. They failed to trust its simple truth and decided to change it into a form that was more to their liking. Why would they do this? It might be that they never really believed it. The gospel message Paul delivered was one of sovereign grace. The sinner is helpless and God provides everything necessary for our salvation. The Corinthians wanted to add what today would be called “New Age” teachings. They wanted to work their way up a ladder of esoteric knowledge. They wanted to have congregations where the rich were given greater honor than the poor and the wise were closer to God than those who kept a less sophisticated faith.

A wise man wrote, “Don’t multiply complexity beyond necessity.” The Gospel is simple – “You are a lost and helpless sinner; God has saved you through the finished work of Jesus Christ.” When we add demands to the Gospel, it is because we have deceived ourselves. It is then, we walk beyond the view and voice of God.