Search
Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 1:4-6, 8-9; 4:8-12, 16-17; 6:3-5, 8-10; 11:23-28; 12:7-10
In this chapter we come to the last line of 2 Corinthians, that is, the line of the ministry produced through suffering. In the first book there are the gifts, but in the second book there is the ministry.
Both 1 and 2 Corinthians were written to the same church, yet there is a great difference between them. First Corinthians opens in its first chapter by saying that Christ is both theirs and ours (v. 2) and that God has called us into the fellowship of this Christ (v. 9). He is the power of God and the wisdom of God (v. 24). Christ is our righteousness for the past, our sanctification for the present, and our redemption for the future (v. 30). These points concerning Christ are presented mostly in a doctrinal way. But 2 Corinthians opens in a different way. In its first chapter Paul spoke of how he suffered in tribulation and had been comforted by God (vv. 3-6). This qualified him to comfort others. Because he had experienced the comfort of Christ through much affliction, he had this comfort with which he could comfort others.
In verses 8 and 9 Paul said, “We do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of our affliction which befell us in Asia, that we were excessively burdened, beyond our power, so that we despaired even of living. Indeed we ourselves had the response of death in ourselves, that we should not base our confidence on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” Paul and his co-workers were excessively burdened beyond their power. They had the response, the sentence, of death in themselves. To their consideration, they had to die. This led them to base their confidence not on themselves but on God, who raises the dead. Second Corinthians shows us how the ministry is produced. It is not produced by teaching or education. It is produced through all kinds of suffering.
In chapter 4 Paul said that he and his co-workers were pressed on every side (vv. 8-9). They were unable to find a way out and cast down. Paul said that they were always being put to death and that in their body they bore the putting to death of Jesus (vv. 10-11). Through such sufferings the ministry is produced. A gift is produced quickly, but a ministry takes time to be produced. To gain a gift is easy. Balaam’s donkey suddenly spoke a human language. That was a real gift obtained easily. But if we are going to have a ministry, it is not so easy. A ministry is produced in a person by his experience of the riches of Christ through sufferings.
An apple tree does not come into being overnight. The apples produced by the apple tree come from the growth in life, and the growth in life is experienced through sufferings. I would encourage all of us to pray-read Hymns, #635. This hymn tells us how the grapevine produces grapes through sufferings. That producing of the grapevine is its ministry. It is not a gift but a ministry. A gift is some ability, some talent, you can get overnight, but a ministry is a lifelong matter.
I do not want to disappoint or discourage the young people, but I must say that with the young ones it is hard to have a ministry. We cannot expect a young sprout to bring forth fruit. To bring forth fruit a person needs maturity, and the maturity comes into being through sufferings. We need the young ones in the church life, but we need the mature ones even more. We need those who have some ministry which comes into being through all kinds of sufferings. This is not a teaching gift, not a speaking gift, but a life-producing ministry.
Second Corinthians 4 speaks of how the outer man has to be consumed, broken, and reduced all the time (v. 16). The outer man cannot be fully reduced in a short time. Soon after I was saved by the Lord in 1925, I thought that if I could pray much for one or two years, I would become very spiritual. Now, many years later, my feeling is that there is still too much of the oldness of the outer man with me. We all need to enter into the full sonship. We have the foretaste for our enjoyment today, and we are waiting for the full sonship, which is the redemption of our body (Rom. 8:23). To have our old man decreased, reduced, and consumed is a slow process.
The young people have many dreams of being somebody in the spiritual realm. One young person expected to be a great evangelist, but instead he became a big backslider. I love the young people, but we need to realize that they are not so trustworthy because they are in their dreams. They need the experiences of Christ through sufferings.
In 2 Corinthians the apostle Paul did not tell us how much he could do or what kind of gift he had. When he commended himself as a minister of Christ, he did not say that he had the biggest gift or that he was a great speaker, preacher, or Bible expositor. Instead, in chapter 11 he commended himself as a minister of Christ by speaking of his sufferings in following the Lord (vv. 16-33). He even said that five times under the hands of the Jews he received forty stripes less one (v. 24). I do not believe that we would write such a letter to the saints. We would want to speak only about the wonderful aspects of Christ, not about the beatings we suffered. Paul even mentioned the sufferings and perils he experienced in his journeys. He spoke of being in dangers among false brothers (v. 26).
We may wonder why the Lord would allow such a great servant of His to suffer so much. This is because the ministry is produced through sufferings. I hope that the Lord comes back soon, but it may be that He will delay His coming just because of us. We may say that we love the Lord and that the Lord will bless us. Surely He will bless us, but what do we mean when we say this? Our dictionary is different from the Lord’s dictionary. The Lord does desire to bless us, but His blessing us is according to the meaning in His heavenly dictionary. Without the sufferings, we cannot experience the Lord as our blessing in a rich way. The chorus of Hymns, #626 says, “Each blow I suffer / Is true gain to me. / In the place of what Thou takest / Thou dost give Thyself to me.” Every blow takes away something of ourselves and brings in something of the Lord. We should like this kind of trade. He takes away a part of our old man and gives back to us something of Himself.
Many of you young brothers and sisters love the Lord, but be assured that the way you are taking is the way of suffering. Since you love the Lord so much, you are on the way of sufferings all the time. Praise the Lord for the enjoyment of Christ that comes through the sufferings. Without the sufferings, it is hard to have the rich enjoyment of Christ. You can have only a superficial enjoyment. The deep enjoyment of Christ comes through suffering. I cannot tell you what kind of sufferings you will have, but the Lord knows. Step by step and year after year, He knows what you need. He knows what kind of suffering is needed to form a ministry in you.
In 2 Corinthians 6:8 Paul said that he commended himself as a minister of God not only through a good report but also through an evil report. The good report comes from the believers and those who receive the truth preached and taught by the apostles. The evil report comes from the opposers and persecutors. With the apostle Paul there were the evil reports, and if we are following the Lord in an absolute way, our experience will be the same. The evil reports are a real suffering. Paul said that his commendation was “through glory and dishonor, through evil report and good report; as deceivers and yet true” (v. 8). Glory is from God and those who love Him; dishonor is from the devil and those who follow him. Paul was a deceiver in the eyes of the Judaizers and the people of other religions and philosophies, but true in the eyes of those who loved the truth of God.
In verse 9 Paul said, “As unknown and yet well known; as dying and yet behold we live; as being disciplined and yet not being put to death.” The apostles were unknown in the sense of not displaying themselves, but well known in the sense of witnessing to the truth of God. It is the same with us today. On the one hand, the apostles were dying in suffering persecutions, but on the other hand, they were living in the Lord’s resurrection. Furthermore, they were being disciplined in the opposers’ superficial realization. No doubt, the opposers said that Paul must have done something wrong toward God, so God was chastening him. But actually Paul was living in the sovereign care of the Lord.
During the Second World War, I was imprisoned in China by the invading Japanese army, and during that time, I experienced the Lord in a special and rich way. Since you are in the hand of the Lord, you have to be prepared for sufferings. These sufferings produce the ministry. In the early part of my ministry, when I heard the evil reports and the false accusations, I was unhappy. But today when I hear these things, I am happy. Today I can thank the Lord for my imprisonment and for all the opposition and evil reports.
In verse 10 Paul said, “As made sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things.” This describes the way of the Lord’s servants, the way of those who love the Lord’s way. It is through this way of suffering that a ministry will be produced with you so that you can really minister Christ to others as life. Second Corinthians 11 shows us that a minister of Christ is always passing through sufferings. We should not expect that we will not have any sufferings. This is wrong. Never be surprised when some suffering comes to you. You have to be ready. Suffering brings you the blessing and produces a ministry for you.
Paul spoke of the sufferings in his surroundings, his circumstances, and his environment. Then when he came to chapter 12, he spoke of a thorn in his flesh, which refers to a very subjective, physical suffering in his body. In 2 Corinthians we do not see healings. Instead, we see a thorn. Paul entreated the Lord three times to remove this thorn. This was not an ordinary prayer. The Lord answered by saying that He would not take away this thorn. He would leave the thorn with Paul so that Paul could experience how sufficient the Lord’s grace is and how perfect His power is in our weakness (vv. 7-9).
The apostle Paul was used by the Lord to heal others, but he could not get his physical problem healed. The Lord denied his request and told him that He would leave the thorn with him so that he might experience the Lord’s sufficient grace and realize His perfect power. It was through these kinds of sufferings that Paul could have such a wonderful ministry. Paul did not consider himself to be a preacher or an expositor but a minister of Christ, dispensing Christ as life to others. The ministry is produced through sufferings and even kept through sufferings.
Throughout its history the church has always been divided by gifts. But it can never be divided by the ministry. If we focus our attention on the gifts, we will be divided within a short time. But if we forget about the gifts and pay our full attention to the ministry of life, we will always be kept in oneness. This is why we stress again and again that the gifts cannot build up a local church, but the ministry can.
If you are a Christian worker and you are always trying to argue with others, this proves that you merely have a gift. People with the ministry of life will never argue. Argument goes along with gifts and doctrinal teachings. If we pay our attention to gifts and teachings, we will argue. But if we focus our attention on the ministry of life, we will not have anything to argue about. Gifts and teachings with doctrinal debates and arguments tear down the local church. The local church can be built up only by the ministry of life. Some may not like noisy meetings, whereas others do. We should not debate about this. What we need is the life of Christ, not a certain kind of meeting. The ministry of life does not come out of the doctrinal study and teaching of the Bible. It comes out of sufferings. If you are really in the hand of the Lord, the Lord will form a ministry with you through all kinds of sufferings.
It is so strange and wonderful that there is nothing mentioned about the gifts in 2 Corinthians. Instead, there is a list of Paul’s sufferings in chapter 1, chapter 4, chapter 6, and chapter 11. Then in chapter 12 he told us of such a subjective suffering — a thorn in the flesh. He asked the Lord particularly to take this away, but the Lord refused. There would be no miracle, no divine healing. Instead, there would be suffering. Through the suffering, Paul experienced the Lord as the sufficient grace, which was the perfect power in his weakness. Eventually, Paul learned to say, “I will rather boast in my weaknesses” (12:9). He also said, “I am well pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions and distresses, on behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am powerful” (v. 10). This is the way to have the growth in life so that a ministry might be produced for the building up of the Body of Christ.
What is needed for the building up of a local church is the ministry of life, not the gifts. In order to illustrate this point, I would like to tell a story about Brother Watchman Nee and an elder sister by the name of Miss Barber, who helped him very much. As a young man, Brother Nee always admired good speakers. When he and Miss Barber went to hear a few speakers, Brother Nee told her how wonderful they were. But Miss Barber would say, “That is just doctrine with human eloquence. There is no life there.” In other words, there was no ministry with these ones.
Brother Nee told me this at the beginning of my service in the Lord because he was trying to help me to know the difference between a ministry and a gift, that is, between the utterance of something of life and human eloquence. A person may be born with the gift of eloquence, but his speaking may be merely sounding brass. It is nice for listening, but there is no content of Christ as life. Another may be awkward in his speech, but you realize that there is something weighty with what he speaks because he has the ministry of life. This can come only out of the sufferings. The building up of the church needs this ministry of life. We all need to continue in the growth in life so that we may have more ministries among us for the building up of the church.
