WEDNESDAY, March 2

2 Corinthians 11:21b-33. I am speaking as a fool.…I am talking like a madman.

Paul got that right. He didn’t actually say anything untrue in this passage—his credentials were indeed impeccable and he truly had experienced the adversities he lists here—but his tone in this passage is foolish, even mad. What redeems it is that Paul knew he was talking foolishness. He did it in the hope that those reading this passage would see themselves in it, for they were speaking foolishness as well, but did not know it.

What sort of foolishness was this? It was boasting—“My faith is purer than yours, my knowledge more refined, my opinions more enlightened, my behavior more moral. I’m a lot closer to God than you are, and if you would be close to God, you should be like me.” We’re usually not as brazen as that, and neither were the Christians at Corinth to whom Paul wrote.

Boasting can be very subtle. But whether brazen or subtle, it happens today just as it did in Paul’s day. There’s a foolishness, a madness, that insists on being right, on being in charge, on getting its way. It divides Christians one from another, making the church a mockery and besmirching its reputation. Forgive us, Lord, and save us from our madness.                                                                                                                         

PRAY for the Diocese of Mbaise (Province of Owerri, Nigeria)

Ps 119:1-24 * 12, 13, 14; Deuteronomy 4:25-31; Matthew 6:24-34

View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com or Oremus Bible browser.

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