This evening we are gathering to study 2 Corinthians 3. This chapter, along with 1 Corinthians 15 discussing the resurrection and Philippians 2 with the great hymn to Christ’s humility, is one of my favorite and life-changing chapters in all of Paul’s letters. In verse 6, Paul says that “the letter of the law (or the Scriptures) brings death, but the spirit of the law (or the Scriptures) brings life.” This understanding of the appropriate means of reading and applying the Scriptures has two components. First, it compels us to have a spiritual, not literal, understanding of the Bible. To read the Old Testament as simply an historical narrative misses its entire purpose which is to point to the coming of Christ and the Church. Second, a rejection of the letter frees us from the dictates of the biblical law. Or as Paul says in Romans 7:6 – “we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit.” In Christ, we are no longer bound by the literal terms of any of the commandments, but only bound by the underlying Spirit of those commandments which is to Love Your Neighbor as Yourself. Rom. 13:8.
Dinner is at 6. The menu is baked potato bar. Hope to see you here.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17