The Good The Bad and The Ugly

DEVOTION

2 CORINTHIANS

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

2 Cor 11:16-21

16 I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then receive me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting. 17 In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool. 18 Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast. 19 You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise! 20 In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face. 21 To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!

NIV

Once again we see there were people who came to Corinth with the expressed reason to take advantage of them, to exploit them and enslave them with some form of rules and regulations which these people added to the pure gospel message and most likely for their own personal gain. This has not stopped. There are still people who present themselves as preachers of the gospel with the expressed purpose of exploiting those who get sucked into following them. It is imperative we be on our guard against such people. Sure it seems easy enough to point fingers at many of the television so-called “Evangelist”, because they actually spend more effort in developing a following of givers then in spreading the truth of the message of Christ. But we also need to be cautious of those who claim to be revivalists or traveling evangelists. We need the Spirit to discern who is true and who is there to exploit us. We need to be aware of those who push themselves forward, who promote their own cause, rather the cause of Christ. There are many people who are true and have been called by God to bring the right message to the right people. There are many people who God is using in a mighty way and they are serving the kingdom of God. We should not reject all, but simply be on guard, listening to the Spirit, allowing him to show us those who would take us for fools and exploit us for their own gain. When these exploiters come, we dare not put up with them. Not only should we not listen to them, but we should reject them completely, refuse to support them in any way. When the Spirit reveals them, especially those who arrive at our church, do we dare simply get up and walk out. Would that be rude? Or would that be refusing to put up with them? In our world today there are many good, and some bad, who present themselves as preachers of the gospel. So there are the good, the bad and the ugly  Let us weed out the later, and build up the good.