We Don’t Lose Heart
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:5 (RCL 4:13-5:1)
How to Use
Preparing to teach
- Read the Bible Lesson by Tony Cartledge in this month’s issue of the Nurturing Faith Journal
- Watch Tony’s Video for this session
- Select either the Adult or Youth teaching guide and follow the directions
Click to read the Bible Lesson by Tony Cartledge
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 4:16 –
“So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.”
Life can be hard, and that’s a fact. Today’s text is a reminder that life can be hard. Stress comes in many forms, and from many sources. There may be times when the pressures of work and marriage and the demands of children (or parents) may seem insurmountable. Financial pressures or an inability to sleep or the added stress of a family member with an addiction can push us to the very edge and leave us feeling ready to give up. [DD]
Think for a moment about what causes the most stress in your life, and reflect briefly on times you may have been tempted to quit. What kept you going?
The struggles that imperiled Paul had more to do with his radical service to Christ than with the things that stress us today. More than once, he found his life in danger: that can certainly produce high anxiety. Yet, Paul refused to give up or give in.
A spirit of faith (4:13-15)
If our text appears to start in the middle of something, that’s because it does: Paul has been defending himself and his qualifications for leadership to the skeptical Corinthians. In 4:1-12, he insisted that he preached the true gospel faithfully, serving Christ and others rather than himself. He claimed to have the precious light of Christ living within the “earthen vessel” of his own body, and declared that Christ’s presence gave him the strength to overcome crushing blows and persevere. Even in his suffering and willingness to die, Paul wanted others to see the light of Christ living in him.
So, Paul claims to have the same sort of faith displayed in scripture, where it was written: “I believed, and so I spoke.” His partial quotation of Psalm 116:10 (115:1 in the Greek Septuagint) ignores the context, but illustrates the point he wants to make about living faithfully through adversity and testifying about it later. The psalmist had endured a trying period when he feared death, but survived. Afterward, he praised God with a psalm. Paul’s life had also been in danger. The afflictions of prison punctuated his ministry, but his faith empowered him to speak with authority about remaining true amid struggles (4:13).
Paul found his strength in a firm belief that “that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence” (4:14). Paul often referred to this grounding belief that Jesus’ resurrection was a promise that God would raise believers, too. [DD] Paul introduced the statement with “We know that,” which may suggest that his readers would have recognized it as part of an early confession.
What keeps you going in hard times? In one way or another, hope must be involved. It was Paul’s hope in the resurrection that kept him on track, and he wanted his readers to have the same assurance. For this reason, Paul insisted that Jesus would not only raise him, but “will bring us with you into his presence.” His readers would share the same experience.
The hope of resurrection was more than a comfort to Paul: it was at the heart of his mission. His goal was to see God’s grace spread to more and more people, which would not only bring them life but bring even greater glory to God (4:15).
A heart of hope (4:16-18)
Paul’s hope of resurrection and his desire to spread the gospel kept him going through trials: “So we do not lose heart” (v. 16a). The word translated as “lose heart” could also mean “become discouraged” “lose one’s motivation,” or “give up” – but Paul was not about to do any of those things.
“[T]hough our outer nature is wasting away,” he said, “our inner nature is being renewed day by day” (4:16b). [DD] What does Paul mean by this reference to an “outer man” (a literal translation) and an inner one?
A surface reading may lead us to think that Paul is simply reflecting a Greek dualism – too often assumed in our day – that thinks of humans as an immortal soul trapped in a human body. Paul would have known the concept and probably drew on it in his language, but with a twist.
Consistent with his Hebrew upbringing, Paul understood body and soul in a holistic way, not as two separate entities. Even so, he recognized that we have within us an “inner self” that we regard as the essence of our being, something we hope will endure when our physical bodies no longer operate. Paul clearly believed that some aspect of us – including some sort of bodily identity – would be preserved in the resurrection.
As we think of our inner self growing and maturing as we navigate the challenges of life, Paul could think of his inner spiritual core growing stronger and more refined as he trusted God and persevered through trials. This, in turn, increased his confidence in the future.
When we’re living through stressful situations, they may seem all-encompassing, but Paul insisted that earthly trials are but lightweight afflictions that prepare us for the heaviness of eternal glory in the presence of Christ (4:17). We may not ordinarily associate “heaviness” with “glory,” but Hebrew uses the same word for both concepts. The glory of God is a weighty matter, but one in which we can share.
Our natural tendency is to be weighed down by the various burdens we face, and some of us, like Paul, bear heavy loads. What matters most, Paul said, is not to focus on the temporary troubles we can see, but to set our sights on the lasting life with Christ that we cannot yet see or even imagine (4:18).
An eternal home (5:1-5)
Having introduced the thought of an “inner” and “outer” self, Paul expands the thought through a series of comparisons that an English teacher would critique as mixed metaphors – but he gets his point across. Earlier, Paul had spoken of having spiritual treasure in “clay jars” (4:7), and of living in human bodies made of mortal flesh (4:10, 11).
Now he likens our “outer self” to a temporary tent that will one day be destroyed, but we need for fear, for “we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (5:1). Paul was not attempting to describe heaven in architectural terms, but using a metaphor to emphasize the permanence of our promised home with God.
The metaphor gets mixed in the next verse, as Paul switches between images of buildings and clothing. None of us would normally think of “taking off” a tent or “putting on a house,” but we can still understand Paul’s intent.
“In this tent we groan,” he wrote, “longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling” (5:2). Paul seems to be drawing on the feeling of insecurity that comes from being physically unclothed, and applying it to what happens after death. He doesn’t look forward to being naked when he has to “take off” his earthly tent (5:3). [DD]
Commentators often suggest that Paul’s concern is that he doesn’t want to die before Christ’s return at the parousia, or “second coming.” Through the years, this text has been sited in in theological discussions about whether the dead enter some sort of “intermediate state” while awaiting the parousia, or whether believers find themselves immediately in the presence of Christ.
Ernest Best notes that time means different things to humans and to God. “From our temporal angle, if death precedes the parousia we are forced to ask what happens in the period between the two since we associate resurrection with the parousia. The parousia and the general resurrection, however, are both eternal as well as temporal events. From the eternal perspective the time differential does not count, and the logic of Christian thought and experience indicates that we are immediately and fully with Christ. The fear of any state of nakedness should then disappear” (Second Corinthians, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1987], 47-48).
While it’s easy to get sidetracked by such questions, Paul is mainly driving at the insecurity we all feel when thinking about death and what follows. We like “being clothed” with the physical life we have now, and we dread the thought of being naked without it. We want assurance that the heart of our being won’t be left cold in the ground, but that we will be “further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (5:4). [DD]
We need not be anxious, Paul said, because God has it under control: “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (5:5). In other words, the Spirit who lives in us now is the promise that when our body fails, we will be incorporated into the eternal life Christ has made possible. [DD]
Have you ever awakened from a disconcerting dream in which you found yourself naked in public? It’s a common occurrence, and likely an indicator of some deep-seated insecurity manifesting itself in our unconscious. Paul tapped into that fear with his imagery of being found “naked” after death: he wanted the believers at Corinth – and others who might read his letter – to have confidence that God will clothe us with life that continues.
We don’t have to worry about dying naked.
Adult Teaching Resources
Download the PDF of teaching resources for this lesson.
This PDF contains the Teaching Guide, Digging Deeper, and Hardest Question pages.
Read Scripture online: 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:5
Youth Teaching Resources
Parent Prep
How do you deal with your stress? “But, this section is about my student.” You ask. Well, how you deal with your stress is how your students will deal with their stress. They begin to model how to deal with different aspects of life by watching you. They might not end up dealing with stress the same way you do, but they will start by modeling life after you. So, how much do you want your students to have to unlearn? How can you model dealing with stress in a healthy way?
Additional Links/Resources
Read Scripture online: 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:5
Download the PDF for youth teaching resources using the button below. This PDF contains the Teaching Guide for this lesson:
Video
Encourage youth to check out this video ahead of the lesson.
“Family Stress” from The Incredibles
www.youtube.com
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