Edward Donnelly

I’ve been a pastor for 35 years, this week. Over the years I’ve had a number of men seated in our front room, often with their wives. Many of them have wept, their wives have invariably wept. Their faces have been white, their hands have been shaking, their confidence has been shot to pieces, they’re not sleeping properly, and they’re on the verge of quitting. These are not wimps or weaklings, these are strong men who have been ground down by problems, and, I think in every single case I can remember, within their own churches; not from the world, not from the outside, but from their own people. I’m seeing more of such men, not less.

There is no book in the Scriptures that is more relevant than 2 Corinthians, because in 2 Corinthians the Apostle Paul is under a sustained, vicious, personal attack, and it comes with satanic ingenuity at a period in Ephesus when he is already burdened and under huge pressure, almost despairing of life itself. It is the most intense, revealing, and emotional of all Paul’s writings. If 1 Corinthians is mainly about the church, 2 Corinthians is largely about the Apostle. Let me take a moment to outline to remind you of the background.

This letter was written in Macedonia, possibly in Philippi, after a long ministry in Ephesus. 1 Corinthians has not solved all the problems in the church, and when Timothy visits Corinth, he finds that the situation is beyond his control. Timothy, frankly, can’t handle it. The church has been infiltrated by false apostles—as Paul calls them—from Judea, ridiculing Paul. So, Paul decides to pay a visit to the church. He calls it “a painful visit.” (2 Corinthians 2:1). The visit, in human terms, is a complete flop and failure. He is insulted, mocked, and rejected. His advice is spurned, and he leaves the city of Corinth with laughter ringing in his ears. The church which he funded.

He then sends a severe letter by Titus to the church, urging them to discipline the leading troublemaker and to organize the Jerusalem collection. In the meantime, he is working in Ephesus. He is under enormous pressure. He is very anxious for news of Corinth, so anxious that he leaves Ephesus and travels to Troas, where presumably Titus was supposed to met him. Titus doesn’t turn up. Paul travels on, neglecting opportunities for gospel ministry, to Macedonia, which was obviously their fallback position if they didn’t meet in Troas. Titus is still not there. He is very, deeply concerned for this church; but then Titus arrives and he brings good news: the church has been repentant and obedient. 2 Corinthians is then written by Paul in joyful response to this very good news.

It’s not all good news. The critics are still active. Newcomers have come into the church. Not the different parties or factions of 1 Corinthians, but Palestinian Jews, and they’ve been influenced by Greek thoughts and attitudes, especially those of the Sophists, the professional paid orators and teachers; the glamour boys of the academic world in those days; the pop stars of intellectual life. One commentator says, “This is a new kind of Judaising. Not Galatians-type Judaising, not concerned so much with circumcision and law, but with prestige and power and glitter and glamour.” Paul refers to them twice (2 Corinthians 11:5 and 12:11) as these super-apostles. The Corinthians are immature, they’re heavily influenced by their culture, and they’re vulnerable to the appeal of these very attractive, persuasive, new teachers.

The teachers over-realized the eschatology of these Corinthians, they wanted to be in the already. They were uncomfortable about being in the not-yet all the time, and this appealed to them. The pattern is the same as Galatians: if they want to take over the church, they need to destroy Paul, and so, they attack him personally. On the Jewish side, they appeal to their Jerusalem connections; on the Greek side, they use a cultural bias. These people are polished, eloquent, confident, dynamic. Real charismatic leaders. They claim superior spirituality. They have had visions, they have had ecstatic experiences, they have gone deeply into the spiritual life. They’re also authoritarian, heavy-handed, and manipulative, and the people love it! They’ve got a spiritual masochism that leads them to subject themselves to these incomers. These are the source of the attacks.

Let me, simply, read to you one paragraph from D.A. Carson’s 1984 book From Triumphalism to Maturity. It’s an exposition of chapters 10 to 13 of 2 Corinthians. I urge you, if you haven’t got it, get it, read, mark, learn, inwardly digest. It’s more relevant now than when it was written years ago. Carson says, “We increasingly inhabit a time and place in Western history when humility is perceived to be weakness; when leadership, even in the church, frequently has more to do with politics, pizzaz, and showmanship, or with structure and hierarchy than with spiritual maturity and conformity to Christ; when loose talk of spiritual experience wins an instant following, even when that talk is mingled with scarcely concealed haughtiness that has learned neither humility nor tears. [Carson goes on]. Modern “Christian success” formulas, too frequently developed by hucksters of glamour, pandering to personal comfort and aggrandizement, and formulated to mesh smoothly with our pagan society’s ideas.”

Isn’t that very, very good? The Prayer of Jabez hadn’t even been written! “Formulated to mesh smoothly with our pagan society’s ideas.” So, the book is staggeringly relevant, but that’s not where I want to go, because I think there’s an even wider application. I want to look at a pastor under attack. That’s going to be our subject: a pastor under attack. How do you deal with being attacked? There are many kinds of attacks that we may experience, as pastors. So, we’re all here.

Let’s look first at the attacks on Paul…

The above text is an excerpt from a sermon. The complete transcription is available here: https://heraldofgrace.org/biblicalexpositions/help-for-todays-pastors/