Studies for families in Belonging, Becoming, and going Beyond Volume 19 Number 25 June 18, 2017 The ScrollsZOOM "A CLEAR VICTORY" 2 CORINTHIANS 2:12-3:6 This Week’s Core Competency a strong emotion or remind us of something in our Giving Away My Life – I give away my life to past long before we can identify the actual source fulfill God's purposes. Romans 12:1, Therefore, I of that scent. We can perceive what seems invisible urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer through our noses. Some smells like vanilla or your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to citrus are often associated with pleasure. Other God–this is your spiritual act of worship. smells like smoke or decay act as warning signals Our approach to the world begins with our five of danger. Often we struggle to determine exactly senses. We see, hear, touch, taste and smell our what a certain smell is. way through life, rarely contemplating how these The ancient world was much less antiseptic and senses gather information for our brains to sterile than our own. With no refrigeration and few process. Light informs sight. Sound waves preservatives, ancient cities would be rife with produce hearing. Texture and temperature marketplace odors. Streets crowded with sweaty stimulate touch. Taste helps us perceive a small shoppers, vegetables in various stages of decay, portion of the world of chemicals. Smells attract livestock freshly slaughtered, coal embers cooking us or repel us. Research and development in the spicy stews - ancient cities were a complicated fields of light, sound, textile and cuisine are menagerie of pungency. innumerable. Perhaps the least studied and most Incense, smoke and perfumes (concentrated and mysterious of all our senses is our sense of smell. distilled scents) were often used by ancients to Osmology, the study of odors, aromas and scent, mask unpleasant smells and remind people of lofty has few experts or innovators, like in other fields and transcendent realities. Deities were often of study. petitioned with the assistance of strong aromas for Scientists today are just now beginning to acceptance and mercy. These same smells understand how our brains actually process the reminded supplicants that there was another realm information coming through our nostrils. Unlike outside their own that they perceived could be the perception of light and sound, smell signals reached somehow with smoke and incense. The move first into our brain's emotional and memory ancient world was perhaps more in touch with sections before moving on to the rational and their olfactory senses than we are. categorization regions of the brain where light and In our world of media and technology, smells are sound are first processed. A scent can often stir up getting harder to come by. We understand and ____________________________________ appreciate the importance of scents, even if we don't encounter them as often as we used to. Smell is a potent wizard that Sometimes odors can surprise us. Unseen and transports you across thousands of unheard, odors and aromas can sneak up on us and pack a punch! They can remind us of pleasant miles and all the years you have things in our past or they can frighten us with lived. – Hellen Keller warnings of present or future danger. In an ____________________________________ cont. pg. 2 Copyright © Pantego Bible Church. Material researched and written by Eric Wright, guest author, and Wendy Hollabaugh, Children’s Minister. Special thanks to Alison Dellenbaugh for her assistance in the production of this study. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. analogous way, faith, like an aroma, unseen but very present, can have a surprising effect on people who encounter it. Your faith can impact others for Christ. We may not perceive what effect we may have on others, but our faith, hope and love can remind people of what is missing in their own lives. What aroma is your faith producing? Would God be pleased? Would your friends be attracted or repelled by the aroma of your faith? day ENCOUNTER – read God’s word to put yourself in 1 touch with him. 2 Corinthians 2:12-3:6 3:1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to 12Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of you or from you? 2You yourselves are our letter, written Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 3You show 13I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our brother Titus there. So I said good-by to them and went on ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the to Macedonia. living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human 14But thanks be to God, who always leads us in hearts. triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads 4Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. 15For God. 5Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from being saved and those who are perishing. 16To the one we God. 6He has made us competent as ministers of a new are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. covenant - not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter And who is equal to such a task? 17Unlike so many, we do kills, but the Spirit gives life. not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God. EXAMINE – what the passage says before you decide what it means. *Circle the pronouns in v.12-13. * Put brackets around the words describing *Box the pronouns in v. 14-17. "fragrance," "aroma," and "smell" in vv. 14-16. *Underline the actions of the Lord in vv. 12 and 14. * Underline the "who" phrases in v. 15. *Double underline the words "triumphal procession" * Box the phrase "who is equal to such a task" in v. in v.14. 16. *Double underline the words "fragrance" and "aroma" * Circle the word "letter(s)" in vv. 3:1-6. in vv. 14-16. * Double underline the word "hearts" in vv. 3:1-6. 2 EXPLORE – the answer to these questions to better day 2 understand what the passage means. Consult the explanation of the message and the notes to follow if you need help. 1. How could Paul not have "peace of mind" in a place where the "Lord had opened a door" for him (2 Cor. 2:12-13)? 2. Describe the irony of the imagery of God always leading "us in triumphal procession in Christ." 3. Who is the "fragrance" (2:15) and "aroma of Christ" (2:15-16) primarily for, God or people? Explain. 4. What is the "smell of death?" What is the "fragrance of life?" How can we be both? 5. What is “peddling” (2. Cor 2:17)? Why is Paul distancing himself from this practice? 6. According to 2 Corinthians 3:2, how did Paul view the Corinthian believers? 7. To what is Paul alluding with the phrases "tablets of stone" and "tablets of human hearts"? 8. Paul is competent and confident in ministry through God, not of "the letter" but of "the Spirit." Describe what Paul means here. 9. How does the imagery of "triumphal procession" (2 Cor 2:14-16) relate to the image of a "letter" (2 Cor 3:2-3)? 3 day EXAMINE – an explanation of its message to clarify 3 your understanding of the passage. Serving God involves developing the skill of preceded by the captives and spoils taken in war, and contingency planning. Not everything we outline works followed by his troops, and proceeded in state along the out like we want. But God is surprised by nothing and sacred way to the Capitol, where he offered sacrifices in ready for everything. Anyone who has ever gone on a the temple of Jupiter. He was accompanied in his mission trip or volunteered for a service detail knows chariot by his young children, and sometimes by that flexibility is the key to sanity and true ministry. confidential friends, while behind him stood a slave, Service to God also requires dependence upon God for holding over his head a jewelled crown. The body of the His working and His results. Paul's philosophy of infantry brought up the rear, their spears adorned with ministry is clearly illustrated in 2 Cor. 2:12-3:6. Paul’s laurel. They shouted ‘triumph!’ and sang hymns in approach to ministry can be a model for us as we praise of the gods or of their leader. Paul describes minister, parent, lead and serve. himself and the other subjects of Christ's grace under Paul had mastered the skill of working on God's plan the figure of this triumphal pomp, in which they are led and shelving his own. Repeatedly in 2 Corinthians 2:12- as trophies of the Redeemer's conquest" (Marvin R. 3:6, Paul rehearsed how God was actively moving and Vincent , Vincent's Word Studies, v. 14, Biblehub.com). working, while he was faithfully following. God even Paul was claiming that Christ was triumphant and that used the internal discomfort of Paul to move him along ironically, he had made Paul his conquered, captive, his to another region for more ministry and fellowship (2.