I love a parade!

The truth is hate speech for those who hate the truth.

One of my favorite verses in all of Scripture has always been 2 Corinthians 2:14, "But thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere."  But today in my daily devotions I was struck by the context of it.  Paul was describing a situation where things were not working out according to his plan.  He admitted in the preceding verse that he had no peace of mind about where he was, even though it had seemed that God had opened a door for him.  Yet even in his disappointment, Paul praised God for the way in which he had been used by God there.

Let me delve a little bit deeper into the history, so that you can see the context that I saw when I read this passage earlier today.  Paul had written his first letter to the Corinthian church, which dealt with some pretty serious issues.  His criticism of what went on in their congregation was pretty harsh:

• There was division in the church (1 Corinthians 3:3, "You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are  you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?"); 
• There was sexual immorality in the church (1 Corinthians 5:1, "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father's wife!"); 
• Church members were suing one another in courts of law (1 Corinthians 6:7, "The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means that you have been completely defeated already.");
• Church members were wrestling with decisions about marriage, when one was a believer and the other wasn't--some said they should separate, so that the believer had nothing to do with the unbeliever, and some said they should stay together (1 Corinthians 7:12-13, "If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she should not divorce him.");
• And the church members were struggling with the concept of grace (1 Corinthians 8:9, "Be careful, therefore, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.")

As a result of this harsh criticism in the first letter, Paul takes great pains in the second letter to make amends.    "For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you." (2 Corinthians 2:4)  And apparently the man who had been confronted by the church for sexual immorality had repented, and asked for forgiveness, because Paul encouraged them to accept him back.  "The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him.  Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow." (2 Corinthians 2:6-7)  Paul exhorted them to reaffirm their love for this brother, even though he had sinned.  In that way, they were to be like Christ--the man would not lose his salvation for this grievous sin, and since he had confessed and repented, they should not excommunicate him from the Church.

Paul had not made it back to Corinth, but he was anxious to get news from them, to see how they were doing.  He started looking for Titus.  Titus was a man Paul trusted: Paul had sent his first letter to the Corinthian Church with Titus (you will recall that there was no Postal Service in ancient Greece).  Later, Paul had sent Titus to Corinth so that the Church there could gather contributions for the Christians in Jerusalem.  "Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said good-bye to them and went on to Macedonia." (2 Corinthians 2:12-13).  Perhaps if Titus was not in Troas, Paul could find him elsewhere in Macedonia, maybe in the city of Philippi.

Okay.  Enough of the background.  Let's get to the meat of it.  Paul was a missionary.  His job was to go from place to place and preach the gospel.  Even though Paul may have had an ulterior motive, or a secondary reason for going the places he went, his primary objective there was to preach the good news of Jesus Christ.  Because Paul was engaged in preaching the gospel, and focused on doing that everywhere he went, God blessed his efforts.  "But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph."  Even though Paul didn't get to find Titus and hear news from the Church in Corinth, God gave him success in his primary mission, which was to preach the gospel.  Isn't that what he wanted the Church in Corinth to be busy doing as well?  Yes, they'd had problems.  But even in the midst of their various crises, God was making the Church grow.  More and more people were coming to know the Savior there.  His message was that God's grace is adequate for every situation.

Paul used an image common in Roman cities.  A victorious Roman general would lead his soldiers and their captives in a festive procession, while the people watched and applauded, and the air was filled with the sweet smell of fresh flower garlands the women would put around the soldiers' necks, and of the sweet spices that they would burn in the streets.  Just as the smell of victory was sweet, Paul said that the "fragrance of the knowledge of Him" was being spread everywhere by the Christians who shared their faith.  The smell was permeating the culture because of their faithfulness to God.  "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing." (2 Corinthians 2:15)

The captives in this parade would not have appreciated the smell in the same way as the victorious soldiers would.  That fragrance might have been a stench in the nostrils of those being taken away into captivity.
"To the one, we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life." (2 Corinthians 2:16)  In our fellowship of the forgiven, we cannot help but say good things about what Christ has done and is doing in our lives.  In the same way, those who do not accept the message of the Gospel of Christ may make disparaging remarks about Christians, both in public and in private.  We should not listen to their voices, because they are vanquished by sin, not victorious by the grace of God afforded to them through Jesus Christ.  In other words, they are the losers; we are the winners.  

Do not listen to their criticism, my friends.  It will only bring you down.  It will succeed in making you take your eyes off Christ.  Like Peter walking on the water, when our eyes are on Christ, we can do miracles; but when we take our eyes off Him and look at the wind and the waves, we sink into despair.  2 Corinthians 10:5 says, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."  We are in the world to be salt and light; we are not of the world, bowing to their logic and reasoning.  We cannot let the world set up the argument of salvation on their terms--it's as if we speak a different language than they do when we know Christ.  If they do not understand, it is their loss.

And speaking of pretension, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:17, "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God."  The world responds to authenticity.  Hypocrisy is one of the most damning criticisms made by the world against Christians.  When they see a televangelist say that private jets are wonderful, and everyone should get one, they are rightfully put off by that message.  But if we who are not in full-time Christian ministry will engage our culture, and speak of what we know, the world will sit up and listen.

It is not God's will that any should perish.  And even if we do not feel called to be full time evangelists for Him, we can make a difference in our circle of influence.  Christians talk a lot about "giving a testimony."  That is a legal term borrowed from the courts.  A "witness" is called to give his or her "testimony" about what he or she has seen or heard.  So when Christians talk about "witnessing" to their friends, it only means that we share with them what we know to be true based on our own experiences.  If a friend asks us how to become a Christian, we do not need to lie or make up stories; we only need to tell them what we know, about our own experience of grace and forgiveness at the hand of God through Jesus Christ, His Son.  The Holy Spirit, who led that person to ask you about it, will use whatever you say for their good and His glory.

You might be called to be a missionary, and that's great.  But for most of us, we don't quit our jobs and go off to far-away lands to preach before large crowds.  But we can permeate our culture; we can share the sweet fragrance of the knowledge of Him wherever we go.  And because of that, God will be praised, even if our own lives are not going the way we might want them to.