Day 23 - Selah

Paul

I learned something new the other day. One of those things you would expect me to know because I’m with an organization like Wycliffe Bible Translators. We should already know all the hard facts written in the Bible, right? WRONG! We are learning just like you.

Anyways, back to my newly-learned fact. Paul, between the time he wrote 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, made some people mad because he simply changed his course. Did you already know this? I’m trying to figure out how I’ve missed this in all of my years of reading 2 Corinthians! So yes, Paul ticked some people off and actually caused them to question his entire ministry because he said he was going to do one thing (visit Corinth twice) and ended up needing to do another (visit Corinth once for a longer period of time).

Check out this note in my Bible, “Because he had announced a change in his itinerary, with the result that he would now pay the Corinthians one (long) visit instead of two (short) visits, these adversaries were asserting that his word was not to be trusted.” (Zondervan NASB)

“HIS WORD WAS NOT TO BE TRUSTED??”

Why do I care?

Well, we changed course (kind of). On a practical level, our “route” got modified. While we had intended to go to school and get our linguistic training to translate the Bible, we are instead working on building our partnership team for our first assignment to work behind the scenes to translate the Bible. Same goal, different routes to get there.

This little known fact was an encouragement to me because Paul, of all people, had to admit that sometimes things don’t go in the straight line that you planned for them to go.

At the end of the day, we are reminded that our lives and our experiences are not the focus. The God of our life, however, is.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 2 Corinthians 4:7

Sarah