Daily Lesson for June 12, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 21 through 29:

But whatever anyone dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that. 22Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.23Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman—I am a better one: with far greater labours, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death. 24Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea;26on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; 27in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. 28And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. 29Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant?

Paul has been through it all. He’s a sufferer.  He’s a survivor. He’s a legend. And he’s the most courageous person anybody in the early church knows. Everyone worries for him. 

Yet what Paul worries about is the church. He names all the things he’s made it through, but the thing he tops it off with is his worry over the church. 

I read this and think of my good friend Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili of the Evangelical Baptist Church of the Republic of Georgia.  Malkhaz is the most courageous person I know. He has ministered to enemy soldiers in the theatre of war.  He’s been detained multiple times trying to help Muslim refugees escape from Russia. Now he’s taken up the cause of the Yazidis in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.  Earlier this year I received a letter asking for prayer.  But the letter surprised me. It was a letter not about his dangerous work for human rights, but a letter about the church. A breakaway group was trying to wrest control of the Georgian Baptist church away from Malkhaz because of Malkhaz’s support of the LGBTQ community in Tbilisi. Malkhaz has risked his life many, many times.  But he was asking for prayer, not so much for himself but for his church. 

Know your pastors wrestle and pray and oftentimes even anguish over their churches. They endure many things. But most grueling of all is their worry over the church. They love and worry over the church like a mother or father over a child.

And I know many, many laypeople who love and worry also. 

Pray for them. Pray for each other. Pray for the church. Love and pray for your church.