Have You Not Read - S1:E9

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the Saints.

I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me is Michael Durham, David Kassem, Andrew Hudson.

Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask for you to rate, review, and share the podcast. Thank you. And today we're starting out with a question from our audience, which actually our audience is whoever goes in and asks a question on our website, which can be found in the show notes after the show.

The first question is, how should one understand the man Paul refers to as, one was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, 2nd Corinthians 12 2 through 4. You take a shot Michael. Sure, so reading the text will be helpful here and it is interesting to go ahead and read chapter 11 and so on, but we'll just start with verse 1 in 2nd Corinthians 12, it is doubtless not profitable for me to boast.

I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago, whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows, such a one was caught up to the third heaven.

And I know such a man whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows, how he was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such a one I will boast, yet of myself I will not boast, except in my infirmities.

For though I might desire to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me. And then Paul goes on to talk about the thorn in the flesh, another famous passage about Paul.

He's already said that he'd rather talk about his infirmities and his weaknesses and how the Lord has been dealing with Paul in his life. I think that the key word in this passage is not necessarily, you know, who is this man and third heaven and and so on.

This is all very interesting, but why does he even bring it up? I mean, that's the real question here. And I think the key word both in the latter part of 2nd Corinthians 11 and here throughout 2nd Corinthians 12 is boasting.

So who's boasting? Why is Paul compelled to boast but not boast? Why all the boasting? What can we see.

From the text? Any ideas? Well there is, just because I take the alternate view from you, that Paul is actually speaking of himself here. Where he has before gone in and says, if anyone has any reason to, you know, glory or anyone to, you know, it would be me.

You know, Hebrew of the Hebrews, this, this, but all these things I count as rubbish. Right. So he has the suffering for Christ and the things that he is enduring, but he's boasting of his infirmities.

Then he talks about more of his infirmities and the things that, the messenger of Satan that that's buffeting his flesh. So he's talking about, before this and after this, about himself and what God is doing in him and why.

So it feels like, feels like, did I actually say that? You said it. I did. It looks like and appears that Paul is maintaining the same context. He's talking about himself but what God is doing in him.

If anybody has any reason to boast, it'd be Paul, but he doesn't, because who am I? I'm no one except what Christ has made me. Here's another example of what Christ has made me. Isn't it time stamp though?

Like, can.

We, can we kind of verify? Fourteen years ago? Right. There's something very specific here, isn't there? Yeah. So here's, here's where I'm coming from. When Paul says in the text, verse five, after, you know, all the things that happened to this man.

Verse five he says, of such a one I will boast, yet of myself I will not boast. Now, I'm just trying to roll with Paul's audience and are they gonna pick up on some sort of subtle maneuver here where Paul is in engaging with some subtle satire, kind of poking at those who would boast about their special experiences, and trying to get at something, and but he really is him, but it's, but he's saying it in this way.

I don't know. I don't know. It's very possible they're that sophisticated and so on. And if it is Paul, great. If it's somebody that Paul sat down and had some hummus with, that's great. But why does he bring it up?

He's bringing it up because he's trying to model for the folks there in Corinth that we should not be running around boasting about our special spiritual experiences, or shall we say, here are all my credentials.

All right, didn't Jesus teach us a different way? How did Jesus deal with his disciples when they were arguing who is the greatest? What did he do? That happened more than once, so what do you remember about Jesus dealing with his disciples when they're trying to push those credentials and experiences?

What.

Did he do? He described to them who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,.

Which is the least. The least of these, a servant. He put a child in the midst of them. He said, don't let anyone call you rabbi or leader. Don't take on those fancy names. Don't let anyone call you padre, pope, right?

El papa. Don't let anybody call you that. You're a brother, right? So he was always pushing against his disciples. His disciples were getting really fat heads because they were casting out demons, and they were healing people in the name of Jesus, and they were preaching with authority and seeing amazing things happen.

And they were taking up these spiritual experiences and comparing themselves with each other and saying, oh which one is the greatest? And Jesus is saying, you're totally missing it here. So Paul is doing that very same pastoral maneuver here in Corinth, and if you go back and you check what's going on at the end of 2nd Corinthians 10, and you keep on reading all the way through 2nd Corinthians 11, here's the heart of Paul.

This is why he even brings it up. And again, is it Paul? I don't know. Do we have to know? I don't think so. But obviously Paul knows about this amazing spiritual experience that trumps everybody else's boast in Corinth.

Like nobody can get even close to this. So if we need to boast here, I've got a trump card that nobody can beat. But why are we even doing that? We should be boasting about our weaknesses and our infirmities and show how needy we are and how dependent we are on God.

And he's trying to move them away from those who are boasting big-time in themselves, and the reason why for that is, at the beginning of 2nd Corinthians 11, he says, oh that you would bear with me in a little folly, which is his talking about boasting, and indeed you do bear with me, for I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ, but I fear less somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

His concern is that Satan will deceive the bride of the second Adam, just as he did with the first Adam. Now verse 4, for if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.

How are they being convinced to believe in a different Jesus, in a different gospel, and receive a different spirit than before? Because these guys coming in with this false message have credentials and spiritual experiences, and they're boasting in themselves rather than boasting in the Lord.

And I think that's what lays in the background of why Paul even brings this thing up. I was in the Spirit and received my PhD. My third PhD from Cambridge. That's kind of what he's talking about, right?

Like using that instead of giving what was received without any sort of boast, the focus gets changed.

From Christ to me. Right, exactly. Okay. I mean if this was an experience that Paul had 14 years earlier, if it is indeed Paul, which is the view that I take based upon the fore and after, he is modeling for them, saying that, look, I had this 14 years ago, and I didn't mention it once, because that's not what gives me credibility.

It's Christ is the focus here. And if indeed the Corinthians are being led astray by those who have these experiences, and I know, we know the story of the little boy who died and went to heaven, and he wrote a book and started a movement.

I mean, those things are, it's almost a byword now. It's what's happening today. So Paul comes in with this, talking about he's glorying his infirmities. He has all of these things that have happened to him, but we glory in Christ, we glory in Christ.

And by the way, you know, 14 years ago I had this. Have you heard me mention it? No, because that's not the issue. Here's the issue. Let's talk more about the.

Spiritual Experiences, Charismatic Excess, and the Need for Biblical Order

Thorn in the flesh. Andrew, what do you think about people basing their spiritual pontifications based upon their own personal experiences? Well, that's kind of my background. I grew up in a charismatic church.

I was going to say, how else would you get on Sid Roth's show to sell your how to break soul ties and generational curses if it wasn't for all these experiences that you can share with others? For the audience that cannot see what's happening, everyone in the room cringed at that.

And it's happening every single week, and there's a new set of, or a new batch of teaching for people to purchase to now get to the next level or to get what they want or to be free from addictions because of a soul tie that happened three generations ago.

Andrew, I'm glad that you have a facility with all this, because I don't know if I have the stomach to catch up on all the... that just sounds awful. It is, it is. I used to preach monthly, once a month, at a charismatic group, and they called themselves a church.

You know, there's a lot of people that are... they were just trying to get some kind of stability in their life, and it was a mess. It was just a mess up there, and I would go and preach monthly, but the spirit in the room, it was the most oppressive place I've ever been, and I wanted to... I wanted to help, but it was very difficult to be there.

It was full of something else other than the spirit? Yeah, it was full of... their worship was... like, they came for their worship experience, which was the music that they were blaring through their little metal building, and it was overwhelming.

It was so loud you couldn't hear yourself think. You know, Jesus culture wailing, repeated mantras, and it was very Eastern, pantheistic kind of approach. Did that type of charismata look like what was described in the Book of Corinthians, about how to do... how the gifts and workings of the Holy Spirit, how they are to be done in order?

No, it wasn't orderly. It wasn't orderly, and even in this very small group, they kept on having fractures and divisions, because everybody needed their spotlight, and they weren't getting enough spotlight, and it was... it was very tragic, and the health of it was very clear when you saw... there was a young girl who was a part of the group, and she died just suddenly, and they never actually found out the reason for her death, and the... the church and the group there, and then the funeral afterwards, and so on, they just had no way of handling it well.

They just... they didn't, and you can imagine Paul just praying and laboring for the Corinthian church, trying to ground them in the Word and not in experiences. But there are a lot of artistic people that were drawn to this church.

I find... so like in school, I always found that kids that were creative in any sort of way or gifted in that way were extremely drawn, and especially musically creative. They were extremely drawn to charismatic movements or things that I saw were really lifting up their gifting as something higher than the rest of the gifting in the room, and I've noticed that as well, like even with some of my writers groups where kids were like that, and like they wanted churches that would vaunt like poetry or create some sort of creative output with words, and I never had that attraction to it, and maybe it's because I wasn't as good as words... with words as they were, but I see people being drawn to places where their gifting is vaunted, at least a little bit.

Yeah, there really was a hunger for the spotlight, and then whatever... and everyone was trying to find their particular niche, and then to emphasize the need to have that, you know, put up front. Because again, if your spirituality, if your religious experience, if everything is based upon your experiences, if your faith is based upon your experiences, then you have to pursue as many experiences as you possibly can, and that's... it's exhausting.

What's next? What's next? Yeah. What's next? Constantly. Yes. The dopamine hits. Gotta have those. Well, and that's the thing, and of course these folks were, you know, struggling with the after-effects of going through a life of addicted to drugs, and so they were struggling with all kinds of things, but there was just such a sharp contrast between what they were doing at, you know, the first 45 minutes to an hour of the get-together, versus what I was doing when I got up there to read the Bible, and then exposit the text, and try to apply it under the authority of Christ.

There was... it was such a sharp contrast. It's... it's like a Paul Washer at a youth conference kind of a thing, where they're doing this whole emotional ramping up kind of a thing, and they're just going nuts, and then he gets up there to, you know, preach the gospel, and you know, and basically advance the fear of the Lord upon everyone, and it was so disjointed.

It's just very disjointed. So there's... of course we know some of the things are going on in the life of Corinth, so obviously Paul's wanting to ground them in something other than boasting and spiritual experiences, and again, I think it's an interesting point that David brings up about, you know, this was not brought up for 14 years, let's say, like it never got mentioned, okay, and then all of a sudden Paul trots it out, and I think the point is well made.

There's always somebody else who could trump your spiritual experience. Well, what then? Do they get to define what the gospel is now, and what the truth is now? Come on. On that note, what does it mean for being whether in the body or whether out of the body, and it's mentioned basically twice, is that death?

Because it does say caught up. Now is this a catching up in spirit, or this person died and then returned? So... Because Paul was stoned, and they thought he was dead. Right. So whether in the body or out of the body, he doesn't even know, and he says it more than once, and there's all sorts of things that are just, you can't hardly define.

John’s Vision, Paradise, and the Dating of Revelation

It's, when you think about what what Paul describes here, we see similarities with the experience of John the Apostle, who was caught up to the third heaven. Not the sky, not the sphere of the stars, but into the throne room of God, into the presence of God.

The very same place where Christ ascended and was taken from his disciples, and hidden by the Shekinah glory cloud, and entered into the throne room of heaven. Well, what Paul describes here is something that we get to see in detail when we read Revelation.

And at first we read that John is on the Isle of Patmos, and he sees, he hears Christ, and then he sees Christ. And we could say that John has some sense about himself, that he's in the body. Okay. Who knows what happens when he goes to the throne room of heaven, and all sorts of very interesting things start happening.

Is John aware of his body at some of these points? Maybe at some points, maybe not at other points. So who knows. It's intentionally vague, because that was the actual experience. It was vague. Okay. So I think, I think that's what it, it's, it's hard to explain, I think, as part of what Paul is saying.

Do we have a Reformed version of this, where there's boasting in the camp, with credentials, and I am of so-and-so, and so baptized me, or trained me, or taught me? We remember that from early in Corinthians, right?

There was a controversy and schisms about following persons based on various experiences, and so on. And this is a, this is a great temptation to believers. You know, I was there at Shepherd's Conference when XYZ went down, you know, or I've been to all the T4Gs, or I've been, I've been to the conferences that are way more holy than T4G, and it's, and so on.

So there's, there's that, there's, I read the Institutes every year, you know, those kinds of things I'm, I'm more, more familiar with, so on and so forth. So that kind of bragging. And then this is a part of it, and I, and I'm totally not digging at David, but the main reading of this has been Paul.

This is Paul saying that it's, it's Paul, but not saying it's Paul. Which, okay, but I don't know if there is room for a humble brag when he's trying to, and no, but he is modeling not to boast about experiences, and he is saying, bear with me, with a little folly.

So I'm still okay with that reading if it is Paul, but at the same time, there is the humble brag pitfall in Reform Camp, is there not, where there's discussion going on, maybe some pastoral application needing to be made, and all of a sudden someone drops a, you know, $10 word to sum up the situation, or they mention by the by, oh, this was in this obscure passage of this obscure Puritan that I read five years ago and still remember.

You know, I'm not bragging, but I'm bragging, kind of thing. So yeah, we're tempted to do that, and that can make conversations kind of insufferable, especially for folks who come in to groups and they, and they want to fellowship with followers of Jesus, and they can't keep up with the, you know, with the, with the lore.

The references. Yeah, exactly. What's this paradise he's caught up into? Well, he says in parallel, you think about the way that the Hebrew mind works. So he says in verse 3, such a one was caught up into the third heaven, okay, and then in verse 4, how he was caught up into paradise.

So with the Hebrew parallelism, just the natural way of writing, the natural way of expressing oneself, I would say that whatever the third heaven is, is the paradise, and vice versa. And if we've already identified the third heaven as heaven proper in terms of being with God in his presence, what John experienced, what the saints experience upon death, as Paul has already, Paul says elsewhere he desires this blessing of being absent from the body and present with the Lord.

I mean, that's a good thing, but that would be what he's talking about, caught up into paradise. In him saying, heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter, there were some inexpressible words uttered around John, and John was gonna write them down, and then he was said, no, you can't write that down.

So to me, this is a similar experience to that of the Apostle John. Was it too far out there to say that this guy that he knows is John, or is the timeline way, way off? That would blow so many people's minds.

There was an overlap of churches during this time in ministry, as far as the locations of the churches. Yes, so it's interesting, when you read the narrative of the book of Revelation, John is on the exile of Patmos.

Okay, the tradition is that he was exiled there by Caesar because of the sudden surge of opposition to Christians, and so on. But when you look at Patmos in relationship to the churches of Asia Minor, there's very close proximity there.

It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that John was there on the Isle of Patmos, maybe preaching the gospel. He's there on the Lord's Day. Was he hoping to be a part of a service together and break bread with believers?

I mean, do we have any clear vector about why he's there, right? So it's just been held in the last 150 years that Revelation was, you know, written in the reign of Diocletian, you know, in the 90s and so on.

However, you know, it could be that it was written during the realm of Nero, or maybe even what, 14 years prior to 2nd Corinthians? I think that's, I don't know, I don't know. Does anybody have that theory?

That's pretty exciting. I don't have the, like, timeline. Yeah, I need a timeline. Yeah, we're talking like maybe 40 AD, right, at that point, right? Like, because I think Corinthians were written in the 50s, so...

Well, and even if, like, say, he gets this account from John, right, John may not have written it down right away, right? It could have been later that he penned it, or... Sure, yeah, sure. And so, who knows?

Sure, some of this does fit John pretty well, right? Pretty well. But as far as the dating and the, you know, 14 years ago, and so on and so forth, when it is, the more credentialed you are, and the more highbrow elite Bible scholar you are, the more fashionable it is to push all of the dates of all the writings of Scripture farther and farther out later and later and later.

That's just the trend. And the, there are a few counter proposals to that, like Richard Bauckham and so on, who find reasons to propose that these things are written earlier, but greatly the trend is to push it all late.

I'm convinced that everything in the New.

Testament was written prior to AD 70. The motivation is usually to account for prophecy. It's, whether you're looking at Daniel, it's all written late. Why? Because it's accurate. How could that be? There's Deutero-Isaiah, are you sure?

Because, yeah, it's too accurate to be biblical. Because it talks about Cyrus. Right, so if it's written early, that means it's true, because prophecy came true. If it's written late, then you can discount it.

So that, the motivation is to undermine the biblical text. It's not the Word of God, but it contains the Word of God. When we say it's inspired, we mean it's, that it's really an inspiring work. I just want to smack the guy in the face.

That's actually not what it says, but that would be illegal. I think Karl Barth was a sad individual.

Who really did want to believe the gospel, but not really. Do you know who Karl Barth's favorite preacher was? Martin Lloyd-Jones. Really? Yeah, he spoke very, very hot about Martin Lloyd-Jones. Loved to visit, loved to hear him preach.

Did not repent and believe, though. Carl F. H. Henry once asked Karl Barth in an interview whether he believed that the tomb was empty where Jesus' body had been laid. In other words, was there an actual...

Physical resurrection. Yeah, a physical resurrection. A bodily resurrection, that Jesus actually died, he was actually laid in the tomb, he actually rose from the dead, and Karl Barth considered the question to be nonsensical.

What does that have to do.

With anything? An empty tomb's not the issue, right? Yeah, it's about encountering...

I beg to differ. It's about encountering the Word of God in these collected myths.

The empty tomb is the issue. It's the core issue. Yeah, exactly. Boasting of.

The Gospel’s Call to Humility, Prayer, and Dependence on Christ

Oneself is antithetical to John's ministry of decrease and Christ's increase. I must decrease, he must increase. Puffing up oneself is the opposite of that. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, isn't everything in the gospel and how it works out we see in the New Testament designed to strip us of boasting?

I mean, when you read Romans 3, that no man may boast. Jesus tells his disciples, you are to be the least in the kingdom of heaven. Tells all his followers, take up your cross, you die to yourself. Take up your cross and follow me.

Paul counting all of his credentials as a dunghill. And just time after time after time, it's about stripping away all those prefixes, suffixes, initials, and everything that we would throw around our names so that there's no name but the name of Christ written on our foreheads and our hands.

Amen to that. Gives you a different kind of context when you think of being a kingdom of priests as well, whereas a worldly king would have all these suffixes and prefixes. I think it allows us to redefine, through the Bible, our preconceptions of what a king is as well.

Well, we have ran out of time for this question for today, so we're gonna go around the horn and we're gonna say what we're thankful for. Michael, we'll start with you. Well, I am thankful for the truth time and again that I have to keep on applying to myself, but that God does not get tired of our praying.

He doesn't get wore out from hearing from us that because of the the full robust nature of Christ's redemption that we can come boldly, persistently, that we come humbly, but asking for everything that we need because that's exactly what we were instructed to do.

And that it folds into this boasting thing, wherein we are not to be boasting about our own strength, but we are to be depending on the strength of the Lord. That Christian maturity is not becoming more independent, but becoming more dependent.

And so, just thankful for the gift of prayer, thankful to come to my Heavenly Father again and again, know that I can.

Just lay everything out in its specific nature. Well, I am thankful for our Wednesday night prayer meeting. I drove about four hours yesterday after flying about three legs and getting up around 4 a .m. yesterday.

So, backing up. It was a long day and driving in. And all I wanted to do, and I admit it, all I wanted to do was get home and go straight home. And it was about 5 .15 or so when everybody's gathering here getting ready to break bread quite literally.

And my daughter texts me and says, hey, we're going to church. Are you going to be here in time? It's like, I don't know if I'm going to be there in time. She says, okay, well, you can meet us there. And I'm like, I'm looking at the GPS.

I'm like, and I'm just dragging. I mean, I'm running on, you know, caffeine and hope at this point. And I was like, no, it's all right. I would like to go. And then I show up and everyone's glad to see me.

And I've been gone for two weeks because I got caught in an ice storm and I couldn't get home. The same snow storm that you guys had up here. And I got to see everybody and all of the, I guess the tiredness sort of, you know, abated for a bit.

And we just got to, you know, I, I, I had missed, I had missed the meals. I go, oh, that's okay. You know after, after prayer time and, and, and fellowship time, Jana would not let me get out of here without taking some enchiladas.

So she's just forcing these on me. And I, I tore into those things. I was so hungry last night. But it was just, I was fed. I was, I was, I was fed with fellowship. I was fed with seeing my family. And I was, I was fed literally.

And it was just, it was just a reminder. It says, this was, it was good. It was good. Even though I had a long day. It was a kind of tired workday where, you know, you're satisfied. You're tired after a long day where you actually were working and traveling and, and doing, doing the things you've been called to do.

And, but you know, you kind of long in for bed. And it was, it was really nice. So I'm very thankful for our Wednesday, Wednesday prayer time. Very thankful for all the people that prepare food and thankful for my, my family encouraging me to make a little pit stop on the way home to see our church family.

I am thankful that I.

Don't have to worry about what tomorrow holds. We see Jesus telling us not to be worried about such things, but to prioritize, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the things that as he puts it, the Gentiles worry about, you know, I'm still worried about that type of stuff, but he puts into proper perspective, the role of food, the usefulness for clothing and, and drink that I don't have to worry about such things.

And that is a comfort. Amen. I'm thankful to God for his adding to us at all times, even when it's just things like bringing home a set of chickens and adding a coop to the yard and stuff like that. He plays no zero sum games.

He's only adding to us and refining us. And when he, even when he takes away, uh, in the case of loss or losing someone or a miscarriage or something like that, it's always adding some refinement to you and your family.

And it also adds to the love that you learn to express to the ones that you do have. So I'm very, very thankful to his adding out of the abundance of his kindness to our households. Uh, it's very, uh, reassuring, comforting, but it's also just a magnification of his character.

And you learn and you get to see how he is. And it lets you know how you need to be. So I'm very thankful for that. We are also very thankful for all of our listeners who tune in week to week. We appreciate your listening to this content and we ask that you please rate, share, and review.

And we hope you'll join us again when we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read.