A Word in Season: The Jealous Pastor (2 Corinthians 11:2)

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I hope you have a jealous pastor. Now by that, I don't mean a man who has a hissy fit just because somebody looks the wrong way at someone or something that is precious to him or something that belongs to him.

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I mean a man who, to use the Apostle Paul's language in the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 11 and verse 2 is jealous for you with a godly jealousy.

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Now there is such a thing as godly jealousy and it's found most purely and most righteously in the heart of God himself.

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God is jealous for his own glory. It belongs to him and it should not be shared with anyone other or, by definition, lesser than he is.

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He's jealous with regard to his people. They belong to him and their affections ought not to be shared with any others.

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That's perfectly right and proper. God being God, it is good that he should be jealous for his glory and his people.

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And that holy and pure jealousy, that zeal for God's glory, that concern for the faithfulness of his people's hearts, characterizes true undershepherds as well.

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It ought to characterize all of the people of God. It ought to be characteristic of my heart and of yours that we are jealous for the church with a godly jealousy.

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Now Paul says he wants the Corinthians to bear with him in a little folly. He's going to have to demonstrate that his heart toward them is good and true and pure because they are in danger of listening to these false teachers who are undermining the apostles' ministry and actually diverting their attention from God in Christ.

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And so he says, Paul sees himself here as a spiritual defender, perhaps as a spiritual father to the

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Corinthian church. He has been the one who has pointed them to Christ. He is the one who, using some of that wider biblical imagery of the marriage supper of the

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Lamb, has made sure that there is a people who have promised themselves to the Lord Christ and are going to keep themselves for him, spiritually chaste and pure, until the day when he returns from heaven to take them to be with him.

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They are betrothed then to Christ. They are promised to him. It's beyond engagement.

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It's absolute commitment. They are to have eyes for no one and nothing else.

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And these false teachers are attacking Paul as a way of attacking the church.

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They are dismissing the apostle and his concerns for the church so that they can get to the heart of the church itself.

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And that's why the apostle responds in the way that he does. who are now being proclaimed to you.

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But I am committed to Christ and to you, and I am committed to making sure that your minds, your hearts, your thoughts, your affections, your wills are always and only directed toward the

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Lord Jesus Christ and him who was crucified on your behalf.

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And so the apostle Paul wrestles on behalf of the church. He defends himself if he needs to assure them that his conduct toward them is pure.

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But he does that only in order that ultimately their spiritual attachment to the

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Lord Jesus Christ might be wholehearted and entirely devoted. We are subject as well to those kinds of undermining influences.

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We are subject as well to the diversions from Christ that were characteristic of life in Corinth, other places in the ancient and through the ages and into the modern world.

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And you and I need faithful pastors, jealous undershepherds, men who know the worth of our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who hold him up, who proclaim his name and whose intention it is to betroth men and women to Christ Jesus and then to see that they are guarded so that they are kept pure and presented as a chaste virgin to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. I hope then that you have a jealous pastor.

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I hope that you have a jealous eldership. I hope that you have and pray for and appreciate the men whose concern is for the glory of God among you and for the purity of your souls in relation to Jesus Christ.