We Write You What You Can Read and Understand, 2 Cor. 1:12-14

The secular scholar might see Jesus as a philosopher, like Socrates, who was martyred because his teachings threatened the authorities or the social paradigm of his times. But such a perspective misses, or refuses to recognize, the deeper truth about Jesus, that he is who he says he is, that he is the Son of God, Son of Man, the crucified one, who came and willingly sacrificed his all for the salvation of the world, and that He rose again from the dead.

In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul offers a perspective beyond philosophy. He knows God because he has come to know his weakness and foolishness with God. His knowledge of God comes from the experience and perspective of his living relationship with God. Paul’s knowledge of Jesus and his message is a matter of more than pure reason. Paul does not deny the gift of reason or its value. He was, after all, a brilliant scholar of Judaism himself. He simply recognizes that God’s grace is necessary to elevate and perfect our reason, allowing us to receive and ‘see’ the divine truth more clearly. God’s grace helps us approach the divine mysteries with true humility, gratitude, wonder, wisdom, and joy. So, Paul can write the following in all sincerity: “Our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, with the simplicity and sincerity of God, and not by human wisdom but by the grace of God,” (2 Cor. 1:12).

Paul says in the next verse: “For we write you nothing other than what you can read and also understand…”( v. 13). The scriptures reveal the divine truth to us about ourselves, our world, and God’s infinite, unconditional love for us. It is revealed to us in words that we can ‘read and understand’ by way of human reason. But is reason alone enough? Though we possess the great gift of human reason, we also need something else to be able to begin to truly understand the wisdom of God, that is, true humility. To know and to accept the teachings of Jesus requires our humility. It is too much of a temptation to say and believe that with reason alone, we can come to know Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life. Indeed, paradoxically, and in the words of Dr. Jennifer Frey, a philosophy professor at the University of South Carolina, “To accept Christ’s proclamation ourselves, we need to experience the limits of our efforts to understand reality and to feel the need to be drawn up into the divine mysteries that have been revealed to us.” In other words, we need humility, a humility like Paul’s.

It is humility that enables us to submit ourselves to God and one another. It is the grace of humility that gives us the wisdom to “read and to understand” God’s Word for us. Paul, in his recognition of his weakness and foolishness, came to see and understand a much more compelling and challenging perspective of Jesus than that of a ‘philosopher.’ He came to understand Jesus’ divine, salvific mission on earth. And that understanding manifested a joy so deep in him that he could willingly accept the suffering that he came to experience in his own life for the sake of Jesus. For Paul had come to understand, through his capacity for reason, perfected now by his humble openness to God’s grace, that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the anointed one.

In this understanding, he could also write that Jesus was the one, “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross,” (Phil. 2: 6-8).

And it is in this vein that he can write with great affection to the Corinthians, who had seen the way he had conducted himself with ‘simplicity and sincerity’ toward them saying, “I hope you will understand to the end–as you have already understood in part–that on the day of the Lord Jesus we are your boast even as you are our boast.” And he is saying this to us. Indeed, even the most intelligent among us can only know God’s way, truth, and life in part. Though we can come to know him and love him to a great part in this world, and through that knowledge and love we can do great things in his name, we cannot know Him fully, yet.

As Augustine says, “That which your mind can grasp is not God.” Human reason, as powerful as it is, is not enough. The gift of faith can only come to those who are humble, those who, like Paul, know their weakness and foolishness. It is this humility that opens up God’s grace to us. And it is God’s grace that opens up our reason to the divine truth, and allows us to begin to ‘read and understand’ the depths and the heights of God’s wisdom revealed to us in Jesus Christ.