Not Yes and No... Yes and Amen

For my upcoming semester at FSM (which--excitingly and frighteningly, is my last one), my class has the practicum assignment to write a commentary on the New Testament. One of the assigned books for my group is 2 Corinthians. I suggested we start with it, mostly because I'm chickening out of trying to outline Luke just yet.

Luke is a very big book.

Anyway, 2 Corinthians is only thirteen chapters long. I must admit I haven't spent too much time in it up until now. But reading through it and trying to structure it into an outline has been very eye-opening for me, and I'm happy that I'm going to be spending the next few weeks commenting on it. You can bet that most, if not all, of my next few blog posts will revolve around it.

What jumped out at me today was the context of 1:20 - "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God..." I'd always heard this verse as sort of a stand-alone, reminding us how we can completely trust God to follow-through with what He's promised. Of course that's true, and a great application, but reading it in it's context adds a whole new sobering weight to it: that's what's being upheld as a standard for faithfulness.

In this verse, Paul is explaining his absence, defending it by saying that the apostles' promise to the Corinthians was not "Yes and No." Why not? Because "the Son of God, Jesus Christ...was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes." Jesus is the pattern Paul is following for faithfulness and follow-through. Since He was unwaveringly faithful, that's how Paul and his ministry team determined to conduct themselves.

So there's one more reason to let our "yes" be "yes" and our "no" be "no"...