December 4, 2025 | 2 Corinthians 1-4
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Introduction and Greetings
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Hey folks. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Happy Thursday. It is indeed Thursday. Merry Christmas. Yes. Still We're still on that. Do you have your lights up yet? No, I don't. Well, maybe I do. I don't know. We'll see. Probably not though.
Biblical Counseling Intensive Announcement
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Hey, we announced something this past Sunday that created Good start.
Did we? We did this past week. Well, I did. I should say. Oh yeah, yeah. The royal we is what you're saying? Yes. The royal we because representative of our team, and that is this biblical counseling intensive that we're doing. And I know it created some questions and we don't have all of the answers to everybody's questions yet.
All that we're working on getting those and hoping to have a website up even by this Sunday that you can find out some more information on. But I did want to clarify one thing, and that is some of you have been asking, Hey, who is this for? Is this only for people that want to go out and get. ABC certification.
Everybody's been asking, everybody's been asking. They wanna know about your face care routine and they want to know about this. Yeah. So today's sponsor is, is no this is for everybody. We would love if you, if this remotely interests you, [00:01:00] we would love for you to take advantage of this.
We would love for you to do this. This is gonna benefit everybody, whether or not you end up in a situation where you're gonna be counseling somebody or whether or not this just helps you think better about your spiritual. Wellbeing and what it looks like for you to be a follower of Christ and even maybe what it looks like for you to navigate your own marriage in a healthy way and resolve conflict and things like that.
The material that you're gonna cover in this is gonna be beneficial to you no matter what. Our desire and I said this on Sunday we would love to have more people that are saying, Hey, I want to go through the whole thing. I wanna become certified as a biblical counselor so that I can do this, so that I can help in this regard when there's help that's needed.
But that does not mean that we're saying nobody else needs to sign up for this. We love to fill up every seat that we have on something like this. That would be awesome and probably. I don't know. Maybe this is saying too much. Not everybody should be a biblical counselor. True. But everybody should learn biblical counseling.
Yes. We would want lots of you to engage in the practice because it's so valuable.
Differences Between Therapy and Biblical Counseling
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In fact, maybe we [00:02:00] could just shoot it up real quick. What are some of the biggest differences that you would identify between. Therapy with a licensed counselor and biblical counseling with someone who's gone through something like this.
A certification for the AC CBC, which stands for the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. I think that the greatest thing, the number one thing is gonna be that the person that's going to counsel. Biblically this way is going to do just that. They're gonna say, my authority is the word of God.
And that's one thing that, I know in the church that our sending church, we would meet with people sometimes from outside the church that would call our church and say, Hey, I heard you guys have biblical counseling or counseling services and you don't charge. Can we come in and meet with you?
We're not Christians. And we would do. But as soon as they sat down with us, the first thing that we would say is, Hey, you guys need to understand our authority is God's word. Right? That what we have to bring to bear into the situation that you're facing is what the word of God says. So in other words, we're not gonna be going into what does Freud say on this?
Or What does this pop, therapist say on this? Or, what about, your background issues of [00:03:00] this, that, and the other thing. We're only gonna bring anything else into bear as it. Keeps with God's word and as God's word would deem it necessary for whatever situation we're facing.
So that's one major difference. I think the second major difference is we're gonna call sin sin. Whereas a lot of times sin in therapist offices and psychiatrists and things like that, sin is going to become something that is not your fault. It's gonna be something that there's extenuating circumstances that are producing this friction point in your marriage.
There's this background issue here that's leading you to do this. So you become a victim of your sin more than you do someone who is called biblically to repent from your sin and to make the corrections that God's calling you to. So I would say those two things initially there. Yeah, those are great.
And I think that pretty much covers the whole of it. But what we're trying to do is take the Bible and apply it to someone's life, right, in a faithful way. And that means encouragement, that means confrontation, that means inspiring hope from the text and helping people reconcile the difficulty of their lives and the goodness of God.
I mean, there's so much, and I think a lot of [00:04:00] Christians are benefited by seeing how much. Scripture can actually speak to the everyday issues of someone's life. A lot of times we read the Bible looking only at the story and saying, oh, that's a great story. Not realizing that between the old and New Testament, there are maybe millions of different application points that could apply to someone's everyday experience.
Someone who has OCDA diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder. May think, oh, biblical counseling doesn't speak to this because they have a diagnosis and now if I see an A CBC counselor, they're not gonna know what to do with that. Well, I guess in a sense, yes, because we're not diagnosing people with the same kind of terminology, but we do say, okay, what's happening behind the scenes here that would cause you to be obsessive and your compulsion to do whatever it is that you're doing?
A Christian counselor. Which is different than a biblical counselor. There are different categories of these things, but for the sake of ease, let's just call 'em a biblical counselor. A biblical counselor isn't just gonna gloss over your diagnosis and say, okay, well that doesn't matter here. No, they're gonna do some digging.
In fact, they're gonna do more digging than what your therapist would probably do. What your [00:05:00] psychiatrist would do, and to your point, PPJ, they're operating from an entirely different worldview. They're diagnosing and they're prescribing based on whatever system or framework that they were trained on, which most of the time.
I don't even know the number. It's probably not worth describing a number most of the time is not compatible with your Christian worldview. In fact, most of the time it's diametrically opposed. It's not gonna be helpful to you. And so a Christian counselor is not gonna ignore your physical symptoms.
They're not gonna ignore your sleep patterns. They're not gonna ignore your diet. They're not gonna ignore I'm on this medication. They're not gonna ignore the diagnosis that your psychiatrist gave you. They'll use all that information to build a plan with you to help you address the issue.
In and around God's word. That's the biggest difference. It is a life-changing approach for how to understand the word, how to understand yourself, how to understand the people around you. Highly encourage you to get involved with it. Once you get bit by the counseling bug, you'll never go back. Yep. So look out this Sunday.
We'll give you some more information on that. And that website should be live as well as the registration form. So some of you out there are probably like, Hey, sign me up. I'm already ready to go. Praise God for [00:06:00] that. That registration form will be live by this Sunday, and you'll be able to click on that.
And also remember, childcare is gonna be offered, so schedule right now tentatively is gonna be Friday night from six to nine, and then Saturday is gonna go eight to 12. We're gonna break for lunch, we're gonna come back and go one to five. So it's a lot, but. Man, we're, this is the classroom hours, this is the, a lot of work on getting you trained on what it looks like to be a biblical counselor.
And we're doing it, it's called an intensive. It's that, because it's intense, right? So long day on Saturday, and then Sunday, we're gonna be going again from one to four after the service. So now how much would you pay for this, dear listener? Would you pay 800 for this? A thousand, $10,000 at least, maybe 15.
You would probably pay $15,000 for this without thinking, but. PPJ. How much are we gonna charge 'em For this, we've slashed prices slash This is a Black Friday cyber month. Giving to, this is a witness Wednesday. What day is today? Thursday. This is a testimony Thursday discount for you all. We haven't [00:07:00] just slashed prices by 25%, not by 50%, not by 75%.
What we've slashed them by a hundred percent. A hundred percent. 100%. If you sign up now in the next three months, we will slash 'em by a hundred percent. Yep. Yep. And so if you're doing the math out there, that's a $15,000 intensive. For free. For free. We're gonna give it to you. There you go. Wow. Yeah. And also we joke, but the guy who's coming out to do this for us pastor Lucas Pace, Dr.
Lucas Pace he is an ABC's fellow, which means that he is a. A certified biblical counselor on steroids. Yeah, he teaches at the A CBC conference. He's one of their breakout speakers. He's got an education behind this that backs it up and supports it as well. So he's more than qualified to come and do this for us.
So, yeah. How are we supposed to refer to this guy, Dr. Pace? Dr. Dr. Pastor Pace, Mr. Pastor, Dr. Pace? Yeah. No. We're stoked for it. It's gonna be awesome. MP pays for short. There you go. Yeah. NPDP. Well, hey, we're in [00:08:00] a brand new book.
The Role of Comfort in Suffering
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We are in the book of second Corinthians, chapters one through four this morning.
So second Corinthians one through four. And we've got right off the bat him talking about not necessarily biblical counseling, but. Something that does come up in counseling and that is comforting people. And so he's going to appeal to the fact that God is a God of comfort. If you enjoy underlining or circling or highlighting in your Bible, notice just how many times he used the word comfort here in chapter one.
And this is gonna continue throughout the entirety of the Epistle, really. But right now he's talking about the comfort that comes. F as you suffer, knowing that one day you'll be able to s to comfort others as they suffer as well. So God comforts you so that you can then in turn comfort other people as they suffer.
So it's a different point of view on going through suffering and affliction. And I think it's such a hopeful point of view. 'cause it gives me purpose when I'm in my suffering. It gives me purpose when I'm in my affliction because I know, okay, God, somebody's ministering to me right now, and you're using somebody to comfort me.
But man [00:09:00] I'm gonna pray and ask that you're gonna use me to be able to comfort somebody else who goes through something similar in the future. And I know I've benefited from this in the church, and I know so many other people have as well. Yeah. I think the best thought we can take from this is that no Christian suffering is ever wasted.
God doesn't spill out suffering in your life and say, oops. Right? Every drop of suffering that you go through, every drop of difficulty, persecution, trial abandonment, is designed by God. To utilize your life and your gifts to serve his church, his people. So take great comfort in that all of your suffering is never wasted.
Yeah. And maybe sometimes it's easy when somebody hasn't really gone through much suffering to say, oh, it's okay. Be comforted. But then we look at what Paul's writing here, and Paul's the one that's writing about this and if you look down there at verse eight, he says we were so urgent.
Utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. I don't take this to mean that Paul was suicidal, but I do take this to mean that Paul was saying, Lord, please take me home. Please take me home now. I'd rather be home with you than go through the pain and the suffering and the anguish that I'm going through right now.
Paul's gonna. Talk about and multiple other places [00:10:00] here, I think in chapter six, and definitely in chapter 11, everything that he went through is an apostle and all the suffering that he went through. And Paul makes the point here. He says, look, the reason for all this was to make us. He says in verse nine, rely not on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead.
So he delivered us from such deadly peril and he will deliver us in the future on him. We have set our hope. So Paul's writing these things about. Experiencing comfort and comforting other people as one who had been through it himself and been through it in a very intense way. And so he's he's ready to encourage them towards that end.
After this, he talks about some of their travel and what he was gonna do. But he says in verse 15, he says I was sure of this. I wanted to come to you first, that you might have a second experience of grace. This has been taken to mean that there's a double blessing, that there's a second blessing moment that Christians should expect to have.
The Pentecostal and charismatic movements have even taken this to be signified by somebody who speaks in tongues that that's represent representative of the fact that they've received this second blessing. You're gonna be hard pressed to find that in [00:11:00] the text here, that that's evident in the text. Rather,
I think what's going on here is similar to what we read about in Romans chapter one, when Paul's writing to the church in Rome there, he says, I've long wanted to come to you, that you might receive a blessing from me. And that I might receive a blessing from you. In other words, that we might be mutually built up by one another's faith is what Paul says there.
So I think that's what he's saying here is this second period experience of grace is the experience that is grace. That's a gift of God, the fellowship of believers and how Paul would benefit them by being with them. And also they would in turn benefit Paul by. Again, being with Paul. So that's what I think is going on here.
I don't think this is a second measure of the spirit being poured out that's evidenced by tongues or anything like that, that you may hear. This is rather just Paul saying, I would love to come to you to benefit you as a church. I think he's non ironically saying, look, if I come, that's good for you.
Yeah. It's a blessing. My, my presence is the blessing. My presence is your presence. I mean, so there you go. I don't think that's a bad thing. That's biblical evidence for why we should say that. Yeah, [00:12:00] yeah, for sure. Yeah, chapter two, he says I didn't wanna make another painful visit to you.
So he's even saying here again, remember in first Corinthians he was writing about some hard things. He didn't wanna come back in that same aggressive way. He calls them to forgiveness there and towards restoration, towards that aim. And then it ends the chapter here with a reference to say, but thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
So he is reminding them of their identity as really the trophies of the victory of Christ. The, to be led in triumphal procession was something that a conquering general would do. He would take his captives of war and parade them behind him, and it would be a symbol of his. That he had won over them.
And so that's really what Paul's saying God has done with us, that God through Christ is leading us in triumphal procession. That, that we are. And then he goes and talks about the aroma of Christ. We're the aroma of Christ's victory. Those triumphal, processions, they would burn incense as a, as offerings to the, to.
To the gods and really also to the [00:13:00] emperor and the glory of the emperor there. And that's what again, Paul is saying, that we are with Christ. And so he's calling them back to remember the significance of salvation and what we're there to do, which is to be those that glorified God with our very existence.
Satan's Designs and Christian Defense
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What are the designs of Satan? Verse 11. Here, Paul says that we're not. To be outwitted by Satan and we're not gonna be outwitted because we are not ignorant of his designs. Now, in local context here, there's some kind of church discipline situation happening, and so Paul is saying, look, forgive them, comfort them, welcome them.
So it seems like at least part of Satan's design is discouragement. Is there anything else that we should know about Satan's designs that we should be on the lookout for? Yeah, Satan hates everything that God loves. And we know that above and beyond Christ loves the church, that that is what he shed his blood for.
So I think Chief among Satan's designs in this dispensation is the disunity and the undermining of the church. And so he's gonna do anything that he can and everything that he can with himself and his legions at his disposal to try to derail the church to interrupt her mission to defame the [00:14:00] name of Christ, to make the church content with just being a holy huddle that isn't involved in sharing the gospel and reaching other people for Christ.
I think Satan's more than happy to let a church be doctrinally sound and absolutely devoid of any sort of pursuit of the lost, because they're not furthering the mission. They're not doing what Christ has called them to do. So Satan's designs are ultimately for the destruction of the church and the hindrance of the mission, which is to see more people come to faith in Jesus.
Chapter three. He goes on to, to talk about them. And he begins by saying look if you think we're boasting or commending ourselves, he said, we're not you, yourselves are our letter of recommendation. What an amazing statement that Paul can make that to say, look the transformation. In you, in your lives is the confirmation of what we're teaching here.
You're our letter of recommendation. When people look at you and they see men, these people were changed, these people were transformed. That's the validity of what we're saying, of the content of what we're saying here. And so that, that's a cool thing and we would hope to be able to say that of our church.
And I think we can say that. And in a lot of ways of our churches, we see God's word at work in the lives of our [00:15:00] church, that's our desire is not to say, look at our pedigree is this education in this seminary, in this school, but look at what God's word is doing as it's. Active amongst the believers here at Compass.
He talks here next about the veiling idea, and he says he, he makes this statement. He says, to this day, when they read the old Covenant, that same veil remains unlifted because it's only through Christ that it's taken away. Now he's talking about the law, the difference between the law and the spirit here in chapter three, and he's saying those that were dependent upon the law they don't understand the things that we're saying here because they're not able to, that it's veiled and he's really setting up what he's gonna get to in chapter four.
But he says in verse 18, he says, we all with. Unveiled face are beholding the glory of the Lord. In what? In the things. The word of God being transformed into the same. Im image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. So the difference here is the Judaizers, those that were
adherence to the law, they can't understand the good news of the gospel, but in contrast, we do, because we are beholding it with unveiled face, we're able to see it, and we're [00:16:00] able to be transformed from one degree of glory to the next. And then in chapter four, he gets to the fact that. There are those that don't understand the gospel, and it's them that have been, had their eyes veiled and this not by by mankind or by their own will, but even veiled by the God of this world, the God of this world being Satan.
So you asked about the designs of Satan. We see some more of that here in chapter four. And that is to keep the loss from understanding the gospel. Now, ultimately, he's powerless to do that. When God wants to save somebody, he saves, he shines the light of the glory as Paul goes on to say here in Second Corinthians four, such that people would come to understand the gospel and believe, but.
In their natural state that the minds of the lost are blinded by Satan because Satan is after doing everything that he can to keep people from coming to faith in Jesus. If Satan is at work doing these things, what's our defense? Obviously we're not talking to Satan. Are we? Should we cast out Satan or should we rebuke him when we're reading our Bibles?
When we're driving, do we ask God to protect us against Satan? Should we pray specifically for our kids or family members? Lord, please guard them against the schemes of [00:17:00] Satan. Here's my contention. It seems like we don't spend a lot of time talking about him or thinking about him in our normal everyday lives.
Right. Paul thought about him, it looks like more than we do. So should we have a greater awareness of his activity and his presence? Should we pray specific prayers and recognition of his designs? What role does Satan play in the Christian's everyday life? Yeah. I think all of that. Yes.
Except I would stop short of saying that we should address Satan with our words. I don't, so don't talk to him. Yeah, I don't. I don't see biblical precedent for that, for those that are part of the church. I think that's a dangerous realm to get into when you're conversing with the enemy. I do think praying to God, asking for protection, asking for deliverance, asking for, people talk about a hedge of protection all the time and that's really what we're talking about here is we're talking about being.
Shielded guarded from the attacks of the enemy. We've got somebody who meets with us regularly on Sunday mornings to pray for us for our church, and I appreciate that. He asks all the time, Lord, I pray that you'd bind Satan from this place that you keep Satan from interrupting what's going on here with the church and the worship and everything else going on because that is something that [00:18:00] Satan's after.
So while we don't see. At least not often the same form of maybe demonic oppression and possession that maybe some people in some more animistic cultures in the third world and other places still see today. That doesn't mean Satan's not at work here. I think he is at work and one of the ways he's at work is by causing us to believe that he's not actually at work, that he's not actually a threat, that he's not actually doing anything.
And so I think as you pointed out, we should probably be much more aware of him than we are. Is it possible that the devil can. M move someone to do something in our congregation, is it possible that he has control or some kind of power over somebody like he did with Judas? If they're an unbeliever, yes.
If they're a believer, if they're a Christian, I would say no. Because Christians can't be possessed by Satan nor possessed by any demons because the Holy Spirit dwells within us and the Holy Spirit cannot take up residence. Coincide with a demonic being. Can a Christian be oppressed by the enemy?
Can a Christian who's unwise and gives themselves over to some of those things that are like we referenced kind of tongue in cheek, the Ouija board [00:19:00] or even tarot cards, things like that. If a Christian's doing that, even lighthearted, can that open up the door to something that they don't want to have influence them and in a presence that impacts their lives in a negative way that could end up negatively impacting the church?
Yes. But that's not possession. That's a different component. What's the likelihood or probability that Satan is in our midst or visiting our church or influencing our people? So, maybe you're driving at, what I think you are in that is that Satan's not omnipresent. That Satan is not the same as God.
He can't be everywhere at one time. He's only a spatially confined being. And so to think that he has our church at the top of his list to say he's gonna spend his time with our congregation, I can't say absolutely not, but I would also say I think he's got bigger fish to fry, but he also has a legion of demons that are at his disposal that he can dispatch to all these other different places, including our church in our congregation, to do his handy work.
So it's not like we should ignore him or pretend he is not a threat. God treats him as a real threat. Mm-hmm. Not an equal threat. But [00:20:00] a real one and one that we should constantly be aware of, at least according to Paul's epistles here. It seems like, again, Paul gives a lot more attention to this. He's far more sensitive and aware of the spiritual battle that's happening around us, and I think that's a really important point for us to take.
We're not thinking about it enough because we're so Western and we're scientifically minded, and we're not often thinking about these things, but we probably should spend more time. Yep. I agree.
Eternal Perspective on Suffering
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Well, chapter four, he brings to a conclusion and again, or the conclusion for us today, but he's gonna continue his argumentation and his thought process here in chapter five.
And he's going to point to his frailty and his weakness here. He's gonna say in, in verse 16 we don't lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away. Our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
Remember, this goes back to chapter one when he is talking about being comforted, and he said that we were despair. Of life itself. That's how much they were suffering, and yet he calls that a light momentary affliction compared to what's waiting, this eternal weight of glory that he's anticipating. As he says, we look not to the things that are [00:21:00] seen, but to the things that are unseen for.
The things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. So Paul's focus here is not on necessarily our everyday circumstances, but more so he's trying to get from the everyday to the eternal, to the things that are the source of hope where this suffering that we go through now will make it, it feel like.
Light momentary affliction. So comparing eternity to what's happening today is comparing just a flesh wound to something that's a lot better. Right. Is there a really helpful analogy we can think of? Is there a movie that you might suggest they watch to get this, to get this down? And understanding, are you implying Monty Python?
The search for the whole, it's just a flesh wound. It's just a flash wound Your night. No, it's not. To Paul. What smells like, dude? Just, just a light momentary affliction. No. Bite your legs off, dude. British humor. I don't understand. It's some of it's funny. Some of it. Most of it. It just over my head. Yeah.
Don't get it. The knight who say knee. Yeah. Yeah. Or they're riding on the horses in are. Yeah. The Coconuts. [00:22:00] Coconuts, yeah. That was funny. I'll give them that one. Yeah. This is amazing that what Paul would write this, he writes something similar in Romans eight as well, and it's. It's so good that it comes from the pen of one who suffered so much.
Yeah. Because again, it's one thing for somebody who hasn't suffered to say something like this, and it wouldn't change the fact that it's true, but the fact that Paul did go through what he went through he and he writes, this is for you who are suffering that extra level of comfort to know. Okay. This is coming from somebody who can appropriately empathize with where I am and they're calling me to think about not the things that I'm going through right now, that every day, but to cast my mind, to the unseen, to the eternal.
Yeah, he got it. Something about Paul's experience with the risen savior radically changed his mind to reorient him to value the right things. Yeah, and I don't think that's outside the opportunity that we have. Granted, we're not meeting the risen Christ on a road to persecute Christians, but we still can meet that risen Christ in the pages of scripture and have our minds [00:23:00] change in the same way.
And I think that ultimately is the goal. To be so eternally minded about Christ, about the future, that really the comparative nature to our sufferings and our problems here get put in their proper place. It's not that they're insignificant entirely, they're significant, but compared to the bigger, better thing, they're not gonna be all that much.
Yep.
Closing Remarks and Prayer
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Well, let's pray for this rest of our day and we will see you again on our next one. God, thanks so much for that reality that that the eternal is gonna be so much better than what we go through right now and whether we're suffering or even perhaps more so, if life feels really good right now, Lord, this is such a good reminder to us as well, that the eternity is gonna be so much better.
Psalm 1611 in your presence is fullness of joy. Your right hand or pleasure is forevermore. Lord is good for us to be reminded of that, whether we're hurting or we're on the the top of the mountain right now. And so, God, I just pray that you make us hungry to be with you. Make us hungry to be in eternity.
And in the meantime, while we're here, help us to be useful to you as we wanna be the aroma of Christ to those around us. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Keep [00:24:00] in your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See ya. Bye.
Bernard: Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast.
PJ: Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said