'Fleshy tables of the heart'

When Paul writes to the skeptical Corinthians, he actually exploits his supposed ineptitude, explains Alex Kurz.

“His bodily presence is weak and He actually glories in that,” said Kurz in his Sunday morning sermon. “Paul is being a living demonstration to the Corinthians that the real work of God is conducted in the realm of the inner man. He’s saying to them, ‘You want a certificate of authenticity? Look at me! Look at what Christ is doing in my heart!’

Paul writes in II Cor. 12:11, “I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.”

Kurz explains, “The Corinthians are saying, ‘We need validation, Paul, because when we look at your outward appearance, you fall short of the demand and the requirements of the institutional system of religion. You’re an absolute failure when it comes to the appearance.’

“The Corinthians are being led to just evaluate and examine the outward. They concluded, ‘Paul’s a fraud! Paul’s illegitimate!’

“Paul is glorying in his weakness; in those situations in life where it seems God cannot be working in and through a person.

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“Paul has been placed in this position of having to defend himself and he says, ‘I’m through with all this!’

“II Corinthians 3:2 says, ‘Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men.’

“The people are saying, ‘Prove it, prove it, prove it,’ and Paul says, ‘You’re it! You’re the letter of authenticity!’

“Verse 3:3 says, ‘Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.’

“Paul is the canvas but who is the author of this particular letter? Jesus Christ, as the author, has written something upon the canvas of Paul’s heart, which demonstrates the Corinthians are literally the letter of authenticity!

“Do you know when you write a letter, the author actually bears the character of the writer? Do you understand why Paul says Christ is the one who is manifestly declaring something? When Jesus Christ uses Paul’s heart, Christ is inscribing His own character upon the canvas of Paul’s heart.

“You know what Paul’s saying? ‘You read my life and my ministry and you will see the reflection of the character of Jesus Christ. You will see born upon my life the very thinking that Jesus Christ has toward you. That’s the letter of authenticity.’

“The issue isn’t the outward appearance. The issue is what Paul is doing and putting up with and sacrificing for a group of ungrateful Believers. The stamp of Christ’s hand, the finger prints of Christ’s ministry, the proof that Jesus Christ is working in Paul’s ministry is stamped on Paul’s heart.

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“God wrote on tablets, walls, in the ground--but did you know God also writes in the heart? There is a fascinating parallel in Jeremiah 17:1: ‘The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars.’

“What does it mean for God to inscribe? The point of a diamond can cut glass, but do you know what a pen of iron does? This is a description of God permanently inscribing and engraving the sins of a nation on their heart. Verse 13 says, ‘O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.’

“In John 8 we cannot say with absolute certainty what the Lord Jesus is writing on the ground, but if we look at the context, in chapter 7, we know what the Lord Jesus is trying to do. He’s constantly looking for faith in His messiahship. In Jeremiah 17, this might be the clue that could shed light on what Jesus Christ is writing on the ground.”

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Here is an old article with a similar theme:

In Jeremiah 15:16, Jeremiah tells us, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.”

Obviously Jeremiah knew the Book was made up of the w-or-d-s written on the page.

Jordan says, “The whole is made up of the sum of its parts. In Scripture, the Bible writers will make a point—a whole argument of a passage will depend sometimes on one word, or two words, or one phrase. The Bible’s not afraid to hang a whole argument and a whole doctrine on just one or two words in the text. The w-o-r-d-s are that important! Not just the thought or the concept, because the w-or-d-s have meaning.”

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Jesus Christ hung the whole doctrine of His deity on the tense of one verb in John 8:58. He says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”

Jordan explains, “Jesus says, ‘There stands the doctrine of who I am.’ Jesus Christ is the Jehovah God of the Old Testament; Jesus actually means ‘Jehovah Savior.’

“Now, the Jehovah Witnesses come along and say that should be ‘I have been.’ They invent a tense—the perfect indefinite tense—which is not a tense in ANY Greek grammar that’s ever existed; it’s a figment of their imagination.

“What Christ does (in John 8:58) is He takes that present tense—‘I am’—and He says, ‘That shows you who I am.’ He bases the doctrine of His deity on the tense of a verb. What I’m saying is, that’s how important the w-or-d-s in your Bible are!

“Look at John 10:34 and watch Him do it again. He answered the Jews saying, ‘Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?’

“In this passage, He bases the doctrine on one single word. If He called them ‘gods unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken,’ and then He goes on . . .  You see He’s going to hinge an argument on how they don’t have any right to argue with Him calling Himself the Son of God if the Scripture called them ‘gods.’

“He takes that one word out of Psalm 82 and builds His case on it. That’s how carefully the Lord Jesus Christ considered the authority of that Book!

“The Bible writers make a whole point depend upon one phrase, the tense of a verb, a single word in a passage or the number of a noun—that’s how minutely close God calls it!

“The w-o-r-d-s are important—not just the phrases, not just the concepts, not just the ideas, not just the sense and the flow. That’s all important, but the words . . .  By the way, this says something about preservation too. God intended that His word be preserved that accurately or how would you know for sure that the word was singular or plural, or that the word was in the present tense if God didn’t preserve the w-o-r-d-s?!

“If all these passages are true . . . if you alter one phrase, or you omit one phrase; if you change the voice of verb, or the mood of a verb, or the tense of one verb . . . if you change a single number of a noun in that Book that’s to break the Scripture! That’s how close God cuts it!”

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The Lord spoke face-to-face with Paul just like He did with Moses and Paul went out and preached the w-o-r-d-s God put in his mouth.

When Paul writes, for instance, in I Tim. 6:3, ‘If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .’ we know the things he wrote down were the individual words of Christ.

Jordan says, “Folks, those passages are strong in regard to Pauline authority but they’re also strong in the doctrine of inspiration. The words of Christ to us today are found in Paul’s epistles! What you have are not just Paul’s interpretations of things that Christ gave him—not just Paul’s take on the ministry of Christ—but the very w-o-r-d-s of the Lord Jesus Christ given to Paul and written down by Paul.

As Paul confirms in II Corinthians 3:3: “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”

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Israel, at the time of the writing of the book of Romans, still had an advantage in that the Word of God was given to them and the Gentiles had to go up to Israel to get it.

Paul reasons in Romans 3, “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.”

Jordan says, “The Jew has an advantage in a whole lot of things, basically and chiefly that he’s got the Word of God and these Gentiles have got to start from point zero.

Later in Romans 10, Paul writes, “For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.”

Jordan explains, “The nation Israel falls and yet God Almighty doesn’t just lop them off all in one whack. As Paul says in Romans 11:12, ‘Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?’

“Folks, they had a privileged position and status but there’s a slowly moving away from these people as being the focal point of God’s program.

“There’s a slow ascendancy of Gentiles throughout the Book of Acts in 33 to 63 A.D., along in there. And through that time period, the book of Romans, Corinthians, Galatians and Thessalonians are written. The diminishing process does not end until Acts 28.”

 

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God’s design in the inspiration of Scripture is to literally make His Word equal to Himself.

“We have a saying in the world, ‘A man is as good as his word,’ and that’s God’s design,” explains Jordan. “When you’re dealing with God’s Word, you’re dealing with God Himself—God’s own words. It’s simply not like any other book that’s come down through history.”

In Matthew 22:31, Jesus Christ asks, “Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God?” and then cites Exodus 3:6.

Jordan says, “Now, years ago in my life that verse right there (in Matthew) changed my whole viewpoint about the Bible; it revolutionized my thinking about what God’s Word was. I realized that what I was reading was what God said! When I read the Bible, I’m reading God’s words!

“It’s a strong statement about how the Lord Jesus Christ viewed the written text of the Word of God He had in His possession. He said, ‘It’s not just what Moses said or what Moses wrote; it’s what God said to you! Haven’t you read that?!’ ”

In Exodus 4:15, God actually instructs Moses regarding his brother Aaron, “And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.”

Jordan explains, “God said, ‘I’ll take my words and put them in your mouth, Moses, and then you transfer them over.’ It’s pretty obvious what’s going on—just look at verses 28 and 30. God puts the words in their mouth; the words the men are speaking are words God puts in their mouth!”

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When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai holding the Ten Commandments, he first said to the people, “And God spake all these words, saying . . . ”

Jordan says, “You see, when Moses spake to them, he gave them the w-o-r-d-s that God gave him to say. Notice in Numbers 11:24 (‘And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the LORD’) Moses got the w-o-r-d-s and communicated them to the people.”

In Numbers 22:38, Balaam the seer, who wanted to curse Israel on behalf of Moabite King Balak, prophesied against his will after God forcing him to utter words he didn’t want to speak. The verse reads, “And Balaam said unto Balak, Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say any thing? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak.”

Jordan explains, “Balaam’s saying, ‘I ain’t got no choice—that’s all that’ll come out of my mouth because I’m God’s spokesman!’ ”

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II Samuel 23: 1-2 reads, “Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said,
[2] The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.”

Jordan reasons, “Now, that’s some claim to inspiration, brother! There’s a man conscious of what’s going on! He says, ‘The Spirit of God spake by me and His word was in my tongue.’ ”

“Come over to Mark 12:35 and notice the attitude of the New Testament people about what David said. What does the Lord Jesus think about it? Does He think David’s being a little over-zealous? Is that bibliolatry? I mean, ‘Do you have a hyper-view of inspiration, David?’

“Jesus says, ‘For David himself said by the Holy Ghost,’ confirming the inspiration of Scripture, my friend! Not only did Jesus, but the Apostle Peter did too.

 

"Peter says in Acts 1:16, ‘Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.’ Peter’s obviously confirming God’s inspiration of the Old Testament.

“Come to Acts 28:25 and notice Paul does exactly the same thing. He quotes Isaiah 6. Notice, by the way, he writes, ‘Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet.’ That’s the prophet Isaiah. Sometimes names are spelled differently because, while the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament was in Greek.

“Both of those languages are dead languages which is a great advantage. When you hear people complain about the Old English, do you know there’s a tremendous advantage to the fact it’s not in use today?

“People say, ‘Oh, I can’t understand it; we need to update it,’ but see the language we use today is in constant flux. The Old English, just like the Greek and Hebrew, are dead languages, meaning it doesn’t change. The meanings are static; therefore you don’t have to wonder what the words mean in a given situation. We can depend on a consistent definition for them.

“The medical profession, for example, uses Latin. I had a Latin teacher in college who, on the first day, told us a poem we should learn: ‘Latin is a language, as dead as it can be. First it killed the Romans, now it’s killing me!’

“A doctor can write down a phrase in Latin and know a hundred years from now it’ll mean the same thing it does right now. It doesn’t change its meaning. And so God, as He’s preserved this thing forward, as we have this King James Bible, it’s an advantage, not a disadvantage, that it’s in a dead language.”

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Twice in Acts 3 alone we’re told “God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” In Luke 70, we’re told Zacharias, being filled with the Holy Ghost, confirmed that God “spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began.”

Jordan says, “If you just read the Bible and take what the Bible writers and speakers say about inspiration, you don’t have much problem understanding that the Scripture came right out of the mouth of God and God has made His Word equal to Himself.

A great passage in Jeremiah 1, where God tells Jeremiah He’s going to use him as His mouthpiece, reads, “Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[5] Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
[6] Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.
[7] But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
[8] Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.
[9] Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.”

Jordan reasons, “When you get out preaching the Word and people start making faces at you, there’s your passage! I used to use (Jer. 1: 8, 9) when I preached in the rescue mission as a young man. I said, ‘Lord, I’m not going to be afraid of them.’ They would make faces and try to scare a 17-year-old kid to death, and they could have flat done it to me, but a passage like that can give you some courage.

“God said it to Jeremiah and did it to him, and He’ll do it for you too! God says, ‘I have put my words in thy mouth.’ Now, that’s fascinating! Jeremiah was to write down and give out the revelation of God in God’s own words.

“In Jeremiah 5:14 and 6:18, when they reject what Jerry says, God says, ‘You’re rejecting me.’ God’s equal to His Word.

“In Jeremiah 36, you read about Jehudi, the man who with a pen knife destroys the Word and casts it aside. God instructs Jeremiah, ‘Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel.’

“Understand something, there are a lot of prophets who never wrote anything down, but a lot of them did, and when God gave that prophet a prophecy or a thing to say—God wrote down stuff too. So you’re not just talking about oral communication; you’re talking about written words also.

“Jeremiah dictates to his secretary Baruch and it says Baruch ‘wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book.’ Now, there isn’t any way to describe that except dictation; you don’t have to be afraid of that word dictation."