Join us this week as we explore the Apostle Paul's powerful message in 2 Corinthians 3 about personal transformation. Discover the secret to how God changes lives through the work of the Holy Spirit, as revealed in Paul's own ministry. Learn how contemplating God's glory through scripture, worship, prayer, and fellowship can gradually transform us into the image of Christ. Don't miss this opportunity to gain insight into how the Spirit enables us to change and grow in our faith, and how we can help others experience this life-changing power.
BBCC Bible Study Notes
GOD'S WORK – How People Change
February 9th
BBCC Verse of the Week: 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV) “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit
Study Notes
Has the veil been removed from your heart? Have the Scriptures become alive? Does Christ make sense to you? Or perhaps this is just beginning to happen to you. Then pray, asking Christ to strip away the veil. If you do, I can promise you, on the basis of God’s Word, that he will. The dramatic picture of Christ’s hand lifting the veil from our darkened hearts pulses with liberation and freedom and, of course, reality. So Paul declares, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (v. 17). “Lord” can either refer to God the Father or Christ the Son. But what is emphasized here is the close identification between the Lord and the Spirit. So Moses’ experience of the Lord (Yahweh) in the Tent of Meeting is equivalent to the experience of the Spirit in Paul’s ministry. Unveiled before God, Moses was liberated to love and serve God and his people. Here in 2 Corinthians Paul’s emphasis is that the freedom to obey the Law comes from the power of the Spirit — “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” — and that this is authentic freedom. Through the work of the Holy Spirit there is liberation to do the right thing, to consider others first, to love others as we ought, to forgive the unforgivable, to return good for evil. And more, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). – Kent Hughes
Paul proclaims that new covenanters have an ongoing, unimpeded, face-to-face relationship with God: they constantly gaze at the Lord’s glory by the work of the Spirit in their lives. The result is that they “are being transformed into the same image.” The verb μεταμορφόω (metamorphoō)—which means “to change in a manner visible to others, be transfigured,” or “to change inwardly in fundamental character or condition, be changed, be transformed” (BDAG 639)—only finds expression four times in the biblical literature: twice in relation to the transfiguration accounts in Matthew (17:2) and Mark (9:2), once in Romans (12:2), where Paul speaks of the Christian’s transformation by mind renewal, and here. As Moses was changed by his encounter with God (Exod. 34:29–30), so those of the new covenant are changed by their experience of the presence of God through the ministry of the Spirit. When the apostle writes that that change is “into the same image” (τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα, tēn autēn eikona), he is not speaking of “the same image as each other” (Belleville 1991: 296), but rather a transformation into the image of the glory of God that we are “observing.” – George Guthrie
When we gather for worship, we gather with an eschatological vision. We acknowledge that all space is God’s space, but we also recognize that it is contaminated by human rebellion. In worship we experience in microcosm what we will enjoy for all eternity, and we anticipate the day when God will make all things new. In the meantime, worship space that lifts our minds and spirits out of the mundane world to God, who resides in ineffable glory in the heavens, brings glory to him and transformation to the worshiper. It reminds us that our primary citizenship is not here in this world torn by sin and strife, but in the City whose maker and builder is God. Within sacred space we are cleansed from the contamination of this world and equipped to reenter it as cleansed agents of grace, as God’s polished royal treasure, declaring the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). – Daniel L. Block What is God seeking to produce in his people? He intends us to be people who are moving toward each other in community. He removed all the barriers so that we can be people who hope, love, worship, and serve together. It is very important to him. It is impossible to read this passage and come away with the idea that Christianity is a “just me and God” religion. Have you ever heard someone say, “Yes, I am a Christian, but I don’t go to church. Why do I need that when I have the Lord?” Or, “What is most important is my personal devotion to Christ, not the church.” The Bible never separates the two. Our salvation connects us to God and his people. It is not an either-or but a both-and arrangement. It is not just in heaven that we will be united around the throne of God. Our personal relationship with Christ unites us to believers now! – Paul David Tripp
