Episode 2859 - Lesson 9 - Saturday August 22 - Love-driven Ministry

Sabbath AfternoonRead for This Week's Study: 2 Cor. 1:3-14, 2 Cor. 2:17, 2 Cor. 4:2, 1 Cor. 16:5-7, 2 Cor. 7:5-13, 2 Cor. 2:5-17Memory Text: "For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you" (2 Corinthians 2:4, NKJV).The apostle Paul didn't always have it so easy.Besides jail and the life-threatening situations he faced, he also wrote: "From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness--besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches" (2 Cor. 11:24-28, NKJV).What we see in his letters to the Corinthians is some of the "deep concern" that he had for this church. Yet, amid it all, his love for them never failed, just as Christ's love for us never fails us. In fact, it was from Jesus that Paul learned to love the churches in a way that reflects the love that Jesus has for us (2 Cor. 5:14; see 1 Cor. 11:1).* Study this week's lesson to prepare for Sabbath, August 29.