EPISTLES OF COMMENDATION...
TEXT: 2COR.3:1
You will say, perhaps, that we are making a fresh attempt to recommend ourselves to your favour. What, do we need letters of recommendation to you, or from you, as some others do?/Why, you yourselves are the letter we carry about with us, written in our hearts, for all to recognize and to read./You are an open letter from Christ, promulgated through us; a message written not in ink, but in the spirit of the living God, with human hearts, instead of stone, to carry it.(KNOX NT) Does it sound like we're patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we're not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you./You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you./Christ himself wrote it--not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives--and we publish it. (MSG)
It was the custom of the ancient Roman empire to invest her goodwill on a trustworthy citizen by giving him letter of recommendation: this letter gave him acceptance in all the realm of the Roman province. Paul was given a letter of recommendation to Damascus by the then high priest. Apolous was recommended to the church in Achai by this kind of letter. So, it served as credential: acceptance with the people was gained by this means. Amongst the church of those day, a letter of this kind from the council of elders in Jerusalem would be widely accepted in any of the gentile churches. If it comes from a respected body or organisation, audience would be given to the bearer.
The bearer, in whose favour, the letter is written, would gain respect and audience with the addressee. It is an authoritative letter, commanding every body to submit to the bearer. It is like a credential or testimonial: it qualifies a person for a work among the people. It is more important than one's appearance and frame. If a man, dressed in expensive cloth and drives a presentable car, goes to a people without this kind of letter, he would be turned back. So, not gold, no power nor knowledge would grant access but this epistle of commendation.
A man in rag but with a letter of commendation in his hand, would tell a man that is expensively dressed to sit down and he would sit down. But Paul had a different view in this matter: he holds that the Corinthians are his letter of commendation. They , to him, are his credentials. When a man looks at their changed lives, Paul is quickly recommended. The work of a man in other men is the letter of commendation to Paul. This brothers does not need any letter to be accepted but his acceptance is in the work he has done in his followers.
Here is the chiefest point: in the eyes of God, the quality of a man's work is calculated by the amount of the positively affected individuals by him. Heaven does not recommend a man based on the numbers of big project in ministry or excleciasical networking but by the changed life of men under such a man. If the brothers and sisters under us are still under the power of sin, poverty and gross darkness, then we can and safely conclude that we have no epistle of commendation. It should be in people not on ordinary peppers.
Whether I would respect a man or not is predicated on the breed of those that are the result of his ministry. I don't respect any government that does not count its success based on the quality of life live by the people under her. The followers mirror the leader. A sick people shows a sick government. The developed world are attractions today because they have good leaders. Change the leader and you would have changed the people. A dwarf pew is a result of a dwarf pulpit.
