Are you present?

A few weeks ago, I read 2 Corinthians. I love reading the Epistles; the men who wrote them knew exactly what Christians from every time need to hear (I guess that is one of the advantages of having the Holy Spirit tell you what to write!). Those men were the pillars of the Church. Christ is the foundation, and they were the pillars built upon Him that provide structure for the rest of the building. Paul, Peter, John, James–their sermons must have been amazing!

Yet, in 2 Corinthians 10:10, we read that Paul was mocked because his sermons weren’t as strong as his letters! "‘For his letters,’ they say, ‘are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.’" In a world where much of our communication with other Christians is via the internet, we can easily "know" someone through their writing rather than their speech. We have a great opportunity to communicate with people without having to worry about our "bodily presence being weak" or our "speech contemptible." Those of you who don’t know me very well might be surprised if you saw me try to speak in front of people. While I can normally give a Bible study lesson speaking clearly and not too terribly fast, there have been times when little girls will come up to me afterwards and say, "It’s okay, Abbie. You don’t need to shake and look so scared. We’re not going to hurt you." (Talk about getting embarrassed...!) Even though I study the Bible and pray before starting a lesson, I still struggle sometimes with a weak presence teaching! But with blogs, email, and other modes of communication, I can "talk" to people about what I’m learning without having to actually talk. We can encourage and learn from other Christians through technology without having to worry about shyness or speech impediments getting in the way.

BUT–

We have a problem. It’s easy to separate our "cyber life" from our "real life." On this blog, I can talk about all the great things I’m learning in my Bible reading, how God’s working in my life, and all sorts of Christian things. But what you can’t see is my bad attitude when my mom asks me to set the table. I doubt any of you would intentionally live separate lives online and in the real world, but it’s very easy to let your personality, interests, character–to let you–slide around when people can’t see you or know "the real you." Online, we only know what the other person wants to tell us. Do you see how that can be a problem even with well-intentioned Christians? That’s why, after confessing that his speech is contemptible, Paul follows up with this in verse 11: "Let such a person consider this, that what we are in word by letters when we are absent, such we will also be in deed when we are present." As Christians, all of us are living our lives as a reflection of the one Life. Whether we’re communicating in person, via snail mail, email, blogs, or Skype, we need to speak the same message...we can’t let our character be dependent on the media we’re using. We need to learn how to use the same boldness in a face-to-face conversation that we use on a blog. I am much more comfortable writing a long blog post about the Gospel than going out and telling it to a friend, but I need to learn how to say the same words absent and present. That’s why Paul’s sermons were powerful even if the presentation wasn’t–he wrote, spoke, and lived one message no matter where he was.