2Corinthians:3
Seeker Overlay ON
*
Are we beginning to recommend ourselves again ?
Unlike some people ,
we do not need letters of recommendation to you or from you ,
do we ?
*
You are our letter ,
written in our hearts and known and read by everyone .
*
You are demonstrating that you are Christ '
s letter ,
produced by our service ,
written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God ,
not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts .
*
Such is the confidence that we have in God through Christ .
*
By ourselves we are not qualified to claim that anything comes from us .
Rather ,
our credentials come from God ,
*
who has also qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant ,
which is not written but spiritual ,
because the written text brings death ,
but the Spirit gives life .
*
Now if the ministry of death that was inscribed in letters of stone came with such glory that the people of Israel could not gaze on Moses ’
face (
because the glory was fading away from it ),
*
will not the Spirit '
s ministry have even more glory ?
*
For if the ministry of condemnation has glory ,
then the ministry of justification has an overwhelming glory .
*
In fact ,
that which once had glory lost its glory ,
because the other glory surpassed it .
*
For if that which fades away came through glory ,
how much more does that which is permanent have glory ?
*
Therefore ,
since we have such a hope ,
we speak with great boldness ,
*
not like Moses ,
who kept covering his face with a veil to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of what was fading away .
*
However ,
their minds were hardened ,
for to this day the same veil is still there when they read the old covenant .
Only in union with Christ is that veil removed .
*
Yet even to this day ,
when Moses is read ,
a veil covers their hearts .
*
But whenever a person turns to the Lord ,
the veil is removed .
*
Now the Lord is the Spirit ,
and where the Lord '
s Spirit is ,
there is freedom .
*
As all of us reflect the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces ,
we are being transformed into the same image with ever-increasing glory by the Lord '
s Spirit .