Blind to the Gospel
You may easily lose heart in reaching out to nonbelievers with the gospel (2 Cor 4:1). Sometimes this happens because nonbelievers respond to you in disappointing ways, rejecting your heartfelt overtures or responding to your biblical input in an aggressive manner. When this happens, believers may choose to shift towards shrewd or clever methods, adjusting and changing their message so that it appeals to their unbelieving audience and diminishes their own personal hardships (2 Cor 4:2).Despite some serious blowback and suffering of his own, Paul refused to do this. He doubled down on his commitment to teach the truth as clearly and understandably as possible, regardless of the response he received (2 Cor 4:2). To support this choice, he highlighted the underlying reason why nonbelievers reject the gospel. They reject the clearest, most understandable gospel presentations - even from the apostle Paul - because they are spiritually blind (2 Cor 4:3-4). About this blunt reality, a man named Charles Hodge said this: "The reason or cause of this fact was not to be sought either in the nature of the gospel, or in the mode of its exhibition, but in the state and character of those who rejected it. The sun does not cease to be sun although the blind do not see it" [1]. People did not reject or repudiate the gospel because Paul had somehow failed to communicate in an effective manner. Said in another way, their poor or negative response did not discredit his ministry.As Paul explains, a clear and accurate gospel presentation continues to be covered (or "veiled") from the view of nonbelievers who hear it. This happens because nonbelievers find the good news of salvation offensive rather than appealing, even as they are being destroyed. To receive this message, they must acknowledge their sin, reject their personal attempts at being righteous, and embrace the one, true God on his terms, not their own. What's more, the suffering and marginalization that Christians experience add to the reasons why nonbelievers tend to back away from Christ rather than step forward. They want a god who guarantees materialistic comfort, worldly success, and less suffering, not more. As one commentator explains, "They want something for nothing, and such an attitude makes them easy prey for the unscrupulous peddler who panders to their selfish aspirations" [2]. Just as he did to Adam and Eve in the beginning when he pulled mankind away from God, Satan (whom Paul calls here "the god of this age") appeals to these base desires. In doing so, he blinds nonbelievers to the good news of Jesus so successfully that they reject it even when (and especially when) they hear it in a clear and accurate way.Knowing this should encourage you to resist the temptation to change the way that you share the gospel with people. If you are going to change the way you witness, then you should do so only in such a way that makes it more clear and accurate, in line with the truth of God and in a Christlike manner. But you should not seek to make it more appealing to a nonbeliever, because a nonbeliever wants to hear the wrong things anyway. The salad dressing industry makes profits from our desire to "sweeten up" our greens, even though the greens are perfectly healthy (and in fact, more healthy) without their dressings. But the gospel needs no sweetening. Nonbelievers do not receive the gospel because a believer like you (or the apostle Paul) convince them through sophisticated methods, attractive appeals, or an overpowering manner. They do so for another reason, which Paul describes in the following verses.
[1] C. Hodge, An Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (1859; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980) 84-5.[2] David E. Garland, 2 Corinthians, vol. 29, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1999), 209.
