Veiled minds
| And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. (2Corinthians4:3-5) |
As we proclaim and preach the gospel there will be those who don't "get" it. They just can't see the glory of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus the Son of God.
Why is this?
Paul explains that their minds have been veiled by the "god of this age" who is none other than Satan, who, by leading Adam and Eve into sin, plunged this world into chaos and spiritual darkness and became, for this present age, the "prince of this world."
As the prince of this world, Satan causes us to be obsessed with the things of this world: materialism, pleasure and power. God is always inviting us to know Him - The beauty of the sunrise, the bounty of His provision and those nudges in our hearts are His constant invitations to us to know Him better. When we resist the invitations of God in our lives, our minds become "veilable" and the evil one throws a veil over our hearts so that we cannot see the glory of God's grace. And the saying becomes true - "there are none so blind as those who will not see."
The Good News, as we saw in ch.3 is that if we turn to Christ the veil can be taken away. So, Paul's conclusion is very simple: Let's be absolutely sure that we are preaching Christ and not ourselves.
