Today, St. Paul gives us another warning about the dangers of the factions that were already leading people away from The Only Church Jesus Founded. 2 Cor 11:1-11 includes a serious warning to the early Catholics of Corinth about the “serpent” and its deception.
“Brothers and sisters: If only you would put up with a little foolishness from me! Please put up with me. For I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts may be corrupted from a sincere and pure commitment to Christ.”
We see the clear words of St. Paul: serpents and schisms. He is telling us that the early schismatics are personifications of “the serpent” in the Garden. They were pretending to tell the truth about Jesus and The Only Church He Founded. Instead, they Eve and Adam into sin.
After he compares the first founders of factions to “the serpent”, St. Paul moves on to describe those who let themselves be led into disobedience. He tells us of those who are led into disobedience by those earliest Protestants, “your thoughts may be corrupted”. He needed a word that strong to describe the destruction of schism! And, that corruption leads to a fall from “a sincere and pure commitment to Christ.” that is only found in The Church Jesus Founded, not its schisms.
Wow! He forces us to an unspoken comparison of Mary and those who followed Eve. Eve gave into evil and temptation and evil. Mary, The Mother of Jesus, did not. Just a few years after Jesus said, and while His Blessed Mother was still alive, the serpent was already winnowing wheat from chaff. “I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you The Keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.” was being undermined by the do-it-yourself schismatics.
From our vantage point, two thousand years later, we see that The Only Church Jesus Founded was, in the person of that early Bishop, St. Paul, himself, was telling all who cared enough just who was prompting the schisms. From that day to this, souls that thought they were moving to salvation were heading in the opposite direction!
St. Paul’s warning still stands. To this day, “as the serpent deceived Eve in the Garden”, people are being led away from The Only Church Jesus Founded.
He lets us know even more: “For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, for if you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it well enough.” That cannot help but remind one of those who slide into the many, many schisms in every age.
Of what does the conclusion of this passage remind us? “For I think that I am not in any way inferior to these ‘superapostles.’ Even if I am untrained in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.” Are the ‘superapostles’ St. Paul mentions the same as today’s multi-millionaire, megga-church ministers?
