Stick-figure lesson

Stick-figure lesson

Bible: 2 Corinthians 10:1-11

Reading

What we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions
when we are present (V.11).

A friend of mine was leading our Bible study group. She started by drawing a stick figure on a sheet of paper. She wrote over it, “The private self”. Then she drew a big circle around the figure, and named it “The public self”. Her point was simple: we can be very different people depending on if we are with others or just on our own. I paused during her lesson and wondered, Am I the same person in public that I am in private? Paul wrote letters to the church in Corinth to encourage them and also challenge them about how they were living. As he neared the end of this letter (2 CORINTHIANS 10), he talked directly to the people who said he was different in private and in public. They said he was bold in his letters but weak in person (10:10). While Paul knew a lot and could teach well, he didn’t always speak well. “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words,” he had written earlier, “but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 CORINTHIANS 2:4). But his later letter showed he was the same person in public and private, “Such people should realise that what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present” (2 CORINTHIANS 10:11). Are you the same person at school compared to the one you are at home when you’re alone in your bedroom? Are you the same person in prayer as the one chilling at a friend’s house?

WHO ARE WE WHEN WE THINK NO ONE IS
WATCHING?

Youth Edition – Our Daily Bread Ministries