The text for Pastor John's message this morning is found in Paul's second letter to the

Corinthians chapter 3 and follow along as I read verses 1 through 12.

At 2 Corinthians 3, 1 through 12.

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?

Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts to be known and read by all men.

And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us,

written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on

on tablets of stone, but on tablets of stone,

but on tablets of human hearts.

Such as the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.

Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything is coming from us.

Our competence is from God. who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant,

not in a written code, but in the Spirit.

For the written code kills, but the spirit gives life.

Now if the dispensation of death carved in letters on stone came with such splendor that the Israelites could not look at Moses' face because of its brightness fading as this was.

Will not the dispensation of the spirit be attended with greater

splendour? For if there was splendour in the dispensation of condemnation,

the dispensation of righteousness must far exceed it in

splendor. Indeed, in this case what once had

splendor has come to have no splendor at all because of the splendor that surpasses it. For if what faded away

came with splendor, what is permanent must have much more splendor.

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