So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. – 2 Corinthians 4:18

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 21, 2021): 2 Corinthians 4

At heart, I am a scientist. I believe in the scientific method, and I like learning through observation. I am not suspicious of science. And I recognize that there are many things that, not long ago, were unexplainable, that now science can explain. There is an argument that states that the things that are unexplainable to us now are just things for which we haven’t yet discovered a scientific explanation. But that, someday, even these mysteries will also disappear under the intense gaze of science.

The speed of scientific advancement during my lifetime has been incredible. As a consumer of science fiction, it is sometimes humorous to read old science fiction novels and recognize that the guesses found within their pages often have either been realized and surpassed or were so far outside of reality that they have been effectively disproved and discarded. As I write this, the Mars Rover, “Perseverance,” explores Mars searching for life on the red planet. But the life that it is searching for are not the inhabitants of Barsoom (Mars) that Edgar Rice Burroughs imagined in his “John Carter” novels. Microscopic life is the only life that has ever graced the fourth planet of our social system, and even that is an open question. Yet, we hope to find life that did not originate on our blue marble.

Yet, despite all of this, I recognize that science cannot, and will not, be able to explain everything. Our lives need to make room for the mysteries that life brings and recognize the unseen and unexplainable things that shape our lives. Life is filled with things that cannot be seen, like friendships and respect, and yet are essential to life.

And God who remains unseen.

From the point of view of what could be seen, Paul’s life was an incredible failure. It had begun with so much promise. When he was young, everyone recognized that Paul was headed for great things. He had the education and the political connections to become a shaper in Israel. The fact that he had inherited Roman citizenship from his father meant that doors would be open to him that would remain closed for many of his contemporaries.

But Paul had thrown all of that away, exchanging the heights of Jewish society for a life of hardship and suffering. And Paul recognized the way that his colleagues were judging him. Almost every single one of them would look at Paul and shake their heads, muttering about what might have been. This is what could be seen.

Instead, Paul had his vision fixed on a different reality, what was unseen. In response to all of the head shakes, Paul argues that what his critics think that he should have achieved was only temporary. And Paul wasn’t interested in the temporary. What he wanted was what was eternal. He had set his sight and was chasing after the unseen things of God.

And his encouragement was that the Corinthians, and his letters subsequent readers, would dare to do the same thing; exchanging the seen for the unseen and the temporary for the eternal.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5