Context No. 3464 of 4322 · 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 3:1-6: in context

1Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as do some, letters of commendation to you or from you? 2You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men, 3being revealed that you are a letter of Christ, served by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone, but in tablets that are hearts of flesh. 4Such confidence we have through Christ toward God, 5not that we are sufficient of ourselves to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God, 6who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Paul says the Corinthians themselves are his letter of recommendation, a letter of Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on human hearts. Changed lives are the proof of a true ministry, more than any written credential could be.

And he is careful to give the credit where it belongs: not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God. Whatever fruit his ministry bore, God produced it; Paul takes no credit for the transformation of these lives. And he names the great difference between the old way and the new: the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Mere rules written on stone can only expose and condemn; it is the Spirit of God who writes on the heart and brings life. Real change, in ourselves and in others, is God's work by his Spirit, not our own achievement; our whole sufficiency for it comes from him.

Do I rely on the Spirit of God, whose work alone gives life and changes hearts, rather than on my own sufficiency or on mere rules that cannot make anyone alive?

Sources

2 Corinthians 3:5: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God."
2 Corinthians 3:6: "[He] made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant... For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
2 Corinthians 3:3: "You are a letter of Christ... written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God... in tablets that are hearts of flesh."