2 Corinthians

No. 66 2 Corinthians 5:1-5
Paul has been writing to the church at Corinth about the wear and tear of his work, being struck down, carrying death around in his body, wasting away outwardly. This passage is his image for what happens to...
No. 287 2 Corinthians 1:8-14
Paul opens this letter by telling the Corinthians about something that nearly finished him, an affliction in the province of Asia so severe that he does not bother describing its details, only its weight. He...
No. 368 2 Corinthians 5:11-15
Paul is being questioned about his motives, and in defending himself he lets slip what actually drives his entire life. It is not what you might guess. It is not fear of failure, or ambition, or even duty. For...
No. 606 2 Corinthians 13:7-14
As Paul closes this letter to a church that has given him a great deal of grief, some of whom have openly questioned his authority, he prays for them, and the shape of his prayer is remarkable. I pray to God...
No. 767 2 Corinthians 13:1-6
Paul is closing his most painful letter, to a church that has spent a lot of energy questioning whether he is a real apostle. He tells them he is coming a third time, and warns that this time he will not go...
No. 915 2 Corinthians 11:12-27
Paul is dealing with rival teachers in Corinth who have dazzled the church with their credentials and eloquence, and who question Paul's authority. Against his own instinct, Paul stoops to their game and...
No. 970 2 Corinthians 4:7-12
Paul has been describing the glory of the gospel he carries, and now he sets it against the frailty of the people who carry it. We have this treasure in jars of clay, he says, so that the surpassing power...
No. 988 2 Corinthians 10:1-6
Paul appeals to the Corinthians by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, aware that some accuse him of being bold in his letters but weak in person, of operating by mere human means. He answers that although...
No. 1079 2 Corinthians 3:12-18
Paul contrasts the old covenant with the new using the image of Moses' veil. When Moses came down from meeting God, his face shone, and he veiled it. Paul reads that veil as a picture of a hardening, a...
No. 1080 2 Corinthians 4:13-18
Paul is being worn down by suffering in ministry, and here he explains why he does not give up. He speaks because he believes, sharing the spirit of faith that says I believed, therefore I spoke, and because...
No. 1292 2 Corinthians 10:12-18
Paul refuses to play the game his rivals are playing. Some, he says, commend themselves and measure themselves by one another, comparing themselves with themselves, and in doing so they show they have no...
No. 1403 2 Corinthians 6:11-18
Paul speaks to the Corinthians with unusual tenderness and directness. Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians, he says; our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own...
No. 2017 2 Corinthians 7:1-7
Paul writes with unusual openness about a hard season. When we came into Macedonia, he says, our flesh had no relief, but we were afflicted on every side. Conflicts were without, and fears were within. Even...
No. 2052 2 Corinthians 2:1-11
Paul writes about someone in the Corinthian church who had caused grief and had been disciplined by the community. Now Paul urges a change of course toward that person: the punishment inflicted by the majority...
No. 2264 2 Corinthians 8:1-7
Paul holds up the churches of Macedonia as an example of generosity that came from an unexpected place. In a severe test of affliction, he says, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in a...
No. 2314 2 Corinthians 4:1-6
Paul describes how people come to see and know God. He speaks of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, and of how the minds of unbelievers are blinded so that they cannot see its light....
No. 2398 2 Corinthians 11:1-6
Paul writes with what he calls a godly jealousy, like a father who promised his daughter in marriage to one husband and means to present her pure. His fear is specific: that as the serpent deceived Eve by...
No. 2461 2 Corinthians 8:8-15
Paul is gathering a collection for poor believers in Jerusalem, and he refuses to command it. Instead he sets one thing before the Corinthians: you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was...
No. 2510 2 Corinthians 9:1-5
Paul is finishing his arrangements for the collection for the poor in Jerusalem, and he wants it handled a particular way. He sends brothers ahead so the Corinthians' gift will be ready in advance, prepared as...
No. 2617 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
Paul describes the life of God's servants in a run of striking paradoxes. Having proved themselves through affliction, beatings, imprisonments, and sleepless nights, he says they live as sorrowful yet always...
No. 2687 2 Corinthians 1:1-7
Paul opens his most personal letter not with argument but with blessing: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort." He has been through real...
No. 2761 2 Corinthians 12:1-9
Forced to defend his ministry, Paul reaches for the one credential that should silence his critics: a man caught up to the third heaven, to Paradise, hearing things too holy to repeat. It was himself, fourteen...
No. 2810 2 Corinthians 3:7-11
Paul compares two covenants by their glory. If the ministry that came chiseled on stone, which he calls a ministry of death and condemnation, arrived with such glory that Israel could not bear to look at the...
No. 3020 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Here Paul compresses the whole gospel into a few verses. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and the new has come. And all of it is from God, who reconciled us to himself...
No. 3352 2 Corinthians 2:12-17
Paul gives thanks that God always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ, spreading through us the fragrance of the knowledge of him in every place. He pictures believers as an aroma, the sweet smell of...
No. 3366 2 Corinthians 5:6-10
Paul gives one of Scripture's clearest statements of how the Christian lives now: we walk by faith, not by sight. In this life we are, in a sense, away from the Lord, not yet seeing him face to face, and so we...
No. 3377 2 Corinthians 1:15-24
Paul, accused of being unreliable because he changed his travel plans, turns his defense into a meditation on God's faithfulness. His point: God is not like a fickle person who says both yes and no. In Christ,...
No. 3390 2 Corinthians 7:8-16
Paul reflects on a hard letter he had sent, one that grieved the Corinthians, and he distinguishes two kinds of sorrow. Godly grief, he says, produces a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret,...
No. 3464 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
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...
No. 4125 2 Corinthians 12:10-21
Paul makes a statement that turns the world's thinking upside down: I take pleasure in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions and calamities, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I...
No. 4171 2 Corinthians 11:28-33
After listing all his sufferings for Christ, beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, dangers, Paul names one more burden, and it is not physical: apart from all these external things, there is the daily pressure...
No. 4185 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Paul teaches about generous giving, and his words overflow with encouragement. He begins with a principle: whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully. Then...
No. 4205 2 Corinthians 11:7-11
Paul reminds the Corinthians of how he served them: he preached the good news to them free of charge, refusing to be a financial burden. He even took support from other churches so that he could serve the...
No. 4223 2 Corinthians 10:7-11
Paul is under attack from critics who belittle him, saying his letters are weighty but his presence is weak. In responding, he says something revealing about the authority God had given him: it was given for...
No. 4266 2 Corinthians 8:16-24
Paul is organizing a large financial gift from the churches for the poor believers in Jerusalem, and he takes great care over how the money is handled. He sends trusted, proven men to carry it, and he explains...