2 Corinthians: power in weakness

About the book

After 1 Corinthians, the troubles between Paul and the church in Corinth were not over. He had resolved "not to make another painful visit to you" (2 Corinthians 2:1), so there had been one painful visit already, and after it he wrote a letter "through many tears" (2 Corinthians 2:4). Waiting anxiously for Titus and his news, he crossed into Macedonia (2 Corinthians 2:12-13), and there Titus came with word that the church had repented, and comforted him (2 Corinthians 7:5-6). From Macedonia he wrote 2 Corinthians, usually dated about AD 55–56, in the map's era of the church (c. AD 30–90).

The letter opens in the names of Paul and "Timothy our brother" (2 Corinthians 1:1), and hardly anyone doubts that Paul wrote it. But many scholars think that our 2 Corinthians joins several of his letters into one. Chapters 1–9 overflow with the joy of reconciliation; from 10:1 the tone turns suddenly sharp (2 Corinthians 10:1). Many of them take chapters 10–13 as part of the tearful letter or as a later one. Some also take the passage from 2:14 to 7:4, where the story of the journey breaks off and resumes, as another letter, and chapters 8 and 9 as separate notes about the collection. The church has long read it as one letter, and many scholars still do, noting that every manuscript gives it as we have it, and that Paul may simply have turned from the reconciled church to the troublemakers.

Some in Corinth were belittling Paul's weak presence and plain speech (2 Corinthians 10:10) and casting doubt on his apostleship. So Paul defends his ministry, and in doing so opens his heart, his sufferings and his weakness, more than in any other letter.

How it unfolds

Key passages

Paul likens those who carry the gospel to clay jars:

Now we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this surpassingly great power is from God and not from us.

2 Corinthians 4:7

So "we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16). The treasure is the gospel of reconciliation: "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17). God has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given his messengers this ministry, so Paul pleads on Christ's behalf: "Be reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20). In chapters 8–9 he urges a generous gift for the poor in Jerusalem, "For God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7).

In chapters 10–13 Paul boasts, he says, as a fool (2 Corinthians 11:16-17): of beatings, prisons and shipwrecks, the sufferings of an apostle. Then he tells of a thorn in his flesh. Three times he asked the Lord to take it away, and the Lord answered:

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

Readers have taken the thorn as an illness, as persecution, as a temptation; as Matthew Henry says, "We are not told what this thorn in the flesh was" Matthew Henry. Wesley, on the Lord's answer, writes, "How tender a repulse!" John Wesley. Paul's conclusion: "For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).

The book and Christ

All the promises of God, Paul writes, are ‘Yes’ in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20): every promise of the Old Testament comes true in him. He calls himself a minister of the new covenant (2 Corinthians 3:6) that Jeremiah foretold (Jeremiah 31:31), and says that the veil over the reading of Moses is removed "only in Christ" (2 Corinthians 3:14). As the risen Jesus explained himself from Moses and all the Prophets (Luke 24:27), so with the veil taken away the Old Testament shows Christ. The God who said at creation, "Let light shine out of darkness," now shines in our hearts with the light of his glory "in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6).

At the heart of the letter is what Christ did for us:

God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

And when Paul urges the collection, he points to the same grace: "though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Reading it

Two chapters a day takes a week; begin with 2 Corinthians 1. The journey to Macedonia in 2:13 resumes at 7:5; in the long passage between, Paul reflects on his ministry. Knowing that will keep you on the path. In chapters 10–13 Paul boasts as a fool on purpose: listen for the pain and the irony in it. Then go on to Galatians.

Practice