Overview:
In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, we learn that Paul was not the only game in town when it came to Christian preachers at Corinth. Rival evangelists have shown up, preaching a different Christian theology and challenging Paul’s authority as a true apostle. The letter is by and large Paul’s defense to these charges, and in his typically self-centered style, he argues for his status as a true apostle, and for his message as the one and only true gospel of Jesus Christ.
The letter was written in about 57 AD from Macedonia, and there is no serious dispute among scholars that this is a genuine letter written by Paul himself. There are, however, disagreements as to whether the letter as we have it was originally penned as a single letter, or whether the text we have is actually a combination of fragments from several letters that Paul wrote. (Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, p.542.)
1:1 As in the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul opens by identifying himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus. Not all of his letters begin with this claim. In the opening section of Philippians, Paul identifies himself as a “servant” (literally, “slave”) of Christ, and in 1 Thessalonians, Paul’s first surviving letter, he introduces himself as simply “Paul.”
Paul addresses 2 Corinthians not only to those Christians who are at Corinth, but to those who are in all Achaia (Greece). Thus, the audience is somewhat broader than that of 1 Corinthians.
1:4-5 Although these appear to be general statements about all Christians and the comfort they receive from God in spite of their suffering, it is clear from vv.6-7 that Paul is talking about himself when he uses “we” and “us,” as he contrasts in v.6 the “we” who are afflicted with the “you” who are comforted.
1:8-9 This terrible affliction which caused Paul such great despair is not described in any of his letters. Some commentators speculate that it is the same event mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:32, where Paul speaks of fighting with beasts at Ephesus, but that is merely a guess. But even without those details, we have a conflict between v.8 and v.4. If God indeed comforts us in all our troubles (v.4) how could Paul have been so utterly hopeless that he “despaired of life itself”? (v.8)
1:10 Paul hopes that God will deliver him again, but he is not clear what affliction he currently suffers from. Many of his comments in 2 Corinthians remain cryptic, as they assume background information that would have been known to his readers in Corinth, but which remains a mystery to the modern reader.
1:12 We will read later (10:17) that whoever boasts should “boast of the Lord.” But here Paul boasts of his own “holiness and godly sincerity.” There are many more self-serving boasts sprinkled throughout this letter, all of which violate Paul’s own advice in 10:17 to boast only of the Lord.
1:13-14 Paul writes only what the Corinthians “can read and understand.” So far their knowledge is only partial (v.14). But this contradicts the opening of the first letter, where he declares that the Corinthians have been enriched with “all knowledge” and that they “are not lacking in any spiritual gift.” (1 Corinthians 1:5,7) The first letter itself is not even consistent on this point, as 1 Corinthians 3:2 is more in line with the present passage. There, Paul admits that he could not address the Corinthians as mature spiritual thinkers, so taught them as “babes in Christ” who were not yet ready for the solid food of full spiritual knowledge.
1:18 Both here (“as surely as God is faithful”) and in v.23 (“I call God to witness against me”) Paul invokes God as witness that he is telling the truth. Calling on God as witness to one’s truthfulness is an oath. (See Merriam Webster online dictionary.) But Jesus told his followers to “make no oath at all.” (Matthew 5:34) So why doesn’t Paul follow Jesus’s advice?
2:1 We have no record of this “painful visit” to Corinth. Presumably it occurred after the writing of 1 Corinthians, but we have no details in any of Paul’s letters as to what this painful visit involved, other than Paul’s own defense here in 2 Corinthians, which again leaves most of the background unstated. Based on his own self-justifications later in the letter, we may reasonably conclude that this “painful” visit involved a challenge to Paul’s authority as an apostle, and personal attacks on him as weak, inarticulate, and out for personal gain. “He had threatened to come ‘with a whip’ in I Cor 4:21; yet according to II Cor 10:1,10b he was perceived as timid and ineffective when face to face with the Corinthians. Apparently someone affronted him publicly and undermined his authority with the community (II Cor 2:5-11).” (Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, p.542.)
2:3-4 The letter mentioned here, which Paul wrote with “many tears” has apparently been lost. There are some scholars who argue that the later chapters of 2 Corinthians are actually from this tearful letter. Another theory is that 1 Corinthians is the tearful letter, pointing to the case of immorality in chapter 5 as the rebuke which brought pain to the Corinthian congregation. But there is no consensus on the matter, and many scholars dismiss the possibility that fragments of that tearful letter survive in 1 and 2 Corinthians, assuming instead that the letter has simply been lost. 1 Corinthians 5:9 refers to a still earlier letter, also lost, which was written before 1 Corinthians. If Paul was really an apostle of God, and if his writings were holy inspirations from God, it seems incredible that their preservation would have been so haphazard that one and possibly two of them would be lost to modern readers.
2:5-8 Paul writes as though the great pain was caused by a particular individual at Corinth. He counsels moderation in the punishment of this individual, advising the congregation to “forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.” What a contrast with his reaction to the individual in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, where Paul orders that the offender should be removed from the congregation and delivered “to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.”
2:10-11 Any forgiveness which Paul has granted has been “to keep Satan from gaining the advantage over us.” Given Paul’s habit of referring to himself as “we” or “us,” it is entirely possible that Paul is looking out for himself here, and not referring to the body of believers as a whole. Paul is ever on the watch for Satan and his evil wiles. See 11:3; 11:14; 12:7, as well as 1 Thessalonians 2:18, where Satan is blamed for Paul’s failure to pay the Thessalonians a visit. But why this continual anxiety about the power of Satan, since we are assured in 2 Thessalonians 3:3 that God is faithful and will protect us from “the evil one”?
2:15 “We are the aroma of Christ.” One hopes that this is a verse that even the most ardent literalist would not take at face value. It is possibly a reference to the sacrifices of the ancient Hebrews, which emitted a “pleasing aroma” to Yahweh. (E.g., Leviticus 1:9; 3:5; etc.)
3:1 This is likely a rhetorical question from Paul, who has apparently been criticized for singing his own praises. Possibly his authority as an apostle has been questioned, and in the absence of any letters of recommendation – which were common in ancient times – Paul appeals to the hearts of the Corinthians, who are to serve as proof that his preaching has the approval of God. In his competition with other preachers, it would have been extremely useful for Paul to have letters of recommendation showing the support of Peter and James, the leaders of the Jerusalem church, who had accompanied Jesus in person during his ministry and could have vouched for Paul’s authenticity as an apostle. But obviously no such support was ever communicated.
3:6 “The written code kills.” This is Paul’s view of the Old Testament law of Moses, which has been replaced by the new covenant under Christ. But Paul’s attitude toward the law is not consistent throughout his letters, and we find strongly positive and strongly negative assessments of it. For example, “the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” (Romans 7:12, NASB) On the other hand, the law is seen as a curse in Galatians 3:13.
3:7 Paul sharpens his attack on the law, calling it a “ministry of death,” carved on stones. Note that the ten commandments were carved on stone tablets by God himself (Exodus 24:12), so in dismissing them, Paul declares a clean break with the traditions of Jewish law. Perhaps those fundamentalist Christians who want to post copies of the ten commandments throughout public spaces should read Paul’s assessment. Do they really want to commemorate the “ministry of death” by glorifying the ten commandments?
Paul’s negative attitude toward the Mosaic law was not shared by Jesus himself, who declared that not even a letter of the law would be dropped until heaven and earth pass away. (Matthew 5:18) And Paul’s position is totally opposite to that expressed in Psalm 119: “I will delight in thy statutes. I will not forget thy word.” (Psalm 119:16)
3:8-12 Paul’s argument is that if the ministry of death and condemnation (i.e., the Mosaic law) was of such splendor that the ancient Hebrews could not look upon Moses’ face (Exodus 34:29-33), then we should expect that the glory of the new covenant under Christ will far exceed even that of the old.
When Paul says that what was once glorious is now faded and has no glory (v.10), he is still referring to the law carved in letters on stone, and so implies that the ten commandments no longer have any glory.
3:13 The notion that Moses covered his face with a veil because he did not want the Israelites to see the fading of the old covenant, is pure invention on Paul’s part. The story in Exodus is of the giving of the law at its very beginning, so it could not have been in its last, tottering days, as Paul implies.
3:15 Those who adhere to the old law of Moses have a veil over their minds. This would apply not only to Jews, but to those Christians who thought that followers of Jesus must become Jews in order to be fully accepted into the congregation. Thus, Paul here defends his message not only against the Jews, but against the Judaizing Christians who opposed him at numerous points during his missionary travels.
3:17 “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” I.e., freedom from the law, since Christians are no longer bound by the old covenant. See Romans 6:14; 7:6; Galatians 3:13.
4:2 Paul claims that he has renounced “disgraceful, underhanded ways” and refuses to “practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word.” But he admitted in 1 Corinthians 9:22 that he is willing to “become all things to all men” in order to win converts. And there are a number of passages that he cites incorrectly or misinterprets from the Old Testament, thus tampering with God’s word in order to make it appear to support his position. See, for example, the comments to 1 Corinthians 15:27 and Galatians 4:27.
4:4 This verse has been subject to much debate among theologians and even among the early Church fathers. The question is this: Who is Paul referring to when he says that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers”? Most modern interpreters assume that "the god of this world" is Satan. But the evidence points more strongly to God himself as the one who blinds the unbelievers.
First of all, Paul uses the Greek word theos (“god”) which is never used to refer to Satan anywhere else in the entire Bible. Satan is sometimes referred to as the “prince” or “ruler” of this world or this age, but never as a “god.”
Secondly, God is described elsewhere as preventing the unbelievers and the disobedient from seeing the truth, by blinding their eyes and hardening their hearts. For example, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their heart.” (John 12:40) The passage from John’s gospel is based on Isaiah 6:9-10, where God tells the prophet “Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Paul himself says that God “has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills.” (Romans 9:18) See also Luke 8:10 and Mark 4:11-12, where the purpose of Jesus speaking in parables is to prevent the uninitiated from understanding. Finally, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, in order that he would not let the Israelites go. (Exodus 4:21) So blinding the minds of the unbelievers here in 2 Corinthians is entirely consistent with God’s character as portrayed elsewhere in the Bible.
For a thorough discussion of the evidence on all sides of this question, see Donald E. Hartley, “2 Corinthians 4:4: A Case for Yahweh as the ‘God of this Age,’” a paper delivered the 57th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in November 2005, available online at http://www.rctr.org/journal/8.pdf.
4:8-12 Once again a passage which appears to be inclusive of Christians in general is found to apply only to Paul, who is again referring to himself as “we” and “us.” This is clear from v.12, where we see the contrast between “us” and “you.”
4:13 “I believed and so I spoke” is quoted from Psalm 116:10. But Paul quotes the Septuagint (Greek) translation, rather than the Hebrew version on which modern English translations are based.
4:17 It is unlikely that “a slight momentary affliction” is meant to apply to all of Paul’s sufferings, as some commentators assume. It is implausible to think that the deep despair of 1:8 can be so easily brushed off as a “slight momentary affliction.”
4:18 Paul shows that he has absorbed the Platonic worldview, in which our physical world is considered transient and illusory, while the non-material “unseen” world is real and eternal. Plato, too, thought that the physical universe was only an inferior copy of a perfect eternal ideal. Such notions were introduced to western thoought in Plato’s Republic, and especially in his dialogue Timaeus, over 300 years before Paul.
5:1 The “tent” is a metaphor for the natural, physical body. A tent is only a temporary shelter, much inferior to the eternal house of God, which is waiting in heaven for those elected by God.
This reference to a tent, here and in v.4, is the only occurrence of the word in Paul’s letters. We were told in Acts 18:3 that Paul was a tent-maker, but there is no corroboration of that from Paul himself. Paul does claim to have labored with his hands, (1 Corinthians 4:12; 1 Thessalonians 2:9). But in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 he argues for the right of preachers to be supported by those who benefit from the teaching, although he claims not to have made use of this right. (1 Corinthians 9:15) Thus, Paul does not claim that he supported himself by tent-making, or even by manual labor, but merely that he did manual labor. What kind of manual labor, or whether it was sufficient to support him, we do not learn. However, we read later in 2 Corinthians that when Paul was in Corinth previously, the brethren from Macedonia supplied his needs. (2 Corinthians 11:9)
So whatever the extent of Paul’s manual labor, it obviously did not provide all of his support, and the only thing that can be said is that Paul did not admit to collecting support from those he was currently preaching to, but was not averse to accepting contributions from the other congregations which he had previously founded. The point may seem minor, but the legend of Paul the tent-maker supporting himself with his own hands, lends him an air of dignity and self-sacrifice that is not borne out by the testimony of his letters.
5:6 Paul continues to speak of the body as a place of confinement, where a person is separated from God: “While we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.” But in his first letter to Corinth, he express exactly the opposite viewpoint: “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you.” (1 Corinthians 6:19)
5:10 Paul argues that it is important to please God, “for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” But according to John 3:17, Christ is not the judge: “God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (NASB) Yet even this statement is contradicted later in John’s gospel, when we read that God “has given all judgment to the Son.” (John 5:22)
5:13 Here Paul contrasts being “beside ourselves” with being “in our right mind.” The word he uses for “beside ourselves” is the same one used to refer to Jesus in Mark 3:21, when his family went out to seize him because people were saying “he is beside himself.”
5:14-15 In this mini-summary of Paul’s gospel, he tells his readers that Christ died for all. But he does not say that the purpose of his death was to save them from their sins, but rather so that those who live might live for him (i.e., for Christ) instead of for themselves.
5:16 The phrase translated in RSV as “from a human point of view” is literally “according to the flesh.” Paul says that he no longer regards Christ “according to the flesh.” What does this mean? Whatever else it may imply, it surely indicates that the man Jesus, who walked, talked and preached in the flesh – as recorded in the gospels - is of little or no interest to Paul. Instead, Paul devotes his attention to “Christ,” a spiritual being largely unconnected with the physical Jesus. Given that Paul did not know Jesus during his lifetime, and that the spiritual “Christ” was largely an invention of Paul himself, this emphasis is not surprising. A search of the entire corpus of Pauline letters (including those of disputed authorship) confirms this emphasis. The word “Christ” occurs in 368 verses of the letters, while “Jesus” occurs in just 198 verses.
5:19 Because of God’s reconciliation with humanity through Christ, people’s sins are not counted against them. But sins were already not counted – until the law was given. (Romans 5:13) According to Paul’s other writings, it was only the giving of the law that caused sin to be counted at all. So if the goal is to have people’s sins not count against them, that’s a scheme that was already in place from the beginning. What was the purpose of instituting the Law and creating sin if God was just going to have an elaborate salvation plan to take the accounting of sin back to what it was originally?
Repeated passages confirm that it was the Law which created sin, and before the Law there either was no sin, or whatever sin existed did not count. See Romans 3:20; 7:7; John 15:22. So there would have been no need for a salvation plan, and no need for Christ’s sacrifice, if God had just left things as they were in the beginning – at least according to the New Testament view.
5:21 Paul alleges that Jesus “knew no sin.” However, we can identify several sins that Jesus committed in the gospels – i.e., instances where Jesus violated a commandment of the Law. For a full discussion, see Mike Davis, The Atheist’s Introduction to the New Testament (AINT), pp.127-134. Briefly, here are several examples of the sins of Jesus: 1) he dishonored his mother in violation of the fifth commandment (Matthew 12:46-50; Luke 11:27-28); 2) he coveted another person’s donkey in violation of the tenth commandment (Matthew 21:2); 3) he violated the prohibition against working on the Sabbath (John 5:18), for which the penalty is death (Exodus 31:15); 4) he refused to testify in a legal proceeding before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate (Matthew 26:62-63; 27:13-14) in violation of the commandment in Leviticus 5:1. “And if Jesus was not a sinner, why did he have to be baptized by John the Baptist? John baptized Jesus in the Jordan river (Mark 1:9; Matthew 3:13-16), and John was preaching a ‘baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.’ (Mark 1:4; see also Matthew 3:6.) If Jesus was sinless, then his baptism by John makes no sense.” (Davis, AINT, p.133)
6:2 The passage quoted is from Isaiah 49:8. As usual, it is taken out of context and used to apply to a situation far different from its original meaning. In Isaiah, the passage refers to the nation of Israel, its liberation from bondage, and its restoration to a place of honor among nations. In its original context it has nothing to do with forgiveness of sins, or individual salvation.
6:8 It is little wonder that Paul would be treated as an “impostor,” since he has previously told the Corinthians that he would adopt whatever pose is necessary (“become all things to all men”) in order to win people over to his gospel.
6:10 Although he is treated as poor, Paul says he makes many rich – i.e., spiritually rich. But was he treated as poor? This seems unlikely, since he hints later that he was accused of robbing other churches (11:8), and gaining an advantage from the Corinthians by guile (12:16). One wonders whether a person living in poverty would be subject to such accusations.
6:13 Paul continues to speak to the Corinthians “as to children.” Already in his first letter to Corinth, Paul admitted that he did not give his congregation the full spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). Is he continuing to hold back or dissemble, because he thinks their capacity for understanding is too limited? And if so, how much can we ourselves rely on Paul to reveal the spiritual truth to us, if what we are reading is a watered-down version addressed to the spiritually impaired?
6:14-15 Paul asks rhetorically what believers have to do with unbelievers, or light with darkness. He draws a sharp line between those who are on the side of God and those who are with Belial (i.e., Satan). As was noted previously, Jesus did not share this exclusiveness. When Jesus was questioned about eating with sinners and tax collectors, he pointed out that it is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick. He continued, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)
6:16-18 In 4:2, Paul denies that he has ever tampered with God’s word. But what appears to be a quotation here from the Old Testament is in fact a conglomeration of several verses which are not accurately or fully quoted. “Paul makes a continuous statement out of a number of Old Testament passages, rather loosely quoted.” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 1973 ed., p.1403.) The passages in question are from Leviticus 26:12; Ezekiel 37:27; Isaiah 52:11; and 2 Samuel 7:14.
7:2 This verse follows so naturally on to 6:13, and the intervening verses display such a sharp contrast with the surrounding passages, that some commentators consider verses 6:14-7:1 to be an addition from an outside source, possibly from another letter of Paul, or even from a non-Pauline source. “A great deal of doubt has been raised about the authenticity of these verses. . . . In addition to the many literary problems this passage raises, the uncompromising distinction between believers and unbelievers (which seems to leave little room for the winning of new members) is surprising.” (The Oxford Bible Commentary, p.1142.)
7:5 Paul’s tribulations in Macedonia are described in Acts 16:12-17:15. The Acts account is not, of course, in Paul’s own words, but is the version recorded by Luke. At least in Philippi, according to Acts, Paul brought his problems upon himself, by casting out a prophetic spirit from a slave girl, who was then unable to earn money prophesying for her owners. (Acts 16:16-19) The Acts version of Paul’s Macedonian journey also contains Paul’s claim to be a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37), but Paul never makes such a claim in his own letters.
7:8 The letter mentioned here is the one referred to in 2:3-4, and which is now lost, although a minority of scholars argue that chapters 10-13 are actually part of that stern letter, which grieved the Corinthians into repentance.
7:10 Paul introduces a new salvation scheme, based not on belief in Christ’s resurrection, but on grief and repentance. Grief leads to repentance, which leads to salvation. Not one word about Christ’s resurrection in this sequence of events. The central role of repentance in bringing about salvation is preached by Jesus in Luke 13:3, and by Peter in Acts 2:38. But in Romans, Paul sets out an entirely different requirement for salvation, having nothing to do with repentance: “If you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” (Romans 10:9) Here, no repentance is required. If you accept Jesus as Lord and believe in his resurrection, you shall be saved. It cannot be successfully argued that Paul’s scheme requires both repentance and belief in the resurrection, because Romans 10:9 would include in salvation those who only believed, but did not repent.
7:11-12 We do not know precisely what Paul wrote in his lost letter, or what accusations might have provoked the Corinthians’ grief and indignation. But Paul admits here that his sharp comments were not motivated by an actual wrong that had been committed, but by a desire to reveal how devoted the Corinthians really were to Paul himself. By making himself the center of attention, Paul is “comforted.” (v.13)
We cannot identify the individual who “did the wrong,” nor the one who “suffered wrong.” Possibly someone at Corinth, even a member of the congregation, had raised doubts about Paul’s authority as an apostle, or questioned his motives. In any case, the action enraged Paul, and provoked the letter which grieved the Corinthians.
7:14 Paul is happy that his boasting to Titus about the Corinthians has proven well-founded. But in Galatians 6:14, Paul assures his readers that he would never boast, except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not the only occasion on which Paul failed to follow his own advice against boasting. Later in this same letter, he notes that since others boast of worldly things, he will too. (11:18)
7:15-16 Paul rejoices that the Corinthians have now been cowed into submission, after receiving Titus with “fear and trembling.”
8:3-4 Paul is referring to the collection of money for the poor of Jerusalem. This is the same collection referred to in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, and Paul is now reminding them that they have not yet contributed their share, although the Macedonians have done more than their part, despite being less affluent than the Corinthians. In referring to “the saints” Paul means Christians in general. The Greek word means “the holy ones.”
8:9 Jesus became poor so that the Corinthians and other Christian congregations might become rich. Possibly Paul means “spiritually rich” but he has been talking about material wealth and it’s entirely possible that is his meaning here as well, since he does speak of the “abundance” of the Corinthians in v.14, where the subject is material wealth.
8:12-13 According to Paul, it is acceptable if a man gives according to what he has, and he assures the Corinthians that his intent is not to unfairly burden them. Jesus’s own expectations were somewhat more demanding: “Whoever of you does not give up all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:33) According to Acts 2:44-45, the early Christians took this advice seriously, selling all their possessions and sharing their goods in common. Paul makes no such recommendation here.
8:14-15 The operative principle that Paul invokes is not renunciation of all posessions, as Jesus demanded, but a basic equality in giving among different Christian groups. He illustrates the point by citing Exodus 16:18, where the manna from heaven was just enough to satisfy the Israelites’ hunger, but no one was able to store up extra beyond the immediate need.
8:17 Given that the Corinthians received Titus with “fear and trembling” before (7:15), they will no doubt be delighted to see him return to their city.
8:18-19 In addition to Titus, the delegation to Corinth will include “the brother” who is famous for preaching the gospel, and who has been appointed by the congregations to accompany Paul in the collection of the money for the poor of Jerusalem. There is the distinct impression that this brother has been appointed for the purpose of keeping an eye on Paul, whom some have suspected of misusing the proceeds from the collection. Paul hints in vv.20-21 that some have accused him of acting dishonorably with respect to the contributions he has collected. Note that the famous preacher is referred to as “the brother,” in contrast to “our brother” in v.22, which perhaps indicates that the second individual has a closer relationship with Paul than the one appointed by the congregations.
8:24 Paul again urges the Corinthians to live up to his boasting about them. On Paul’s contradictory views of boasting, see the comment to 7:14.
9:1 Although he says that it is superfluous to remind the Corinthians about the offering, Paul goes ahead and spends two chapters discussing it.
9:2 Not only does Paul here violate his own rule about boasting (see the comment to 7:14), he obviously has lied to the people of Macedonia about the Achaians’ being ready with their share of the offering. (Recall that Achaia is the lower part of Greece, which includes Corinth.) In 8:10, Paul advised the Corinthians to go ahead and complete the task that they began a year ago, so obviously they are not yet ready. Yet Paul told the Macedonians that they were. We are reminded once again of Paul’s admission that he was willing to become “all things to all men” in order to win over new converts. (1 Corinthians 9:22) So it should not surprise us that Paul has lied to the Macedonians if he thought it would help him collect the offering for the poor in Jerusalem. Awkwardly for Paul, the letter to the Ephesians advises: “Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor.” (Ephesians 4:25)
9:4 Here we see that Paul’s reason for wanting the Corinthians to be ready with their share of the offering is to spare Paul from being publicly humiliated. No doubt Paul would be humiliated if the Macedonians found out he had lied to them about Corinth being ready with its share of the offering, but he doesn’t seem to realize that it’s his own behavior that got him into this embarrassing situation.
9:5 Having dispatched a party of bill collectors to ensure that the Corinthians pay their share, Paul proceeds to describe their offering as “a willing gift.”
9:6 “The point” is not that helping the poor is inherently good, but that doing so increases one’s own bounty, because “he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” Thus the basic motivation behind giving is a selfish one: Give so that you in turn will be rewarded by God.
9:9 To emphasize his point, Paul cites Psalm 112:9, which speaks of the enduring righteousness of the man who gives freely to the poor.
9:11 Just in case the Corinthians still are not persuaded, Paul hammers home the theme of personal enrichment as a result of generosity toward the poor. However, this very public display of charity, i.e., the contribution to the Jerusalem fund, is at odds with what Jesus taught about ostentatious giving. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus advocates a more subdued and less public form of generosity: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men – to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. . . . But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” (Matthew 6:1-3, NASB)
So Jesus’s point is that giving should be done privately, without fanfare and publicity, or else there is no reward in heaven for the giver. Paul’s boasting about the generosity of the Corinthians may be only a ploy to get them to follow through on their donation, but it is sharply opposed to the teaching of Jesus, and if Jesus is right, does not lead to reward in heaven. Note also that Paul is not taking up a collection for all the poor of Jerusalem, but only for the Christians – i.e., “the saints” as he calls them. Apparently, charity is only for one’s own kind, and not for those who espouse different beliefs.
10:3-4 The meekness and gentleness invoked by Paul in v.1 is belied by his warlike imagery here. If indeed he is not carrying on a worldly war (i.e., “according to the flesh”), he must be waging a holy war – in other words, a jihad. “War is being waged between God and Satan, between the cause of Christ and the forces of evil. Paul is a general in this war, waging a campaign for Christ against the foes that everywhere oppose him.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.10, p.384.)
10:5-6 These verses constitute Paul’s battle cry against rational thought. He will “take every thought captive to obey Christ,” and “punish every disobedience.” He most definitely does not envision a pluralistic society where differences are tolerated. But he does give us a succinct summary of what society would be like if the fundamentalists had their way.
10:8 More boasting, contrary to his advice in Galatians 6:14. See also the comment to 7:14 here in 2 Corinthians.
10:10 Paul continues to defend himself against those who attack him in Corinth. Christians like to portray these opponents as heretics, or false apostles, but they were most likely Christians themselves, perhaps a faction who thought that all Christians should follow Jewish law and customs, as Jesus himself taught. (See, for example, Matthew 5:18, where Jesus says that not one stroke of the law shall disappear until heaven and earth pass away.) “The fact that Paul did not know the historical Jesus, had initially persecuted the church, and had entered the circle of apostles late in the game proclaiming that he had received a revelation of Christ, seems to have led to widespread questions and suspicions about his apostolic status.” (The Oxford Bible Commentary, p.1146.) Perhaps Paul himself was the false apostle. The accusation that “his speech is contemptible” calls into question Paul’s legitimacy as an apostle, because the Holy Spirit was supposed to lend eloquence to those who spoke on behalf of the Lord. (Luke 12:11-12)
10:14 Some translations of this verse have Paul claiming that he was “the first” to preach the gospel of Christ to the Corinthians. The Greek verb (fthano) which Paul uses may mean “to precede” or “to come before someone else comes.” But it can also mean simply “to advance” or “to make progress.” (See The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.10, p.387-388, as well as William D. Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, p.470.) Both these interpretations appear in the popular translations. RSV and NASB have “first,” but KJV and NIV do not. KVJ has, “for we are come as far as to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ.” And NIV translates as “for we did get as far as you with the gospel of Christ.” So it is not certain whether Paul is claiming a right of precedence over his rival preachers by virtue of having been the first to introduce the Corinthians to Christ.
10:17 As we have seen numerous times throughout this letter, Paul does not follow this advice to boast only of the Lord. He himself boasts repeatedly of the Corinthians and of himself. See 1:12; 7:14; 8:24; 9:2.
11:2 In this imagery, the congregation is the bride and Christ is the bridegroom. The word Paul uses is actually parthenon, i.e., “virgin,” but the RSV translates it as “bride.” Paul himself is thus cast in the role of the father who gives away his daughter to the prospective husband. As the bride’s father, it is Paul’s responsibility to ensure that the bride is “pure” at the time of the wedding. The Corinthians risk losing their purity by following the preachers who have led them away from the gospel as taught by Paul. Paul’s image of himself as the father of the believers is made explicit in 1 Corinthians 4:15, where he tells his readers that “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Here again Paul clashes with the Jesus of the gospels, who commanded his followers to “call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9)
11:4 Having proclaimed his confidence in the Corinthians earlier (7:4; 7:16), he now despairs of their faithfulness, and accuses them of submitting to different gospels and a different Jesus than what Paul taught them. If they no longer love the Lord, they would be accursed, according to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 16:22.
11:5 If belief in the true Jesus is required in order to avoid condemnation, one might think that Paul would invoke this prospect to persuade the Corinthians to follow his gospel. But instead, he turns the discussion back to himself, and argues that the Corinthians should accept his gospel not because it is necessary for salvation, but because Paul himself is just as good as the competing preachers – at least in knowledge, although he admits to being unskilled in speaking. Characteristically, Paul makes himself the center of attention, rather than focusing on the salvation of his audience.
11:6 Paul brags about his superior knowledge, again violating his own rule about boasting given in Galatians 6:14. He admits, however, to being unskilled in speaking, and this deficiency may have been called out by his rivals as a sign that Paul’s preaching was not from God. See the comment to 10:10, as well as Luke 12:11-12.
11:7-8 One of the points of contention with the Corinthians seems to have been Paul’s refusal to accept money from them in return for his preaching. Possibly pecuniary success was a sign that God favored a preacher (much as some televangelists believe today), and Paul’s lack of riches may have reflected poorly on him as well as his followers. There are hints elsewhere that Paul engaged in manual labor, but whether this constituted his main source of support is uncertain. (See the comment to 5:1.) He does admit to accepting support from the Macedonian Christians here in v.9 and in Philippians 4:16, so it is not clear why he would refuse similar support from the much more affluent congregations at Corinth. Given the poverty of the Macedonians (8:1-2), accepting financial support from them may well have been an act of “robbery” (v.8), although most commentators think that Paul’s reference to having “robbed other churches” is ironical, and that he is simply repeating back a charge levelled at him by his opponents.
11:9 As noted above, Paul is not willing to “burden” the Corinthians with supporting his financial needs, but he has no hesitation in relying on the much poorer congregations in Macedonia for such support.
11:13-14 As an augur of Christinity’s long history of internecine conflict, Paul brands his Christian rivals as false apostles, who disguise themselves as righteous Christians, just as Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Thus, Paul literally demonizes his opponents. He does not see them as fellow Christians with a legitimate disagreement, but as enemies – allies of Satan.
11:18 More boasting. See the comments to 7:14; 11:6, etc.
11:22 Paul defends himself against the rival preachers by pointing out that he is just as much a Jew as they are. This would lead us to believe that these competitors were from Jerusalem, perhaps closely allied with James (the brother of Jesus) and Peter, who favored a more Jewish flavor of Christianity, in which the followers of Jesus would still practice Jewish law and customs.
11:23-29 While arguing that he is the equal to his competitors in Jewishness, Paul claims superiority in terms of his suffering for the Christian cause. Not all of these sufferings are recorded in the New Testament, but there is an instance of Paul being stoned in Acts 14:19.
11:31 We have already seen (9:2) that Paul told a falsehood to the Macedonians in boasting that the Achaians were ready with their donation to the collection for the poor. So Paul’s claim here that “I do not lie” is false. Also, we have here another oath, as Paul calls upon both God and Jesus as witnesses that he is telling the truth, despite the fact that Jesus ordered his followers to “make no oath” in Matthew 5:34. See also the comment to 1:18.
11:32-33 Here Paul claims that it was the governor under King Aretas who sought to capture him at Damascus, a fate he managed to escape by being lowered over the city walls in a basket. But the story in Acts 9:23-25 identifies “the Jews” as the ones who were plotting against Paul at Damascus, and they were the reason Paul had to escape in a basket over the wall.
12:1 By now it is an old story, but here is Paul boasting again, violating his own precept given in Galatians 6:14. Paul may be claiming this experience of direct revelation because some of his competitors at Corinth had based their authority on direct revelation from God.
12:2-3 The man in this story is Paul himself, as we see by his self-reference in v.7. This vision of the “third heaven” may or may not be the same as the vision of “Paradise” mentioned in v.3, so it is not clear whether Paul is recalling one or two separate visions. In any case, it is not generally believed that this revelation is the same as Paul’s vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, which is described three times in the book of Acts. (Acts 9:1-21; Acts 22:6-16; and Acts 26:12-20) Fourteen years before the time of writing would put this revelation at about 44 A.D. (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.10, p.405.)
12:4 What Paul heard during this experience “cannot be told,” even though the Corinthians were supposedly enriched with “all knowledge” (1 Corinthians 1:5), implying that nothing was held back. Paul also praises the Romans as “filled with all knowledge” (Romans 15:14), and yet this cannot be if there are still “things that cannot be told.”
12:7-8 This “thorn in the flesh” is thought to be some sort of chronic physical ailment or disability. According to v.8, Paul asked God to remove the ailment from him, even though Jesus pointedly commanded his followers not to ask God for favors, but to pray only the Lord’s prayer, because “your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:8)
12:13 This verse implies that it was not only the Macedonians who provided Paul with material assistance. Indeed, it appears that Corinth was the exception in not being “burdened” by Paul’s financial needs, and that only in this respect were they “less favored than the rest of the churches.” The implication is that “the rest of the churches” contributed to Paul’s support, and that it was only in the case of Corinth where Paul refused such support. This would help explain the Corinthians’ discontent at Paul’s refusal to accept their assistance, if they felt they were being singled out among all the other congregations.
12:14 Paul again casts himself in the role as father to the Corinthian congregation. But see the comment to 11:2. Also in this verse: a bit of parental advice, saying that parents have a duty to save up for their children, but children are under no such obligation toward their parents.
12:16 Here we have another clue as to the charges levelled against Paul at Corinth. He is accused of being “crafty” and getting the better of them through “guile.” The RSV translation is “I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by guile.” But “you say” is not in the Greek text. It has been added by the RSV translators. The other major translations do not have it, and instead show accurately that Paul is calling himself a crafty fellow. For example, “Being crafty, I caught you with guile.” (KJV); “Crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit.” (NASB); “Crafty fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery!” (NIV). We cannot believe that Paul is really admitting to tricking the Corinthians, so this sentence must be intended as a repetition of the charges made against Paul, and the RSV makes this clear by adding “you say.” But it is nevertheless an editorial comment, and not part of the original text. It’s another example of a translator giving us what the author meant to say, instead of what he actually said.
If Paul did not accept direct support from the Corinthians, we might wonder how his accusers thought he had taken advantage of them. But he did try to collect money for the poor of Jerusalem from them, and perhaps there were accusations that he was skimming money off the top from this fund.
12:20-21 Although he had spent a year and a half founding the Corinthian congregation (Acts 18:11), Paul nevertheless lacks confidence in the Corinthians, and fears that his upcoming visit will be marred by quarreling, jealousy, anger and selfishness. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul said that he planted, Apollos watered, but God had been responsible for the growth of the church at Corinth. (1 Corinthians 3:6) Given the continuing problems with the congregation, we can only conclude that God was a poor gardener.
13:1 Paul’s statement that charges must be substantiated by two or more witnesses has been interpreted in two different ways. He may be referring to the accusations made against himself, and reminding the Corinthians that there must be at least two witnesses against him before the charges can be sustained. Or he may be speaking of the sins of the Corinthians themselves, and warning them that he is coming to judge them formally.
Given the context, there seems to be more evidence for the former interpretation. The requirement for two or more witnesses is from Deuteronomy 19:15, but since the congregation at Corinth is made up mostly of Gentiles, a requirement from Mosaic law is unlikely to carry much weight with them. This is especially true given Paul’s own teaching that the law no longer applies to Christians (Romans 7:6; Galatians 3:13) Also, most of the letter has been Paul’s answer to charges made against him at Corinth, and thus it is more likely that this reference is connected with Paul’s self-justification as well.
13:3 Here we see that Paul has been challenged to prove that he really was an apostle of Christ. He is indignant at the allegation, but the challenge is no more than what Paul himself advised the Thessalonians to do, i.e., to “not despise prophesying, but test everything.” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21) The words translated as “test” in 1 Thessalonians and “proof” here in 2 Corinthians are from the same Greek root, and are simply the noun and verb forms of the same word. Apparently, Paul does not think his advice to the Thessalonians should be applied to himself.
13:5 Paul parries the challenge by turning it back on the Corinthians, telling them to “test yourselves.”
13:9 Here is another of the many instances where Paul prays for something other than what Jesus clearly taught in Matthew 6:8-9, where he told his followers to pray only the Lord’s prayer, because God already knows what you need before you ask him.
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