2 Corinthians

What This Book Is

The most personal of Paul's letters: a defence of his ministry written by a man listing his failures, beatings, and a thorn he was not delivered from.

Overview

Something has gone badly wrong between Paul and this church. There has been a painful visit and a letter written with many tears. Rival teachers have arrived with polished credentials and letters of recommendation, and they have been contrasting themselves with Paul, who is unimpressive in person and speaks poorly.

So Paul defends himself, and the way he does it is the point of the letter. He does not match their credentials. He inverts them.

He opens with comfort, describing God as the one who comforts us in all our affliction so that we can comfort others with the comfort we received. He talks about carrying treasure in clay jars, so that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. He describes being afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, struck down but not destroyed.

When he finally does list qualifications, in chapter 11, it is a parody of a resume: imprisonments, lashings, beatings with rods, a stoning, shipwrecks, sleepless nights, hunger, and the daily pressure of anxiety for the churches. Then he mentions being let down a wall in a basket, which is not a heroic exit.

He describes an extraordinary vision but refuses to boast about it, and turns instead to a thorn in the flesh he asked three times to have removed. The answer was no, and the reason given became the letter's most quoted line: my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

In the middle of all this he organises a collection for famine relief in Jerusalem, and chapters 8 and 9 are the New Testament's fullest teaching on generosity.

Structure

• Chapters 1 to 7: Comfort and ministryAffliction, reconciliation, clay jars, and a ministry of reconciliation.
• Chapters 8 to 9: The collectionGenerosity taught through the example of poorer churches.
• Chapters 10 to 12: The defenceRival teachers answered with a list of weaknesses and a thorn.
• Chapter 13: Final wordsA call to self examination and a closing blessing.

Themes

Why It Matters

2 Corinthians is for anyone doing hard work with visible cracks. It refuses the idea that God's approval shows up as strength, competence, or success, and it says so from the inside of exhaustion rather than from a distance. It is also the most emotionally raw of Paul's letters, which makes it a good corrective to reading him as merely a theologian.

How to Read It

• Read chapter 4 when you feel like you are barely holding together.
• Read chapter 12:1-10 and notice that the prayer was not answered the way he asked.
• Read chapters 8 and 9 for how the New Testament actually talks about giving.
• Notice that Paul's list of credentials is entirely made of hardships.

Key Verse

Did You Know?

• Paul refers to a severe letter he wrote in between the two Corinthian letters that has not survived.
• The closing blessing in 13:14 is one of the most widely used benedictions in Christian worship.
• The nature of Paul's thorn in the flesh is never specified, and has been debated for centuries.

Where to Start Reading