2 Corinthians
I.
Apologetic: Paul's
Explanation of His Conduct and Apostolic Ministry (chs. 1-7)
A.
Greetings (1:1-2)
- Thanksgiving for Divine Comfort in Affliction (1:3-11)
- The Integrity of Paul's Motives and Conduct (1:12;2:4)
- Forgiving the Offending Party at Corinth (2:5-11)
- God's Direction in Ministry (2:12-17)
- The Corinthian Believers -- a Letter from Christ (3:1-11)
- Seeing the Glory of God with Unveiled Faces (3:12;4:6)
- Treasure in Clay Jars (4:7-16a)
- The Prospect of Death and What It Means for the
Christian (4:16b;5:10)
- The Ministry of Reconciliation (5:11;6:10)
- A Spiritual Father's Appeal to His Children (6:11;7:4)
- The Meeting with Titus (7:5-16)
II.
Hortatory: The
Collection for the Christians at Jerusalem (chs. 8-9)
III.
Polemical: Paul's
Vindication of His Apostolic Authority (chs. 10-13)
From the NIV Study
Bible, Introductions to the Books of the Bible, 2 Corinthians
Copyright 2002 © Zondervan. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
2 Corinthians 10 NIV
Paul’s Defense of His Ministry
1 By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to
you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” toward you
when away!
2 I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as
I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of
this world.
3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the
world does.
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the
world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets
itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to
make it obedient to Christ.
6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience,
once your obedience is complete.
7 You are judging by appearances. If anyone is
confident that they belong to Christ, they should consider again that we belong
to Christ just as much as they do.
8 So even if I boast somewhat freely about the authority the
Lord gave us for building you up rather than tearing you down, I will not be
ashamed of it.
9 I do not want to seem to be trying to frighten you with my
letters.
10 For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but
in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.”
11 Such people should realize that what we are in our letters
when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present.
12 We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some
who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare
themselves with themselves, they are not wise.
13 We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will
confine our boasting to the sphere of service God himself has assigned to us, a
sphere that also includes you.
14 We are not going too far in our boasting, as would be the
case if we had not come to you, for we did get as far as you with the gospel of
Christ.
15 Neither do we go beyond our limits by boasting of work
done by others. Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our sphere
of activity among you will greatly expand,
16so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you. For
we do not want to boast about work already done in someone else’s
territory.
17 But, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
18 For it is not the one who commends himself who is
approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
2 Corinthians 11 NIV
1 I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness.
Yes, please put up with me!
2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you
to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to
him.
3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s
cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure
devotion to Christ.
4For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the
Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you
received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it
easily enough.
5 I do not think I am in the least inferior to those
“super-apostles.”
6 I may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have
knowledge. We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way.
7 Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate
you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge?
8 I robbed other churches by receiving support from them so
as to serve you.
9 And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a
burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I
needed. I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will
continue to do so.
10 As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, nobody in the
regions of Achaia will stop this boasting of mine.
11 Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!
12 And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut
the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with
us in the things they boast about.
13 For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers,
masquerading as apostles of Christ.
14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel
of light.
15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants also
masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions
deserve.
Paul Boasts About His Sufferings
16 I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do,
then tolerate me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little
boasting.
17 In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the
Lord would, but as a fool.
18 Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too
will boast.
19 You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise!
20 In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or
exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the
face.
21 To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!
Whatever anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare
to boast about.
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I.
Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I.
23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk
like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more
frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and
again.
24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus
one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with
stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open
sea,
26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger
from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger
from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at
sea; and in danger from false believers.
27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without
sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have
been cold and naked.
28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my
concern for all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin,
and I do not inwardly burn?
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my
weakness.
31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised
forever, knows that I am not lying.
32 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of
the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me.
33 But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall
and slipped through his hands.
2 Corinthians 12 NIV
1 I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be
gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.
2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught
up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not
know—God knows.
3 And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from
the body I do not know, but God knows—
4was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things
that no one is permitted to tell.
5 I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast
about myself, except about my weaknesses.
6 Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool,
because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more
of me than is warranted by what I do or say,
7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations.
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in
my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from
me.
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the
more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses,
in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak,
then I am strong.
Paul’s Concern for the Corinthians
11 I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I
ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the
“super-apostles,”even though I am nothing.
12 I persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a
true apostle, including signs, wonders and miracles.
13 How were you inferior to the other churches, except that I
was never a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!
14 Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will
not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you.
After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents
for their children.
15 So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and
expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?
16Be that as it may, I have not been a burden to you. Yet, crafty
fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery!
17 Did I exploit you through any of the men I sent to
you?
18 I urged Titus to go to you and I sent our brother with
him. Titus did not exploit you, did he? Did we not walk in the same footsteps
by the same Spirit?
19 Have you been thinking all along that we have been
defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those
in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening.
20 For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I
want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there
may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip,
arrogance and disorder.
21 I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me
before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have
not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have
indulged.
2 Corinthians 13 NIV
1 This will be my third visit to
you. “Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three
witnesses.”
2 I already gave you a warning
when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return
I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others,
3 since you are demanding proof
that Christ is speaking through me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is
powerful among you.
4 For to be sure, he was
crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in
him, yet by God’s power we will live with him in our dealing with you.
5Examine yourselves to see whether
you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is
in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
6 And I trust that you will
discover that we have not failed the test.
7 Now we pray to God that you
will not do anything wrong—not so that people will see that we have stood the
test but so that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have
failed.
8 For we cannot do anything
against the truth, but only for the truth.
9 We are glad whenever we are
weak but you are strong; and our prayer is that you may be fully
restored.
10 This is why I write these
things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use
of authority—the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for
tearing you down.
11 Finally, brothers and sisters,
rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind,
live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.
12 Greet one another with a holy
kiss.
13 All God’s people here send
their greetings.
14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
