Sunday School | 2 Corinthians

Alright, you guys. We are gonna be this morning looking at Second Corinthians or, as President Trump likes to call it, Two Corinthians. You guys remember that? God bless him. Although, I have heard that actually in England, they call it Two Corinthians. Did you know that? So maybe he's just British and not just making stuff up as he goes along. Who knows?

Okay. We're gonna be in Second Corinthians. And when I say we're in it, what I mean by that is what we're trying to do every week is just do a one-week overview—unless it's Romans, which we give two weeks—but a one-week overview on a book in the New Testament in the hopes that you might then go and read that book in the New Testament. The idea is if we cover it here now, then in the week following, if you choose to read it, you're just gonna have a little bit of an easier insight into things to look for, things to notice.

So as we go through it, we'll always do one week here and then you can read it the following week and kind of catch up. And as I've said, if you've not been here before, we've done—I don't know, this is maybe our sixth or seventh or eighth one—they're all in here. These little sheets that we're producing, I just make them one a week and they're all up here for anything we've done. So if you're missing one or you missed a week, they're there. And then the audio that goes behind it is on our website. If you go to chsroanoke.com, you can get those.

Okay, so this week we're looking at Second Corinthians. Last week we did First Corinthians. So this is essentially a follow-up to that first letter, the letter to the church at Corinth. And okay, bonus points: where in the book of Acts could you read about the beginning of the church in Corinth? Anybody remember that?

Acts 18? Even closer—because that's right. Acts 18 is where the church in Corinth gets started.

So the first letter—how would you characterize the tone of the first letter? What do you remember about First Corinthians, just kind of the emotional signature of it?

There were a lot of things he was trying to straighten out and the way he was doing things. Yes, yeah. It's a highly corrective letter. Paul says in Second Timothy, "all scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training." And First Corinthians is more in the rebuke and correct zone.

Second Corinthians has some of that. It's gonna have some of that tone, but it is unique in Paul's writings. I think it's very distinct. Some of his letters you might say, "This one's like that, this one's like that, this one's like that." But Second Corinthians is unique because it is, far and away, Paul's most poetic letter.

If you're used to reading Paul in terms of things that are more didactic—Romans is very didactic—it is emotional. Remember when we looked at Romans, we saw that the emotional engine that drives the book of Romans is the Jewish people, those of his own race, aren't coming to Christ. Paul is really torn up about that. Like, so how does this work? How does it that God has given them all these blessings and they're not getting it? So fueled by that, he makes this very didactic, very logical, very lawyerly case through Romans.

Second Corinthians is different. Second Corinthians is, by far, his most poetic letter. And the reason it seems that it is so poetic is that Paul is in an enormous amount of pain when he writes it. I wanna show you that we're gonna spend a little more time looking at the actual text because I want you to catch the vibe of this. It is far and away Paul's most painful letter. It is his most poetic letter. Paul is hurting.

And you may have noticed in your own life that we're wired in different ways. You may respond differently in pain. But some people in pain—poetry is often born of pain—and we see that here. When I say poetic, it's not that he's writing everything in verse, but his language is very picturesque.

It begins like this. You kind of get a sense of it:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation.

If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. And we're off to the races. Right? And Paul is gonna talk over and over again about the suffering he's enduring. And it's gonna cause him to be a little more poetic.

Let's look at this. I'll bold some parts and we'll skim through and get a sense of it. He says:

We don't want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.

Now, in addition to the despair and the suffering, what do you see in that paragraph that is braided in with Paul's great grief? Hope. Right? You see, this permeates the letter. This is not just a grouchy, miserable letter. He's very honest about it. He's endlessly saying, "You know what? It was beyond our ability to endure. We despaired." And yet he sees this idea: "This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead."

We've talked about this before. One of the things that pervades Paul's letters is this idea of the cruciform life. What shape does the gospel take? What letter is the shape of the gospel? You watch it. Once you get your eyes open to it, you're gonna see it everywhere in Paul's writing. Jesus went to the lowest place and was exalted to the highest place. Christianity is about death and resurrection.

So when I say that Second Corinthians is a book about pain and suffering, there's lots of the downstroke of the V. But Paul always understands that—look at what he says: "In our hearts we felt a sentence of death." That's the downstroke. "But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." He expects a resurrection, but he is experiencing death.

When you yourself are on the downward slope and you say, "This is just terrible and I hate this and it is miserable"—Second Corinthians might be a good book to look at. In particular, if you can see within it the anticipated upstroke. It's not just a backslash. It is the letter V, and it comes back up to the top. You just gotta wait for it.

Look at what else he says. There are so many lines in here. Look at the bottom of that right column:

Rather, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance, in troubles, in hardships, in distress, in beatings, imprisonments, riots, hard work, sleepless nights, hunger... Through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report, genuine yet regarded as impostors, known yet regarded as unknown, dying yet we live on, beaten yet not killed, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, poor yet making many rich, having nothing and yet possessing everything.

The whole letter is this way. It's this signature throughout. Can you think of places in Second Corinthians where Paul talks about his pain that have leapt off the page to you in the past?

"Struck down but not destroyed, always bearing in our body the death of Jesus, the life of Jesus." Excellent, yes. Look at this—Chapter 4:8. Listen:

We're hard pressed on every side but not crushed. We're perplexed but not in despair. We're persecuted but not abandoned. We're struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus. So that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body.

This is so central to understanding Paul's theology: We die so that we may live.

Jesus died on a cross, he was raised from the dead. We will walk through endless difficulties in this world, but we do so in the anticipation of the cross going back up. Right? We always carry on in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. Do you see that last line? It's fascinating. The V-shaped gospel—sometimes we die anticipating that we will live. But that's not what he said on that last line. It's sometimes we die so that you may live. And the gospel itself is endless sacrifice considering others' needs as more important than our own. And Paul's like, and so we drink it and we just keep taking the hit.

However, at the time that he writes this letter, he has taken the hit so many times that it just stays ever on his lips. You ever been in that place where it's like, man, this has just been a season that I can't even describe to you how painful this has been? That's what's going on here. So everything that you read in 2 Corinthians, you gotta know that Paul is writing from a place of profound pain.

If you'd ask me where does Paul talk about suffering, the one that most readily comes to mind is chapter 11. So let's take a look at that one before we kind of move on.

Paul's Defense of His Apostolic Authority

Now, do you know what the message is in 2 Corinthians? What is probably the number one thing he's trying to convey to the Corinthians? Authority. His authority. Very good. So what Bob said is exactly right. He's writing to defend the authenticity, the legitimacy, the genuineness of his authority as an apostle. Because there are people—these super apostles—that are more impressive than he is. I guess they're prettier than he is. I don't know what their deal is. But whatever it is, Paul is writing and it's so painful because he starts this church and he has to write and it's pretty humiliating. You get the sense that he's deeply humiliated. And in the midst of that humiliation, he's saying, how? What could I have done better to have won your hearts? Like, what is lacking in my ministry?

And then in the midst of that, he does this thing in chapter 11. He says, I've worked much harder. He's comparing himself to these super apostles, to the ones that they like better than him.

I've worked much harder than them. I've been imprisoned more frequently than them. I've been flogged more severely than them, and I've been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I've been constantly on the move. I've been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, endangered from Gentiles, endangered in the city, endangered in the country, endangered at sea, and endangered from false brothers. I've labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep. I've known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food. I've been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin and I do not inwardly burn? — 2 Corinthians 11:23-29

As you go through this, watch for it. You'll see it. It runs through the whole book—chapter one, chapter four, five, six, seven. Just make some notation in your Bible. Paul is in pain. He's hurting.

Or as you're going through it, you might begin to notice the poetic language here. I'm going to give you a minute. If you just scan through where it says Paul the poet—and when I say poet, it's not that it's all written in verse. It's more just that he's writing in very picturesque language. So you've got things like the opening paragraph that I read to you. You've got also in chapter two:

Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one, we are the smell of death, and to the other, the fragrance of life. — 2 Corinthians 2:14-16

And who is equal to such a task? That is way too flowery for any of Paul's other writings. Do you feel this? This is not the way he talks to the Galatians. Right? Galatians, he's like, "Listen man, I wish these guys would just go the whole way and emasculate themselves." He's really strident. But to the Corinthians here in this letter, it is all of this flowery language because he's hurting. He just found in human experience that sometimes prose just can't express the depth of our pain.

Jars of clay—you know the whole jars of clay imagery? That's Second Corinthians. This kind of flowery language: "For Christ's love compels us. We're convinced that one died for all and therefore all died and he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died and was raised again."

Where else? Other huge things. This line, probably the most poetic thing that Paul ever says about giving:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that you, through his poverty, might become rich. — 2 Corinthians

You feel that? That's lyrical. Just don't tell me this whole thing—this is the vibe that writes through this whole book. It's very lyrical, it's very poetic, and it's all drawn out of his pain.

So as you go through, this was a hard section. Whenever I do these, I have the mission of making everything fit exactly—cut that one or four pages. So sometimes Gina and I will look at this and I'm like, "Well, cut that one. Cut that one. I'm not gonna cut that one." And we figured out there's more even than we've got here. But as you go through, watch for where it begins to be poetic. You might note those.

Stuart's question about Greek translation: "Are we missing it way more because we don't read it in Greek?"

You know, whenever you read poetry, translated poetry, you lose something. He's wondering if when we read this in Greek, if you all could read Greek as well as I can read Greek—which is, I can't read Greek at all—then I would imagine we would see more than that and that the translators have had to do that. But I can't read Greek any more than I can read Spanish, so I have no idea. But I would imagine that's the case. There's probably some—whether things rhyme, I don't even know what kind of poetic style there is—but I'm sure that's true. Maybe learn Greek and let us know what you find.

Painful Poetry as Framework

So if you really understand this letter, it is painful in its poetry. That is the framework undergirding this thing. But then, having been pained and poetic, he really has a whole bunch of messages he wants to convey.

You guys good on the pain and the poetry? Anybody want to throw in any insights here that we're missing? Painful poetry. Painful poetry. Okay.

Defense of His Apostleship

The biggest thing that he's trying to convey—and it's heartbreaking, it's pretty pathetic, honestly, if you read it—is his defense of his own apostleship. That's your second big thing. Over and over and over again, Paul is writing to these people and he comes across with this. It's just humiliating that Paul, who plants this church, Paul who has suffered for these people, Paul who has given his life for these people, who has entered into death again and again on their behalf, has to prove to them that he is for them, has to prove to them that he is worthy.

Some of you who are parents might have some inkling of what this feels like. Have you ever had to defend your authority to your children? Have you ever lived long enough that this kid who you're literally the reason they exist—you are the one who diapered their butt, you are the one who took care of their boo boos, you are the one who cared for them when they were sobbing when their first girlfriend broke up with them—you have become persona non grata in their life. Do you know this feeling? That's what's here.

So take a look at what he's doing here. How much time do we have? Okay, we can do this. Take a look at what he's doing. We'll do this. At your tables, just take a minute and you can skip through. I just want you to have a chance to read through some of these.

So at your tables, take a look and you can pick. You can skim through a bunch and then I'll ask you in a minute if any of these strike you as particularly humiliating.

Go ahead and just take a look at that right page under the defense of Paul's apostleship. There's tons of examples. I'll give you enough time to get acquainted here. So look at these things. I'm curious—do any of these insults strike you in a particular way?

Gil?

Eleven twenty-two to twenty-three.

Right. So it goes like this:

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I'm out of my mind to talk like this. I am more. — 2 Corinthians 11:22-23

This is specifically this comparison game. It's not just that you're not very good, but we found someone that we like better than we like you—that's what's going on.

What strikes you about that, Gil?

Gil:

He's trying to defend himself in a way like a younger kid can defend himself against his friends.

That's right. He's trying to defend himself—I'm more than them. That's right. So it is super humiliating. Like, can you imagine if, in your world, at your company, wherever you work, in your sphere—you started the business and your employees are like, "Well, why should we listen to you?" You're like, "Because I own the thing. Because I built it." Right? That's the exact situation he finds himself in.

Anne?

I think in all of this, another thing driving him is he's fighting for the truth.

That's right. So this is really important. I'm so glad you're bringing this dimension into it because Paul is not a guy collecting all ministry and power and authority into himself. He's constantly giving things away. He leaves Titus here—Titus, you're in charge of Crete. He sends Timothy over here and Timothy gets in charge of this whole circle around Ephesus. He's constantly sending people. He wants other people doing the job.

But these guys are showing up just like in Galatia. In Galatia, he's got this contest where false teachers are coming in and teaching false things. They're impressive, they appeal to our base nature, but they're not actually teaching the gospel. He's got to shut that down. And then he's got to shut the same thing down over here.

You get the impression that when Paul is in prison, when he's in jail getting beaten, he's like, "You know what? Being in jail is rough, but the good news is the gospel is being preached, and so I rejoice." He's willing to take the hit. But with this situation, he's not saying, "Well, I want credit. I want power." What he knows is that the competitors aren't actually preaching the true gospel, and he's losing his mind.

If they had been preaching the true gospel, Paul would have taken that. He would have drank it because he did it over and over and over again. But here he's like, "You're following these guys that are wolves in sheep's clothing. How is that possible?" He wants to woo them and win them so that he can benefit them. This is persistently the case with Paul. He's always willing—I mean, the guy is a beast. He's beaten, he takes the hit, he suffers it. And then they finally let him get out of jail, and he throws a tantrum. The reason he throws a tantrum on the way out of jail instead of the way into jail is because he knows that as he leaves, he wants to leave it safe for the people behind him. He will suffer for the spread of the gospel, and then he will demand his rights for the good of others. It's never the other way around. He's just absolutely extraordinary in this.

Another one that strikes you, Jennifer?

It's just a general strike. He was much more of a writer than an orator. If he had been a great orator, he wouldn't have any of his writings.

That's right. What Jennifer is saying is there is some evidence based on these accusations. If you look over here in chapter 10, verses one to two and then seven to eight:

I, Paul, who am timid when face to face but bold when away. — 2 Corinthians 10:1

And then later on, somebody says about him:

His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing. — 2 Corinthians 10:10

The assumption is that might actually be a fair judgment. It's painful.

It's not very nice, but it might be true that Paul in person just wasn't that attractive. He may have had something wrong with his eyes. There are all these little clues we can piece together. His great gift was being incredible one-on-one in ministering the gospel, but he wasn't—it's kind of like Saul. Saul is head and shoulders taller than everybody, and we only elect people for president if they're like six-foot-two or better. You know what I'm talking about? There's this thing. He didn't have that thing, but he had all this enormous value. And it is true that because he's writing these letters, we get this permanent record that we wouldn't have had otherwise. But nevertheless, it's painful. They're unimpressed by Paul because there's something flashy that he wouldn't play well in an Instagram influencer kind of context. That's the vibe he's dealing with. People are valuing superficial things that Paul essentially is not that good at.

There's kind of a tone—not sarcasm, but close to a little bit of tongue-in-cheek—in "a crafty fellow that I am." Throughout all these things, even the reference to the super apostles with quote marks around it, he refers to them as hyper apostles, which is what the Greek says. And what's galling to him is: "Okay, I may not be as fitting as you'd like. You like the guys that are stealing from me. You like the guys that are lying to you. Guess I should have done that. Would you like me better if I was ripping you off?" So it's all of that pain, which is woven into this first pain. But it's not the only thing going on. There's just a ton of stuff going on.

When you read through this, just read through the incredible humanity of this letter. I've mentioned this several times: if I were God, I would have written a systematic theology textbook. I would have just laid it out so it's nice and clear and you can grasp it easily. I am not God, and there's numerous benefits to that. But we get this incredibly human, embodied—yeah, even incarnated—scripture that is drawn out of Paul's very personal experience. This is still God's word. All Scripture is God-breathed. Even this very human, very personal letter is the book that he chose to give us. So as you read it, we extract the systematic theology from it. But it would be a mistake if you think that's all we're supposed to find there. We are finding what is it like to be a fallen person in a fallen world trying to work out this V-shaped gospel. So kind of embrace the humanity of the letter.

The Lost Letter and Paul's Persistence

This is actually probably Paul's third letter to them. So there's evidence of a letter between First and Second Corinthians that we just don't have. And that's fine. By the providence of God, it's not Scripture. We don't feel like it's a lost part of Scripture—just a lost part of things that Paul did. Not everything that Paul did was authoritative divine work. This letter was never recognized by the church as being part of Scripture, so we don't care about it. But it shows us Paul's incredible persistence. They are responding negatively to him, probably because he's critiqued them, and nobody likes being rebuked. He's exercising his authority, correcting their flaws and their failings. They don't like it and they're reacting to it. Rather than just flushing them and moving on to a new city, Paul will labor. He will take the hit. He will suffer to be in there with them, even though it's hard, even though it's painful.

Remember, this is the city where God said, "Keep on speaking, do not be afraid, do not be silent."

Acts 18 passage

That's the same thing. It's like, "Hey, don't stop writing these letters, Paul. Don't write this church off. Stay in it. It's going to be okay." And he does, even though it's incredibly painful.

Paul has a tendency—you may have noticed this in multiple places in Paul's letters—Paul interrupts himself.

Paul loses his train of thought and runs off in other directions. Have you noticed this? It's odd. These letters often lack what you might do in a final draft. He does it in Romans 5 when he's talking—well, here, I'll show you a couple of these.

Go to Romans 5. This shows up kind of like an embarrassing number of times, and I want you to think about the theological implication of this.

One man and death through sin and in this way death came to all men because all sinned — Romans 5

And then he interrupts himself. That's why you've got a dash right there before verse 13.

Before the law was given, sin is in the world but sin is not taken into account. When you say therefore, just as, you must also say so also. — Romans 5:13

But he doesn't get to it. He interrupts himself and goes off on this side trail. It's very odd. If you grammatically follow it, it's strange.

He does the same thing in Ephesians 3. This one's really obvious.

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles... Surely you've heard about the administration of God's grace that is given to me for you... — Ephesians 3:1

And he just totally interrupts himself. He doesn't pick it up again until verse 14. All the way down to 14. Then he finally says:

For this reason I kneel before the Father — Ephesians 3:14

Now we're back on track. Everything in there was like this little bird that he was chasing, right?

He does that here in this letter. So if you go to 2 Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 12, he says:

Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia. — 2 Corinthians 2:12

And then his mind trails off and he doesn't pick up this conversation all the way until chapter 7. It's like for five chapters. Finally, in chapter 7, verse 5:

When we came to Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest. We were harassed at every turn. Conflicts on the outside, fears within, but God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus. And not only by his coming, but also by the comfort you had given him. — 2 Corinthians 7:5

Everything that happens in the middle there—that five chapters—is like a digression and then he gets back in.

So what does that tell you about this book? About the whole thing? How do you understand this?

What This Reveals About Scripture

This book has a genuinely human author. Some people will come to the scriptures and see this written by man and not written by God. Others will think this is some divinely dictated thing, written by God and not really by men. But we have an incarnated scripture. Jesus was genuinely human and genuinely God. And the scriptures are genuinely of human origin and genuinely of divine origin.

These weird, quirky, idiosyncratic human features are part of the design. It's completely trustworthy, entirely reliable, but it was produced by a dude who lost his train of thought, got distracted, changed the order he wanted to put things in—because it's written by a human being. It really is a human book and it really is sovereignly overseen by God. It is God-breathed. It's both. You just have to deal with it. It's just weird.

Jesus became like us. He dwelt among us and the book that we have is written by one of us, by several of us as it were.

The Big Messages

We've got a good message here, kind of a scary one: I'm a bit of an apostle, you'll see that. Maybe the second biggest message—also kind of scary—is, hey, I'm coming so get ready. There's a big warning. There's a visit coming. I've written you a letter and I rebuke you. I've written you a letter right now and I'm rebuking you, but we need to have a conversation. So prepare yourself.

Look at how many times he lets them know:

I beg you that when I come, I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be towards some of the people who think that we live by the standards of this world. 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. — 2 Corinthians

Now that I'm ready to visit you for the third time, I'm afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I want you to be. I'm afraid when I come again, my God will humble me before you and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier. This will be my third visit to you on my return. This is why I write these things so when I come he's like, I'm coming. I'm coming. It's a little bit of "wait till your father gets home" except your father is the one telling you. Like, dad's coming home, so get ready. Right?

So again, we see this is what would you say—where would you put this in terms of Paul's hardest communities? What were the places where Paul had the most tense relationship? Do you have a sense of this from the letters?

First, certainly Corinth for sure. This is up there. This might be number one, might be number two. Do you know who else competes with these guys for like being the thorn in Paul's side? Galatians.

Galatians. Yeah. I think so. And now, Galatians is weird because do you guys know this—did we do Galatians yet? We haven't done Galatians yet. Galatia is not a city, it's a state. So each letter is written to a church—the church in Corinth, the church in Ephesus. Galatians is to the churches in Galatia. You just noticed that if you look at the first couple of verses of each one. It's a big region. But the Galatians is where things were tough. Right? I would say Galatians—the whole region of Galatia—and then Corinth are his most painful, most difficult letters. Who knows? It is only to the Galatians that he threatens emasculation. So that's up there, you know. Right? Right? It's rough. I think they're definitely number one and number two. These are these are the hardest spots.

How about the other side? What was his easiest church? What was his happiest, most blessed church?

Okay. Philippi is interesting. Philippians is his happiest letter. It's a joyful letter despite the fact that he's in prison, and he's exhorting them to joy. It's a happy letter. But I don't think there's this—I think there's another group that gets more affection from him in his writings. He loves Ephesians. He loves Ephesians because he loves Timothy. Right? There's an enormous amount of warmth there. But I think it's Thessalonians. If you read through first Thessalonians, we haven't done that one yet either. Right? When you get to first Thess, you'll see so much warmth and love. So they really do exist on a continuum. Like everybody loves all their children equally, but you got the one that is hard and the one that is easy. Right? The Corinthians and Galatians—these ones are hard. Thessalonians—they were a dream, even though we had corrections for them.

Practical Application: Generosity

At a practical level, this exhortation to generosity—when we preach on giving, we tend to preach out of Second Corinthians. Right? Second Corinthians has lots of language about giving. Who are the people that are the model givers of the New Testament? Macedonians.

Macedonians. In what city in particular? Philippi. Right? And so they're gonna get referenced here. He's gonna talk about the Macedonians. He's gonna say basically, why can't you be more like your brother? Right? That's gonna happen here. It's that famous line that I already quoted:

Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

That's in this letter. Lots of language. Later on chapters eight and nine, you're gonna see lots of stuff about giving. So when you get to Second Corinthians—if you read it this week—when you get to chapters eight and nine, just get out your checkbook before you start reading. Okay? And just be ready to go. Just start filling it out before you read it and then fill in the number as you need.

The Gospel Declaration

I put down here at the very bottom: declare the gospel.

Kelly, what's your favorite part of Second Corinthians? The whole interruption. The whole interruption.

It really is. Kelly and I—so many of you know, Kelly and I used to be on staff at Campus Crusade for Christ and we both went to school at James Madison. And this is the passage right here—Second Corinthians 3:5 to 5—really the part of the Bible that God used to call Kelly into ministry. And I don't think she's alone in that. This whole passage, when you read that interruption, this thing from chapter three to chapter five, but really climaxing in chapter five—it is glorious.

As Paul is in the midst of enormous pain, he's suffering terribly, he's feeling super devalued by the Corinthians, but he writes this rhapsody of glory of what it is to be involved with things that will literally matter in a billion years. You can spend your time on things of passing consequence or you can—every one of you can—do things that will matter forever. This is the hype passage, I think.

He says this in chapter five:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. — 2 Corinthians 5

You feel the poetry of that again? How lyrical?

What Paul is saying there is deeply important. He's saying that when you became a Christian, it was necessarily a two-gift box. Number one, you were reconciled, and number two, you became a reconciler. There is no separation. If you are reconciled, you are necessarily ipso facto a reconciler.

A person becomes a follower of Christ and they're reconciled to him—they become a reconciler. And as a reconciler, they walk into somebody else's life and they help that person become reconciled to God. And when they are, they become a reconciler. And therefore, they walk into somebody else's life and help them become reconciled to God, at which point they become a reconciler.

This whole idea—that when the gospel came to you, necessarily, it came to you on the way to someone else. If you follow through and you get into that section, really chapters three to five, just read it. It is the height of God's eternal purposes. He's taken the central purpose for which he made the world and he dropped it in your lap. And says, "You're reconciled. Will you be a reconciler?" Just—it is exalted language.

Application and Close

So this week, if you choose to, here are some things to watch for: pain, poetry, plus defense of his apostleship, the warning of the visit, the sweetness of the gospel.

Oh, and then this too—just a funny little thing, just a weird little note. The very last verse of 2 Corinthians is one of these beautiful Trinitarian statements. You'll hear it there.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. — 2 Corinthians 13:14

There is a linking here of the three persons of the Godhead. That's what's going on there. So it's a great little Trinitarian wrap-up when you get to the very last verse.

Read it this week. Next week, we're going to do Peter—First Peter. Alright. See you guys.