Table of Contents
2 Corinthians
Paul writes this second surviving letter to Corinth from Macedonia, not long after 1 Corinthians, and it is by far the most personal and emotionally raw of all his epistles. A painful, unrecorded visit and a “severe letter” (now lost) had passed between this one and the first; false apostles had moved in behind him, attacking his authority and his credentials while he was away. Paul answers with genuine relief at the Corinthians’ repentance, a sustained defense of true ministry as treasure carried in “earthen vessels,” a passionate renewal of the Jerusalem collection appeal, and, in its final chapters, a reluctant but detailed accounting of his own sufferings and a mysterious “thorn in the flesh” — answered not with removal but with “my grace is sufficient for thee.”
This series reads 2 Corinthians chapter by chapter, immediately following this site’s own studies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — the third epistle on the site. As with the first letter to Corinth, there is no single dedicated Ellen White commentary on this book; her own comments are gathered here from across her whole body of writing, with The Acts of the Apostles again supplying more material than any other single source wherever it covers this same stretch of Paul’s ministry.
List Of Articles
Blessed Be God, Even The Father Of Mercies
paul writes this second letter from macedonia, not long after a painful visit and a now-lost severe letter had passed between him and this same church — he opens not with correction but with comfort, tracing all of it back to the god of all comfort, a comfort he has personally needed after a brush with death itself in asia, before defending his own changed travel plans as deliberate mercy rather than the fickleness he was accused of
2 Corinthians 1I Wrote Unto You With Many Tears
the severe, now-lost letter behind chapter 1's own apology is finally explained — written through real tears over a serious wrong, and now that the church has carried out discipline and the offender has apparently repented, paul urges forgiveness before closing with one of his most triumphant declarations of what gospel ministry actually is
2 Corinthians 2Ye Are Our Epistle
some in corinth, prompted by rival teachers, had begun asking paul for the kind of formal letters of recommendation traveling ministers often carried — his answer reaches for something far more concrete: the corinthians' own transformed lives, written not on paper but on the heart, before the chapter builds into an argument that the very veil once covering moses's face still covers the mind of anyone who reads the old covenant without turning to christ
2 Corinthians 3We Have This Treasure In Earthen Vessels
the new covenant's surpassing glory is carried, paul explains, not in vessels worthy of it but in plain clay jars, cheap and disposable, so that whatever power shows through is unmistakably god's own rather than the messenger's — from that single image the chapter builds one of paul's most quoted passages on suffering, mortality, and the eternal weight of glory that makes present affliction look genuinely light by comparison
2 Corinthians 4We Have A Building Of God
paul describes what the eternal actually looks like — a permanent house waiting beyond this present, wearing-out tabernacle of a body — then moves through the judgment seat of christ and the total reorientation of "if any man be in christ, he is a new creature" to arrive at the doctrinal center of the whole letter: god was in christ, reconciling the world to himself, and has now handed that same ministry of reconciliation to ordinary believers
2 Corinthians 5As Poor, Yet Making Many Rich
a catalogue of hardship as vivid as anything in this letter, immediately followed by a paradoxical list of the very qualities that made paul's ministry credible in spite of it, before the chapter closes with one of scripture's most quoted calls to separation, urging the corinthians not to yoke themselves to the very unbelief and idolatry surrounding their city on every side
2 Corinthians 6God Comforted Us By The Coming Of Titus
paul pulls back the curtain on his own emotional state while writing this letter — genuine anxiety in macedonia, fightings without and fears within, relieved only by titus finally arriving with good news — and what titus reported becomes the occasion for one of scripture's clearest statements on the difference between sorrow that leads to life and sorrow that leads only to death
2 Corinthians 7Though He Was Rich, Yet For Your Sakes He Became Poor
with the relationship genuinely restored, paul returns to unfinished business — the collection for the poverty-stricken believers in jerusalem — and holds up an unlikely example, the desperately poor churches of macedonia who begged for the privilege of giving beyond their own means, before reaching for the deepest possible motivation for generosity: christ himself, who was rich and became poor for the corinthians' own sakes
2 Corinthians 8God Loveth A Cheerful Giver
worried that his own boast to macedonia about corinth's readiness might be embarrassed if left unprepared, paul sends brethren ahead to make up the collection beforehand, then builds the chapter's real center of gravity — giving as sowing seed, cheerful rather than grudging, certain to be multiplied back by a god of sufficiency, and ultimately just an echo of his own unspeakable gift
2 Corinthians 9Mighty Through God To The Pulling Down Of Strong Holds
the letter's tone turns as paul faces down a faction still questioning his authority, bold only from a distance they say — his answer reaches past personal defense into spiritual warfare, a flat prohibition on measuring oneself only against other people, and a closing standard of commendation that leaves no boasting left standing on either side
2 Corinthians 10I Am Jealous Over You With Godly Jealousy
paul does something he clearly finds distasteful, matching corinth's false apostles boast for boast purely to expose how empty their credentials actually are — a marriage-jealousy for the church he personally won, a warning that satan himself is transformed into an angel of light, and a catalogue of real suffering that closes, deliberately, on the least dignified image he could have chosen: smuggled out of damascus in a basket
2 Corinthians 11My Grace Is Sufficient For Thee
paul's fool's boast reaches its real climax and its real reversal at once — a genuine vision of paradise so extraordinary he can barely mention it, immediately undercut by a thorn in the flesh and a divine answer that reorders what strength itself means: my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness
2 Corinthians 12Examine Yourselves, Whether Ye Be In The Faith
the letter's shortest chapter closes its longest, most emotionally varied book — a warning that the coming third visit will not spare unrepentant sin, a call to turn the demand for proof back on the demanders themselves, and a final benediction naming the grace of the son, the love of the father, and the communion of the spirit side by side, as though the truth needed no argument at all
2 Corinthians 13