The cure of self-trust (1:1 – 10)
The Father of mercies (1:4)
Sufferings for Christ (1:5 – 10)
Spiritual participation (1:11 – 24)
Shared intercession (1:11)
Shared honesty and sincerity (1:12 – 20)
Shared aspects of conversion (1:21 – 24)
Spiritual battle honours (2:1 – 11)
Obedience in exercising discipline (2:1 – 6)
The forgiveness of the sinner (2:7 – 8)
The proof of salvation (2:9 – 10)
The spiritual warfare (2:11)
The ministry of the gospel (2:12 – 3:18)
The opening of doors (2:12)
Paul’s anxious care and God’s comfort (2:13 – 14)
The gospel’s progress amongst lost and saved (2:15 – 17)
Living epistles of Christ (3:1 – 6)
Old Covenant and New Covenant compared (3:7 – 16)
Liberty and transformation (3:17 – 18)
Representing Christ (4:1 – 7)
A masterclass for witness and preaching (4:1 – 2)
Aim of the devil to bind minds (4:3 – 4)
The work of Christ, paramount in salvation (4:7 – 7)
The Christian’s troubles (4:8 – 10)
The Christian’s consolation (4:10 – 11)
The Christian’s fruit (4:12 – 15)
The Christian’s eternal reward (4:16 – 18)
The soul’s final triumph (5:1 – 21)
The failure of the body (5:1)
The new home of the soul (5:1)
The believer’s great longing (5:2 – 3)
The earnest of the Spirit (5:4 – 5)
The motivation of believers (5:6 – 9)
Believers’ participation in the final judgment (5:10)
The ministry of the gospel (5:11 – 6:6)
The urgency of gospel preaching (5:11 – 13)
Pressed by Christ’s love (5:14)
A new view of everything (5:15 – 17)
The compelling obligation (5:18 – 21)
God’s terms of blessing (6:1 – 2)
A consistent life is vital (6:3)
Demonstrating strengths in adversity (6:4 – 6)
The weapons and conditions of service (6:7 – 10)
The unequal yoke (6:11 – 18)
The church that became cold (6:11 – 14)
Opposing generals (6:15)
God’s abhorrence of idols (6:16)
The command to separate (6:17 – 18)
How believers repent (7:1 – 12)
Seeking the full range of holiness (7:1)
The full restoration of trust (7:2 – 3)
Paul’s joy and comfort at their repentance (7:4 – 8)
The components of repentance (7:9 – 12)
Paul’s confidence in the Corinthians (7:13 – 16)
The graces of the Christian (8:1 – 7)
A gift mediated through the churches (8:1)
An outflowing gift (8:2 – 3)
A sense of privilege in giving (8:4)
An act of dedication (8:5)
The means of loving others (8:6)
Six graces (8:7)
Stewardship to the Lord (8:8 – 15)
The voluntary principle (8:8)
The Lord’s example (8:9)
Bringing a ready will to completion (8:10 – 13)
Openheartedness (8:14 – 15)
The priority of the gospel (8:16 – 17)
Sowing trust among God’s people (8:18 – 24)
Exhortation to the Corinthians (9:1 – 5)
Spiritual factors in giving (9:6 – 15)
The battle for the mind (10:1 – 6)
Paul’s apostolic defence (10:1 – 2)
Paul’s reliance on God’s power (10:3 – 6)
Accepting apostolic authority (10:7 – 11)
Self-commendation versus the Lord’s commendation (10:12 – 18)
Paul’s defence of his apostleship (11:1 – 33)
Resisting spiritual deception (11:1 – 4)
Answering evil comparisons (11:5 – 6)
Paul’s policy of self-support (11:7 – 12)
The deception of the false apostles (11:13 – 15)
Paul’s reluctance to defend himself (11:16 – 17)
The necessity of defending himself (11:17 – 22)
Paul’s sufferings for Christ 11:23 – 33)
Strength for servants (12:1 – 10)
Further correction of the church (12:11 – 13:10)
Their failure to return his affection (12:11 – 13)
Paul’s parental care (12:14 – 15)
Disarming suspicion (12:16 – 19)
The lingering fault of the church at Corinth (12:20 – 13:6)
Paul’s constant benevolence towards them (13:7 – 10)
Final exhortations (13:11 – 14)
- to …
Bible Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians
by Dr Peter Masters, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London (adapted from sermons)
Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians is easily the most biographical of all Paul’s epistles. The second letter was written not so very long after the first. The church at Corinth had been founded by the apostle Paul on his second missionary journey and he had remained there preaching and pastoring for at least a year and a half. Then he went on to Ephesus from there he wrote The First Epistle to the Corinthians.
This is a little later now, perhaps late AD 55 and he has come back into Macedonia. It is a very trying time for him. The Corinthian church was being assailed by intruding Judaisers as they are known. These were people who were Jewish, not Christian, but they claimed to be Christian, and they followed the apostle round and other apostles, trying to persuade the churches that had been founded that they needed to adopt Jewish rituals, that Christ was not enough, that they had to be circumcised and become, as it were, Jews. And it was a great trial and problem.
Corinth was the capital of Achaia, the Roman province of Achaia in southern Greece, a great city with a great history. It was only 45 miles from Athens, tremendous trade centre and therefore extremely wealthy, and there were tremendous temptations for Christians there, temptations to wealth, yes; temptations to idolatry; temptations to worldliness – it is wonderful how this church stood amidst such temptation. This was the site of the famous Isthmian games, which were held every two years and brought tremendous tourism into Corinth; so it was a wealthy place.
Now the apostle had promised to visit Corinth and been unable to do so, and so the Judaisers had immediately got into Corinth and said, ‘This individual is unreliable. He makes promises he does not keep. How can he possibly be a so-called apostle of Christ?’ So they slandered him and ran him down, and some people, and even good people, fell for this and were inclined to listen to this. So there were all those problems, and many others beside, and Paul, as he tells us in the opening chapter of this epistle, has had a very harsh and severe trial occur to him. But that was not the reason for his delay in visiting them and he goes to tell them what it was.
It is a strikingly beautiful letter. Some say the most beautiful of Paul’s letters, even though it contains some strictures and some warnings. It is certainly most feelingful and it is full of warmth and joy and at times deep concern. Perhaps, even more than Galatians, it provides an insight into the heart of the apostle and the bond that he had with the people.
Acts 18 tells us about Paul’s initial visit to Corinth, and there was a considerable building up of the church. There was trouble, of course, but at the same time they must not be exaggerated. Some people do exaggerate them and particularly some of the more modern commentators alight on every warning that was given to the Corinthians, every remonstration and build up this absurd, this ludicrous picture of them being a factious, deeply divided, deeply heretical, deeply immoral, deeply disorderly congregation and that is utter nonsense. It really is a great shame that that is the trend in modern times. If it were so, Paul would never have given them the complimentary remarks that he gave them. No, this was a wonderful church, though it had been built up so quickly by a great movement of the Spirit.
Yes, there were some problems. They had developed a bit of a party spirit – not that they were against each other but they had their favourite preachers and they were warned about this and then they had one serious case and, perhaps it’s hinted at, one or two others, cases of immorality that they had not disciplined but it didn’t mean that any more than those mentioned were immoral and Paul commanded them to discipline the offenders.
Then there were problems that one or two people appear to have been taking legal action against each other, instead of settling things in a spiritual manner and there was a small group of heretics; people who denied certain things, who had to be warned against; Judaising infiltration. These were problems in a young church but they were not major. Well, they are all major in the sense that each one of them, however small, must be dealt with but they were not major in terms of the numbers of people who had succumbed to these things.
One of the glorious things about the church at Corinth – and it’s good that we’ve got two letters and you can see this process going on – is that when the apostle raises the problem, they repent and they deal with it, and they are very open to teaching. He tells us in 1 Corinthians that they wrote to him asking about this and that. So they are asking questions; they are teachable and open and they want to know how to conduct themselves rightly. That is the spirit, surely, so it was a wonderful church but, yes, it was assailed by some problems.