2 Corinthians Part 1 (Newsletter)

I’ve spent my time in ATS staying away from 2 Corinthians, because I was reluctant to deal with the complications, but I have now decided to take the bull by the horns and grasp the nettle.

The New Testament gives us two letters that Paul wrote to Corinth, but the letters themselves show that two more letters, at least, must have been sent. 1 Corinthians ch5 v9 refers to an earlier letter giving strict advice (let’s call it Letter A). The Corinthians have many questions about this letter, and Paul responds with 1 Corinthians (Letter B). We learn from 2 Corinthians that in the interval between the two epistles Paul made what turned out to be a Painful Visit, which was quickly followed by a letter of rebuke (Letter C). In 2 Corinthians (Letter D) he is trying to make peace.

One of the complications is that sudden changes of mood occur within 2 Corinthians, and some modern scholars convince themselves that the collector of Paul’s letters has incorporated here long passages from Letter C. When I looked into the first couple of chapters, I certainly noticed that Paul was switching from one theme to another. I knew that if I attempted a series, I would be obliged to work out my own view on this problem. Hence the reluctance.

Now that I have grasped the nettle firmly (which, according to English country folklore, is the best way to avoid being stung), I have come to the conclusion that the “merger of C and D” theory is NOT valid. In the early chapters, Paul is approaching a tricky relationship with care, and genuinely switching his focus from one theme to another within the same letter. I did notice a couple of oddities elsewhere, which I will cover in due course.

Paul begins this letter in chapter one as a newsletter, talking about the comfort he has found in his recent afflictions.

I will pass by the opening address to the church (vv1-2), similar to those in his other epistles. I suppose I had better note that Timothy was with him at the time of writing. It will become evident, as the letter goes on, that he is writing to them from Thessalonica, having travelled north from Ephesus by the land route.

The meat of the message begins in v3, when he blesses God not just as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also as “the Father of mercies and God of all comforts, who comforts us in all our afflictions.” The effect of this comforting is that it enables us to use this experience to comfort other people in their own afflictions (v4).

In our afflictions, we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, so we also share in the comfort which is implicitly based upon the resurrection of Christ. This is another angle on the “we have died together with Christ” theme, which is important in Galatians and Romans.

So the ultimate result of the affliction experienced by Paul is the comforting and salvation of the Corinthians. “Salvation”, because he is confident that the comforting will ensure the preservation of their faith.

This introduction explains why, from v8, he is telling the story of his recent afflictions. This was happening in “Asia”; that is, in the Roman province of that name on the western coast of modern Turkey, centred upon Ephesus. In fact he seems to be talking about the “Diana of the Ephesians” uproar described in Acts ch19, after which (Acts ch20 v1) he left for Macedonia to make his final journey through Greece. This was a time of persecution in which his people almost despaired of life. Yet the God who raises the dead delivered them from that peril. This leads him to be confident that God will continue to deliver them from future perils.

He asks the Corinthians to help them in prayer. The effect would be that Paul’s community would receive many blessings in answer to the many prayers of the wider church, and the wider church in turn would then in turn be able to give thanks for those many blessings (v11).

It looks like the answer may lie in early scriptures before Paul's visit to Corinth, the scriptures that Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew, used in his ministry.

www.blueletterbible.org...

The deeper I go, the more I question these so called ministers.

1_Corinthians 4:6

Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another.

sarata.com...

Yeah, I think I'll pass this one by.

The trail-blazing Christian missionary and apostle, St Paul, appears nowhere in the secular histories of his age (not in Tacitus, not in Pliny, not in Josephus, etc.) Though Paul, we are told, mingled in the company of provincial governors and had audiences before kings and emperors, no scribe thought it worthwhile to record these events. The popular image of the saint is selectively crafted from two sources: the Book of Acts and the Epistles which bear his name. Yet the two sources actually present two radically different individuals and two wildly divergent stories. Biblical scholars are only too familiar with the conundrum that chunks of Paul's own story, gleaned from the epistles, are incompatible with the tale recorded in Acts but live with the "divine mystery" of it all. Perish the thought that they might recognize the whole saga is a work of pious fiction.

It is curious that no Jewish rabbinic writings of the 1st or 2nd century so much as mention a renegade student of Gamaliel who, having studied under the master and vigorously enforced orthodoxy on behalf of the high priests, experienced a life-changing vision on an away mission. Not a word emerges from the rabbis about the star pupil who "went bad", a heretic who scrapped the prohibitions of the Sabbath, urged his followers to disregarded Judaism's irksome dietary regulations, and pronounced the Law and circumcision obsolete. Surely such a renegade could not have completely escaped the attention of the scribes?

How likely is it that Paul really studied under the Pharisaic grandee (Acts 22.3)? Paul clearly had difficulty with the Hebrew language: all his scriptural references are taken from the Greek translation of Jewish scripture, the Septuagint.

How likely is it that, as a young man, Paul – supposedly a Roman citizen and from the Hellenised diaspora – even got the job as chief policeman of the ultra-orthodox of Jerusalem? And if Paul really had secured such a position, he surely would have had far bigger fish to fry than a miniscule "Jesus group" in Damascus. We are told in Acts that the apostles continued to preach in Jerusalem even after the death of Stephen ("They all scattered abroad ... except the apostles." – Acts 8.1,2). So why didn't Paul go for the ringleaders, closer to hand?

"Nothing in his letters suggests that Paul had any official standing in his treatment of Christians ... Hence, in opposition to what Luke says, he could not have used arrest, torture or imprisonment as a means of forcing Christians to recognize that they had been misled." – Murphy O'Connor, Paul, His History, p19.


Given that the Jewish High Council (the Sanhedrin) had no authority to empower a heresy hunter to operate in the independent city of Damascus, Paul's road trip is even more implausible.

After my last post on one of your thread's was deleted I feel I need to explain any comments! I hope this doesn't upset you to the point of deleting an answer you don't like again!

a reply to: redchad
I don't have the power to delete posts. Only the moderators can do that, and one of those must have been acting before. I see on your profile that "off-topic" is the reason why the previous one was deleted. My normal approach to posts which are not related to the topic of the thread (in this case, the content of 2 Corinthians) is not to answer them. People who try to draw me into arguments irrelevant to the thread don't get anywhere. Just so that you know what is happening on future occasions.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: redchad
I don't have the power to delete posts. Only the moderators can do that, and one of those must have been acting before. I see on your profile that "off-topic" is the reason why the previous one was deleted. My normal approach to posts which are not related to the topic of the thread (in this case, the content of 2 Corinthians) is not to answer them. People who try to draw me into arguments irrelevant to the thread don't get anywhere. Just so that you know what is happening on future occasions.

So what your reply means is anyone who challenges your post with a valid argument (as my above reply does) you won't reply! This reminds me of one of my favourite quotes "Faith is a belief in something even though there is no evidence to support that belief. Blind faith is a belief in something even though there is no evidence to support that belief and a considerable amount of evidence to contradict that belief "