Introduction to Second Corinthians — 2 Corinthians 1-3

0:00 Your Bibles to second Corinthians. Second Corinthians. Roger asked me a while ago if I would start your series on this incredible book of the Bible. Second Corinthians has a lot of my favorite verses in it, but I always forget that they're in Second Corinthians. It's just kind of a gold mine of all these great verses that we love to quote and you say, where is that from anyway?

0:29 Oh yeah, a lot of them just so happened to be in two Corinthians. Are start our reading in Chapter one, verse one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy, our brother. To the Church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia, grace to you in peace from God our Father the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we're going to stop our reading for today.

1:15 So you might wonder, well, at this pace, we're going to be in second Corinthians for many, many years. I can't speak for the rest of the preachers. I think Roger is going to take more than two verses. But we're going to spend our time this morning thinking about the background and introduction to second Corinthians. I'm a big believer that the more we understand and grasp the historical background of the book, or a piece of literature, the more likely we are to understand what it actually says.

1:45 After all, the right interpretation is the one that makes the best sense out of its literary and historical context. So we're gonna start here with chapter one verse one. The writer identifies himself in the very first word, Paul. Paul is the author. Now, he goes on a little bit later and he says, Paul and Timothy.

2:09 But we shouldn't think of Timothy as like a co writer of two Corinthians. The way that the rest of the letter reads, it's all written from the perspective of Paul. In fact, later on in the chapter, he will distinguish Timothy as a separate person from the voice of the author. So Paul is one who is writing it, but he's including Timothy graciously as one of the senders. At this point, I could just move on to other historical details besides the author being Paul, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this might be a mistake.

3:54 He is a passionate, zealous Jew. He says that he has been trained underneath this man named Gamaliel, who is a, an important rabbi at the time. And according to tradition, Gamaliel has been trained by the famous Halal, who is a famous Jewish rabbi in the fur... Around that time. I think he's a little bit, well he's a while before Paul, still he's well known to us from history.

4:25 So that puts him in a different category from all the other writers of the Bible, or at least all the other writers of the New Testament. Unlike Peter, James, John and even unlike the Lord Jesus himself, Paul is an official bible student. He has gone to bible college, so to speak, and he has spent a lot of formal time studying the scriptures. Now, a lot happens to Paul from his birth to when he actually writes second Corinthians, but this part of Paul never goes away. That aspect of his identity that he is a teacher of the scriptures, someone who loves to read the Bible, that part of who he is never vanishes.

5:18 Of course, when he meets Jesus on the road to Damascus, on his way to persecute this group that he thinks is a cult called The Way, They worship this man as if he was God. So he's on his way with letters from those in Jerusalem to go persecute Christians. He says later that I forced them to blaspheme, but as he's there, he meets the risen Lord who says, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And he's dramatically converted and is given the commission of being the apostle to the Gentiles. Sets out on these famous four missionary trips, but through all of that, one thing that doesn't change, there's a lot that does change, but what doesn't change is he never stops being a reader of what we call the Old Testament and what he calls the Holy Scriptures, and a teacher of the Holy Scriptures.

6:19 Of course, after meeting the Lord Jesus, he's going read them in a new way. And whoever is blessed enough to get two Corinthians three will be able to really talk about that subject a lot. He reads them in a new way, in fulfilled way, yet for them, these are still the living oracles of God. Now, if you are paying careful attention, you'll notice that I referred to our figure with two different names: Saul and Paul. Saul of course is a Hebrew name, he was a, because he was a Jew, he was named after the first king of Israel, King Saul.

7:37 And then when he met Jesus, he converted from Judaism to Christianity. But nothing could be further from the truth. And if Paul were here and he heard somebody say that, would, I'm sure he would stand up and say, I don't know who you're talking about, but that's not me. I never stopped being a Jew. I still am a Jew.

8:07 And it's because of my hope that the because I hope in the promises that were made to the fathers that I believe in Jesus the Messiah. I continue in that heritage, I continue to worship the God of our fathers. And whether he's teaching at the synagogue or he's having a personal one on one conversation, he is one who loves Yahweh with all of his heart, mind, soul and strength. One who, whenever there's a problem, he thinks, I know where we can find the answer, let us turn to the scriptures. So that'll be important as we go, as you go throughout second Corinthians, time and time again, whether it's by direct citation and quotation or whether it's a milder, softer illusion, Paul is full of the Bible.

9:02 He hasn't abandoned that part. It makes you wonder what he would think if he were here today and he saw so many people coming to meetings with with these, what do I what are the Gideon's New Testament. Now I love the Gideons. Please don't walk away from this thinking that I'm speaking anything badly about the Gideon's. What a wonderful thing.

9:25 And sometimes when you get up those Gideon new... You know what I'm talking about. Right? They have those even here. Okay, good.

9:31 So it's the New Testament with the Psalms and the Proverbs. They can be handy because they slip them into your pocket, but that's a thing of the past. I mean, print Bibles are only going last a few more years and then everybody will just have them on their phones. But, so, I was going somewhere with this, wasn't I? Oh yes, so, my problem with the Gideons, that's what I was talking about.

10:22 Make way for something new, something fresh, something real. If we think this is New Testament Christianity, we've really strayed far from our origins. All throughout second Corinthians, Paul is someone who emphasizes the Old Testament. So we can think of Paul the Jew, Paul the, in fact, he even will continue to refer to himself as a Pharisee, Paul a Pharisee, Paul the teacher of the law and yet he says here in verse one, this is how he portrays himself. Paul, an apostle, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

12:02 On the one hand, Paul makes his arguments from the Bible. From the Bible that he had and that his readers would have agreed upon from the Hebrew scriptures. It is written, it is written, it is written. And he expects, however he uses the old testament, he expects this to make sense with his readers. That they'll go and look it up, like that they will be good Bereans, in Acts chapter 17, and study the Scriptures to see whether these things are so.

12:32 He expects that his arguments will hold water in light of the Old Testament. And yet, he's an apostle. So, let me explain this more. So, I can easily imagine that around the lunch table after this, the conversation of the sermon might come up and you say, Well, what do you think about what Bruce said? Somebody might say, I don't like it.

13:00 I don't like any of it. I didn't like how he was wrong here, I think he was wrong there, and I don't agree with this. And you're allowed to do that because who am I? And you can judge me according to the scriptures. You can't just dismiss what I'm saying because you don't like it.

13:15 But if you have a scriptural argument, that's a course of a different color. But although Paul expects us to go to the Bible and examine whether these things are so, we can't sit in judgment of Paul. At the end of the day, we can't say, well, I read second Corinthians and I'm hearing what Paul is saying but I don't like it. And I think he was wrong here. I think he antiquated with his view on women or his view on whatever.

13:43 We have to accept what he has to say because he's an apostle of Jesus Christ. And the significance of this will become clear and clear as we continue to discuss the background of second Corinthians. But this two fold presentation of Paul, on the one hand like I just said, it corrects this idea of the Gideon's New Testament mentality and it also corrects this idea of red letter Christians. Now, I have a red letter Bible. I like a red letter Bible.

14:18 I think it's helpful, it's a nice study tool. That, I didn't say against a red letter Bible, but against red letter Christians, and that's an actual movement that's going on, in which people say, well we are, we are after all not followers of Paul, we are followers of Jesus. So therefore, we are only bound to believe the words of Jesus. We are only obligated to believe the red letters. So much rest on whether or not we believe Chapter one verse one.

14:51 Is Paul really an apostle of Jesus Christ? If his conversion story is true and if God really did send him, then we have to listen to him. And it doesn't matter at the end of the day if we think his ideas are old fashioned, or if they don't fit with our culture, he comes, his message comes from God, because he has been sent by Jesus Christ. And this is why it's so important, we're going talk about the drama that goes on between Paul and the Corinthians in just a little bit, and this is why Paul gets so worked up about it. Because as an apostle sent by Jesus Christ, Paul is aware of the fact that if you reject him and his message, on the one hand it hurts him personally, but something more significant is going on.

15:39 It means you are rejecting Jesus Christ because you're rejecting the one that he has sent, and you're cutting yourself off from the gospel. So that's who Paul is. Paul is an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. And he writes this letter to the Church of God or to the Assembly of God, which is at Corinth. He says, with all the saints who are in Achaia, which is the larger province of Corinth.

16:57 At the synagogue. Because Paul has given up on the Jews as a lost cause. Not at all. Always to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile. But his message is rejected by the synagogue, by the Jews there for the most part.

17:16 And strangely enough, there are believers who start a local fellowship, people who respond positively to the message of the gospel. And there's a man named Justice who opens up his house and he just so happens to live next door to the synagogue. Right there, right next door. Imagine the incredible evangelistic opportunities, right there as people come. In fact, the ruler of the synagogue, Crispus, eventually hears the message, accepts Christ as a savior and joins in with Paul.

18:01 Of course, it doesn't take long before he loses his job as leader of the synagogue. And they get another guy and his name is Sosthenes. Now you have to be careful in reading the Bible whenever you say, every time we read of this guy, it's always got to be the same person. There may be more than one Sosthenes. But if there isn't, or if the two different, if the Sosthenes in the New Testament are always the same individual, then this is the same person who co writes or co sends one Corinthians.

18:32 So he too is won over by the competition next door to the synagogue. So, it's a fascinating complex situation that the Corinthians are in. The city itself has been described as the New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas of the ancient world. That may be putting a little bit strongly, but I like that image. It was an important city.

19:03 It's located on an Isthmus, if you remember what that is. It forms like a land bridge. So, the strategic place of Corinth brought in all sorts of wealth. So if you were traveling in the Mediterranean Sea on your boat with all your cargo, you could stop in along this Isthmus, if you have a map, you can look at it there. You can unload all of your supplies and goods, and there's this small little land bridge in which you, it was five miles long, and they had wagons and people of course would do it for a fee.

19:41 And they would take all of your stuff from your ship, carry it to the other side, and they would provide you with a different ship, and you could shave off a couple 100 miles on your journey. So this brought people in from all over, making Corinth a strategic place for spreading news and information, like the gospel. It also brought in lots of money, which is good for Paul because for whatever reason, at least when he's at Corinth, he does not want to be supported financially. Now there's a whole lot of theories about why that is, because that's not always his MO. Sometimes, he'll accept funds.

20:24 But when it comes to Corinth, he says, I'm not going to take your money. Instead, I'm going to work. And he works as a tent maker. And there's a lot of money to be made so he can work alongside of people. Now the Corinthians by and large look down on an individual like this.

20:45 The wealthy do at least. With having so much money, there's a lot of social mobility. In other words, you can make it rich quick. And when you make it rich quick, you soon learn to pay other people to do your dirty work, to do your hard labor. And the thinking is, anybody who is anybody can find someone else to do their work for them.

21:16 So the very idea that here you have the apostle to the Gentiles, the one commissioned by the risen Lord, spending most of his time working as a peasant would have rubbed them the wrong way. How could this guy really be anything if he's spending most of his time? I don't know about you, but sometimes I read the book of Acts and I think that sounds exciting. Being a New Testament Christian would be so exciting, but I'm convinced that the majority of Paul's life was very boring. If you understand what I mean by that.

21:56 Of course, mean, I believe all the miracle stories and all these things really did happen, but most of his days were Mondays and Tuesdays. And he went into the shop, got out his supplies and worked his hardest. Well, he would have looked down on that and yet Paul is adamant that he might not look impressed that it didn't matter to him if he looked impressive. He wasn't interested in playing the world's game of success. Paul didn't care about it, Jesus didn't care about it, whether or not he came across as wealthy or well-to-do.

22:41 Well, because there are so many people there, there's not only a lot of money, but there's also a lot of ideas. With a lot of people come a lot of ideas. And with a lot of these ideas come a lot of religious freedom. So if you were to go back to Acts chapter 18 and read about the story of what happens when Paul is setting up the synagogue, or setting up his competition to the synagogue, Eventually, there reaches a breaking point and the Jews say, we don't want any more of this. In fact, we're gonna take you to court.

23:12 And do you remember how that goes for the Jews? That doesn't go so well. Sosthenes is there and they try to say this man is perverting our law, saying that we can't keep the law. Of course, Paul were there, he would have completely objected to this portrayal of him. Or he was there, but if he was allowed to speak.

23:35 So, they try to get him in trouble legally and instead what happens is that the judge says, I refuse to enter into matters like this. And he just leaves, turns around and walks away. And all the people who are there takes Sostenes, the then ruler of the synagogue and they beat him with rods. And the judge looks on and he doesn't care. So it's kind of an aloof atmosphere in which you can can do whatever you want as long as you're not making too much trouble.

24:08 So there's not a lot of persecution for the Christians. Now on the one hand, that's wonderful, isn't it? But it's not as so wonderful as we might think. Because it means that when Paul leaves, well, there's a lot of influence and maybe money that can be made if other people get into this position of leadership of the Corinthian assembly. And the persecution isn't there to scare away the false shepherds, the hirelings.

24:43 With a lot of ideas, I'm sorry, with a lot of money come a lot of ideas, and with a lot of ideas, comes a lot of bad ideas. There's a lot of paganism. Good old fashioned paganism at Corinth. And it's tempting to overemphasize how idolatrous they were. One writer, his name is, well, Trabo, who's a couple decades before Paul, he says that there were a thousand prostitutes at the Temple Of Aphrodite, which is probably an exaggeration.

25:23 But still, that's not good, that you would go to a temple and you would quote unquote worship on whatever day. There were temples to Apollos and of course there were temples, there was Caesar worship. People worshiped all sorts of false gods at Corinth. And this will become an issue for the Corinthians as well. So this is the city in which Paul spends a year and a half of his ministry.

26:38 Instead, what happens is that we don't, we have to do our best to piece together what does happen with Paul and the Corinthians, which is complicated because we don't have everything that Paul said or wrote to the Corinthians. And it's also complicated because sometimes Paul says, this is what my plans are, like in one Corinthians chapter 16, and then by the time we get to two Corinthians, he's changed his plans. You have to keep that option open. So there are differences in the particulars, but for the most part there's an agreed on overall picture of what happens with the Corinthians. I have it laid out in nine steps.

27:20 If you'd like to take, write them down, you can. First, of course, Acts Chapter 18, Paul comes to Corinth and ministers there for a year and a half, and many are one to the Lord. Second, Paul's departure creates a leadership vacuum, which others rush in to fill. It may be that he, you know, set up leaders, set up elders to take over when he was there, and then other people said that they want to be elders and however it arises, there's a leadership crisis when Paul is gone. Third, Paul writes an initial letter to Corinth.

28:09 This is the first letter to the Corinthians. This is where things get confusing because it is not first Corinthians. His first letter to Corinthians is not first Corinthians. He writes them a letter telling them not to associate with immoral people, specifically the sexually immoral of this world. He references this in one Corinthians Chapter five.

28:31 Usually, you read introductions to Corinthians, people often call this Corinthians A, so as to avoid confusion with one Corinthians not being one Corinthians, Corinthians A. That doesn't go over well. He sends it in the hand of Timothy, but Timothy returns with the bad news that Paul, they didn't like your letter when you told them they need to stop, that they needed to repent. So Paul writes a second letter. This is the fourth step.

29:03 Paul writes a second letter to the Corinthians and sends it again in the hand of Timothy, which we do have and this is called First Corinthians. This addresses problems which people from Chloe's household have told Paul. And the result is that some side with Paul while others reject him. Fifth, Timothy returns from Corinth with the bad news. Again, Paul, they don't like you correcting them.

29:36 It would be one thing if everybody recognized Paul as a legitimate leader, but they don't. Instead they have this competition in the leadership. So it's one thing if you read a letter of rebuke, you hear a convicting message and there are just some of the people who are attending for the first or second time and they say, I don't like that stuff. I don't like that stuff about sexual purity. I don't believe in any of that.

30:01 But it's different if some of the elders say it. I don't like that stuff. Well, then you've got some legitimacy, you think, for your sin. So the result is that Paul writes after Corinthians A and Corinthians B, he writes Corinthians C, which is still not second Corinthians. So third Corinthians is not even second Corinthians, it's the third letter that he writes.

31:20 This is just all extra, this is just icing on the cake. But some people think that two Corinthians 10 through 13 is Corinthians C. And it's some along somehow along the line, there's been an editor who put Corinthians C and Corinthians D together and put the Corinthians C at the end. And the reason that they think that is because two Corinthians one through nine is for the most part very positive. And he says things, I am full of joy, having heard of the news of your repentance.

31:50 But there is no joy really in two Corinthians 10 through 13, instead there is a change of tone in which he deals with them very, very harshly. So the way that most evangelical conservative scholars deal with this is they say, well, probably what happened is that Paul wrote or dictated two Corinthians one through nine, maybe he went out and had lunch, came back, thought about the problem a little bit more and said, You know what, I think I need to be a little bit firmer in my tone. Or maybe it's that as he transitions from talking about the general assembly and specifically talks about the Corinthian leadership, his blood starts to boil and he gets hotter and hotter as he thinks about these false leaders and these super apostles. Interesting point of interest, at least, I think it's interesting. Probably it's not true though.

32:42 Probably it's all written one through 13, it's just one letter. And probably I mean very, very, very likely. So Paul writes them this harsh letter and sends it in the hand of Titus, strongly urging them to repent from their sin, to reject these false leaders, to stay true to the gospel which he had preached. And Paul waits, you could just imagine, I don't know if you ever had this experience where you write an email or you send someone a letter, and it's a mean letter. Not meaner than it needs to be, but it's emotionally difficult.

33:29 And it can be even more painful in the age of technology, You can just go to your email page and just press refresh. Three seconds later, refresh. I wonder if they've responded. I wonder if they've responded. I wonder if they've responded.

33:44 And that's what Paul does. Not his email, but he's waiting to hear news from Titus. How did they respond to what I had to say? This is as harsh as it gets. Well, eventually Titus comes back and he hears the wonderful news that they've responded well, and that their hearts have been broken and they've responded well to Paul's message of rebuke.

34:08 Now, although they respond well, they still haven't put away all of the leadership competition. They haven't completely rejected them. They've repented of their sin and have pledged their faithfulness to the message of the gospel. But Paul in his mind can't just say in his mental to do list, fix the Corinthians problem, check, and move on. He welcomes them back with complete forgiveness and open arms, but yet he's not naive.

34:45 And he knows if this happened once, it can happen again. And so he urges them, listen, you have to take this issue very, very seriously. After all, I encourage you to be students of the Bible, to be students of the scriptures, but at the end of the day, don't forget that I'm the one who's an apostle. And they are not. And I want you to study the scriptures to see if these things are so, but you can't just reject what I'm saying.

35:13 To reject my message is to reject Jesus Christ. Take that very seriously, and don't let the fact that I'm nothing, that I'm weak, that I stutter and that I stammer, that I have to work for my food, don't let that stop you from accepting the gospel message. Now, I've gone over this introduction to two Corinthians for a couple of reasons. On the one hand, it's helpful in our actual understanding of the book. It sheds light on passages which normally we wouldn't understand or not that we would distort, but we just wouldn't see the full significance of without knowing the background of what's happening.

36:05 Wait a minute, I forgot something. So Paul writes this letter, they respond well, right? Titus gets the great news. I forgot to actually say two Corinthians. That would have been a major oversight.

36:18 So Paul gets the good news from the hands of Titus. Listen, your letter went over well. Some of the bad guys are still there but it's gone over well and so Paul writes the letter of second Corinthians, chapters one through 13 to say, I'm so proud of you, you're forgiven, you're accepted, I love you so much, but just be careful about these other apostles, so called apostles. He then, he then will go visit them, this is the last step, in which he will spend a lot of time with them and that's where he eventually writes the incredible book called Romans. It's probably from Corinth.

37:52 You don't need to respond charismatically, you can just give me a slight nod or shake of the head. Okay. Alright. He has made us ministers of the new covenant, ministers of reconciliation. Ministers of the new covenant is chapter three, ministers of reconciliation is chapter five.

38:12 And often we hear about that, and of course the primary focus is that we are to be, he in fact says it there in chapter five, be reconciled to God. But when you think about all of the drama that's going on between Paul and the Corinthians, you realize more of the significance of what it means to be a minister of reconciliation. Being a minister of reconciliation means you can't just write off other brothers and sisters as a failed attempt. This I want to also talk about this Bible background in light of that, in light of what I've just said, because this brings up a really important practical application. We live in a day and age, and it's been like this for a long time, in which, and I'm sad to say I can, I struggle with this, and I know a lot of people who struggle with the idea of church shopping?

39:15 We will try a community of believers, and doggone it, we're going to give it a good shot. It's three or four months. And if things just don't click, and I don't like the way that he keeps doing this, and I don't like the way that he keeps doing that, and Well, you know what we can do? We can just pack our bags, and my family and I'll go somewhere else. Somewhere that'll do it the right way.

39:43 Of course, then this is all Satan's lie because then you go somewhere else and then you realize, oh, wait a minute. As it turns out, this place has got problems too. The very fact that two Corinthians is written speaks volumes. The very fact that Paul fights this fight and he says, therefore having received this ministry, we do not lose heart. I will not give up on you, says the Apostle Paul.

40:20 And yes, he's the he's a leader and so he has to speak to them with tough love. But I think if Paul were around today and he were talking to a lot of people in Christian ministry circles, they'd say, Paul, listen, you really did give it a good shot, but for crying out loud, you are the apostle to the Gentiles, you've got a lot of really important things to do. Just you win some, you lose some. Write them off as a loss and spend your efforts on something more worthwhile. But Paul pours all sorts of emotional energy, physical energy, spiritual energy into dealing with these people because he does not want to write them off as a lost cause.

41:06 This is important for us because it's so easy for us to write others off as a lost cause. Whether it's at the level of an assembly, we don't like this place, we don't like West, maybe you think I don't like this place at Westlake, they do this and I don't like the way they do that. Satan can be so tempting to just say, oh, just go somewhere else, a place that doesn't have problems. Or maybe it's more personal and individual. You have someone in your life, a co worker or a relative, a family member.

41:39 And then you've really thought that you've given them a good try, and you've told them they were wrong. What else can you do? That's not the attitude of Paul. He can be harsh at times. And sometimes, being a minister of reconciliation requires us to have tough love and to say it like it really is.

42:02 But at no point are we ever called to just give up on people. It can be tempting to say, We don't want to cast our pearls before swine. My time is spent better on someone else. Let's close in a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we are thankful for this book, two Corinthians.

42:24 We are thankful that it is a letter of joy and forgiveness, and yet it is a joy that speaks of the possibility of restoration. It is a letter that reminds us that we should never give up, that we should never lose heart. We thank you that even the Apostle Paul, even though he had so much against him and people blasphemed him and persecuted him and denied his role and turned their back on him even after he had poured out his life to them, he shows the unconditional love of the Lord Jesus, the one who never leaves us and who never forsakes us. We pray, Lord, that as we continue on studying this letter, individually and together as an assembly, we ask for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We ask that we would humble ourselves, acknowledging the authority of this man whom you chose to contribute to the New Testament.

43:33 And the words of two Corinthians are holy scripture given for our instructions. These are the very words of God. They are inerrant, they are true, they are completely trustworthy. And we neglect them to our own peril. So, Father, we pray that you would help us to take this, take your word so seriously, and take one another seriously and the mission that you have given to each and every one of us.

44:02 We commit ourselves to your care in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.