Introduction

Good morning, and welcome we are beginning today a new course of study this time focusing our attention on Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. Some of you will have been with us long enough to recall our series on Paul's first Corinthians letter which took place probably about seven years ago now. However, since that was a good while ago and since the majority of you here this morning were not here for any part of that previous series it will be good on the front end to spend some time getting a kind of overview of the Corinthian correspondence as well as the movements of Paul and his companions in relation to it. Hopefully by taking time to do this we will be better equipped to make sense of second Corinthians in the weeks and months ahead. Now in this overview we're going to look at a few things. Firstly the occasion of the letter that is the background that shows how this letter came to be historically speaking. Secondly the purpose of the letter which of course is very closely tied to its background. Thirdly the content of the letter in general terms and fourthly some of the key verses in this letter that hopefully will wet your appetite in anticipation of what this study holds for us. Now the first three things will all be jumbled up together since they are so closely related and then at the end we will have a quick reading of just a few verses. That's the plan of attack before we go any further. Let's pray together. Father in heaven we thank you for this opportunity to look again to your word and we pray that as we do that now that you would guide us by your spirit to see the good things that are there to be found in your word that will encourage us that will make us more like your son Jesus Christ and father will spur us on to pursue you with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and we pray these things in Jesus name. Now you might think that the place to start thinking about the Christian correspondence is with the letters themselves but in fact a better place to start is not with Corinthians at all but rather with the book of Acts. Now why is this the case? Well simply because in the book of Acts we have the record of the establishment and growth of the early church from the resurrection and ascension of Jesus onward and a big part of that story indeed the biggest part of that story humanly speaking involved the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul as God worked through him in powerful ways to further the gospel throughout much of the then known world. Now by reading the book of Acts we can discern that Paul made at least three different journeys. Paul's goal wherever possible was to leave behind a functioning church or at least the beginnings of one and every place that would give him hearing and some places his stay was very short in other places he stayed as long as three years but overall Paul made at least three circuits through various places and returned to visit many of them more than once. And finally near the end of his life he made a journey to Rome as a result of his appeal to Caesar during his imprisonment and that is where Paul's story ends. It was during Paul's second missionary journey the account of which begins in Acts 1536 that Paul first went to the city of Corinth and established a church there. And this took place in the midst of a very productive and strategic time for Paul as he ministered within three of the most significant cities of that day in age. One of those cities was Athens which as stock points out was arguably the intellectual center of the world at that time. The next city was Corinth which was one of the commercial centers of the world and from there during his third missionary journey Paul went to Ephesus, one of the great religious centers of the ancient world. And so it seems that Paul's coming to Corinth was part of a larger pattern of God sending him to certain influential centers to carry on the work of the gospel. Now immediately prior to his arrival in Corinth Paul had been in Athens which was by far the biggest and most intimidating place he had been to up to that point. From there he moved on to Corinth which would have been equally intimidating but perhaps for different reasons. And Athens the intimidation would have come from the intellectual climate and Corinth from the atmosphere of money and power that provided the city. The ability of these sorts of places to intimidate even one such as Paul is seen in the first letter to the Corinthians itself where at one point Paul says, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, all of which begs the question, what was Corinth like? What is it about that city that would have made it such a challenging place to carry out gospel ministry? Well for starters as we've already seen it was a center for commerce and trade in the ancient world. And the biggest factor in all of that was its location in what is now southern Greece and near a narrow strip of land about four and a half miles long that separated the Ionian Sea from the Aegean Sea. Because it was such a narrow strip ships would either unload their cargo and have it transported overland to a ship waiting on the other side, or if the ship was small enough they actually had constructed a track onto which they would place the ship and physically transport it all the way across to the other side. While this might seem to be a bit much, the only alternative would have been to round the southern tip of the Peloponnesis a distance of about 200 miles and one which involved passing through Cape Mele which had become a graveyard for countless numbers of ships. What any right because of its strategic location and because of the danger of sailing around the land crossing was a safer bet and thus Corinth found itself at the crossroads of a lot of commerce and many ways might well be regarded as the Wall Street of the ancient world as one commentator has described it. Well in addition to noting that Corinth was a commercial center, what else can we say about this city? One thing we can say is that Corinth was known not only for its business and financial features, but it was also a place that had a reputation for sexual promiscuity and all manner of sexual practices and the source from which most of this stemmed was the particular temples and pagan religions to which Corinth played host. On the one hand there was a temple for Poseidon or Neptune, God of the Sea and Corinth being the seafaring city that it was makes this fact not all that surprising. The worship surrounding that particular temple certainly contributed to the atmosphere of materialism and worldliness that gripped the city. But it was the other two prominent temples that played a more significant role in the city's reputation, particularly as a place of sexual license. At one point in the city's history there were twin temples, one to Aphrodite or Venus and the other to Apollo. Both of these temples among other things were serviced by male and female prostitutes who engaged in ritualistic sex. Now in making these observations we have to be careful because the CK Barrett points out sometimes the significance of this factor is overplayed by commentators and preachers who like to point out for instance that the immoral reputation of the city was so great that at one point the word Corinthian took on a verbal form and was used to refer to all sorts of illicit activity. Now it's absolutely correct that the city did have that kind of reputation but what is often not pointed out is that the city of Corinth about which such things were spoken was completely demolished such that the Corinth of Paul's Day was not the original city with the terrible reputation but in fact the rebuilt city of Corinth. This new city was constructed by Caesar in 46 BC which means it was about a hundred years old by the time Paul entered it and while it does seem to be the case that the rebuilt city even in Paul's Day had begun to take on some of its former characteristics including the reemergence of the practices associated with the various temples. It is probably right to say nevertheless that the most prominent feature of the city in Paul's Day was its commerce and materialism and not its sexual promiscuity although it was certainly plenty of that. Now while much more could be said that in brief is the Corinth into which the apostle Paul walked more than 1900 years ago and that Luke describes for us in Acts 18 verses 1 to 17. After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth and he found a Jew named Aquila a native of Pontus recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome and he went to see them because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked for they were tent makers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia Paul was occupied with the word testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus and when they opposed and reviled him he shook out his garments and said to them, your blood be on your own heads I am innocent. For now on I will go to the Gentiles and he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justice a worshipper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Christmas the ruler of the synagogue believed in the Lord together with his entire household and many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized and the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision do not be afraid. But go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you for I have many in this city who are my people. And he stayed a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. But when Galio was proconsul of a cave the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal saying this man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law. But when Paul was about to open his mouth Galio said to the Jews, if it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime of Jews I would have reason to accept your complaint. But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law see to it yourselves I refuse to be a judge of these things. And he drove them from the tribunal and they all seized Sastanese the ruler of the synagogue and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Galio paid no attention to any of this. Now while there are a number of important things to be found in that passage perhaps the one that stands out the most is found in God's words to Paul in verses 9 to 10. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision do not be afraid to go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you no one will attack you to harm you for I have many in this city who are my people. Those words make crystal clear God's sovereign intention to establish a church in Corinth. And we see that sovereignty working itself out in a number of ways even within this brief chapter. We see God sending Paul to minister amongst them we see God sending Aquila and Priscilla to Corinth ahead of Paul in order that they might receive him when he got there. Even further we see God's purpose in sending these particular people because they in fact have the same trade and skill as Paul they were tent makers. And as such we're able to provide Paul with room and board and gainful employment which would keep him going while the church was being established. Even further we see God working in the hearts of some of the their early on including in the heart of the rule or the synagogue Christmas beyond all that we see God speaking personally to Paul telling him of his plans for the city and how Paul's work will not be hindered and then right on the heels of that. We see the illustration of that truth as Paul's Jewish opponents fail in their attempt at putting a stop to Paul's ministry through some political maneuvering right so God's sovereignty is really all over this thing. Now all of that is fine and good it's helpful to have some idea of how the whole Corinthian project got started and what some of the details of that context were. However as helpful as that is there's more than needs to be said beyond understanding how the church in Corinth was established we need to understand something about how it continued after its establishment and after it's a founding apostle moved on. And when you look at what took place afterward when you look at the ongoing relationship between Paul and the Corinthian church you see that it was a pretty volatile relationship it was very up and down one moment he is the hero another moment it seems he is the villain at times they seem to be very supportive of him and then on other occasions they seem to have utterly abandoned him. And the fact that the relationship was so rocky goes a long way it seems to me toward explaining some of the characteristics of Paul's letters to the Corinthians particularly the second letter which like their relationship evidences the same sorts of twists and turns and sudden changes. And so it is that part of making sense of this letter involves understanding something about the events that took place after that initial time of church planting accordingly what I would like to do now is give you a very limited description of that the relevance of all of these things may not be immediately apparent to you but as we worked through the letter I hope you will see how the various details do in fact come into play. And assist us in better understanding second Corinthians so let's get to it then after Paul left Corinth it seems that he made his way back to Syria that is back to his home base so to speak thus completing his second missionary journey. Now when thinking about this and before we go any further it helps to have an idea of the geography here so let me encourage you to make use of the sad little maps that we've included in the bulletin and looking at this map that we've provided for you the places to kind of pay attention to and what you'll hear different times through this series you'll notice that Corinth is sort of right there near the middle and over just to the east of that is Athens. And then if you kind of go directly north you'll see up further up there you'll see Thessalonica and then you go toward the east again and you'll see Philippi and you kind of come down on the other side of around the body of water there and you see a city called Troas and then you come down further and you see Ephesus and then you move east a little bit and you see Colossi etc. So those are some of the main cities in that area some things that we'll need to keep in mind as we talk about Paul's relationship with the Corinthians and his movements and things like that. So keeping all that in mind let's get back to the story. Let me just say I'm going to give you a reconstruction here of events as I understand them and let me just say right at the beginning this may not be correct in every detail but it's the best that I can do and try to move on. I can do and try to make sense of the various bits of information that we have about Paul and his movements in the New Testament so here goes. After remaining in Syria for a time Paul sets out on his third missionary journey eventually coming to Ephesus where he ends up staying for two years. Now while in Ephesus Paul writes his first letter to Corinth and please note this is not the letter of first Corinthians that appears in our Bible. This is a previous letter referred to in first Corinthians 5.9 that is it is a letter we don't have. In this previous letter Paul among other things had apparently given them some instruction regarding their association with Christians who continued to sin deliberately. Apparently the Corinthians had misunderstood Paul's instructions on this matter and thought that he was telling them they should not have any association with lost people and misunderstanding that Paul will correct later on. At any rate after sending this letter and while Paul was still at Ephesus he received some news from two different sources. One source was a direct one as he was visited by a few people from the Corinthian church including Stephanus, Fortunatus, Achaicus and a group referred to as Chloe's people. Now these people told Paul about the quarreling and division that had been taking place ever since he left the church. The other source of news came in the form of a letter that was an official communication from the church as a whole and this was likely hand delivered by the same people just mentioned. And in this letter a number of specific questions were put to Paul on various subjects including marriage, food offered to idols, spiritual gifts and the collection for the poor. Well in response to all this Paul sits down to write a second letter which we do have and which we know as first Corinthians. It is in this letter that Paul deals with their misunderstandings from the previous letter. He also deals with the things that had been reported to him as well as the questions that they'd asked. Further he gives them a heads up about his plans to come and see them soon. Regarding that last bit Paul's plans to come and see them it seems from 1 Corinthians 16, 1 to 9 and Acts 19, 21 to 22 that Paul's plan originally was to travel north through Macedonia and then turn southward and make his way to Corinth. From there he would then travel to Jerusalem with the funds that had been collected for their relief probably by sea. And we'll call this plan A. Well again piecing together the various clues we have it seems that at this point and prior to his making his own trip there Paul sends Timothy ahead of him to Corinth possibly to personally deliver Paul's letter to them and get an update on how things were going. This Timothy does and returns to Paul bringing the disturbing news that things were not going well. This news causes Paul to revise his original travel plans so instead of going north through Macedonia and then south the Corinth he would go straight across the sea from Ephesus to Corinth then making his trip to Macedonia and return again for a second visit to Corinth before making his way back to Jerusalem. That was the revised plan plan B. See, 2 Corinthians 1, 15 to 16. However, when Paul finally arrived in Corinth he was apparently the subject of a hurtful attack by an unnamed individual but who is possibly the person Paul had singled out for Rebuke in 1 Corinthians 5 and who had not taken to Paul's Rebuke very well. As a result Paul's time in Corinth proved to be quite difficult and personally painful as it appears that not only was he attacked by this individual but the rest of the church does not appear to have come very strongly to Paul's defense.

Well as a consequence of this Paul altered his travel plans one more time which brings us to plan C. Instead of traveling north the Macedonia from Corinth and then coming back down to see them again a second time according to his revised plan Paul decided that he would go to Macedonia and then down the other side back to Ephesus rather than coming back to Corinth so soon for that second visit. Now why does Paul do this? Because as he says in 2 Corinthians 2 1 he did not want to have another painful visit. He didn't want to repeat of what had just happened which was painful not just for him but for them as well. So he goes back to Ephesus and from there he writes a severe letter which we likely do not have either. So there are scholars who have a different view of this but they are in the minority it seems to me with most scholars taking the view that this severe letter like the letter that preceded first Corinthians is one that remains unavailable to the church. This letter was most likely carried to Corinth in person by Titus it was not only to deliver the letter but also was likely meant to talk with them. Again about the collection of funds for the poor in Jerusalem see 2 Corinthians 8 6. Well after dispatching Titus with this third letter Paul awaits word from him on how the letter has been received. The plan was that he and Titus would meet in Troas as Titus was making his way back from Corinth so Paul goes to Troas to wait for Titus but Titus did not arrive when Paul expected him to and because Paul was very anxious to know what had happened. And he decided to leave Troas and continue traveling northward in hopes of intercepting Titus as he came through Macedonia. Well to Paul's great relief no doubt he does finally run into Titus in Macedonia where on top of everything else it was a great deal of persecution taking place. Nevertheless amidst all the chaos of that Paul gets a more positive although perhaps not entirely positive report from Titus. Apparently his severe letter had had an effect the church had finally and faithfully responded to Paul's rebuke and was in fact exercising church discipline now on the person who had been so hurtful to Paul on his previous trip. See 2 Corinthians 7 6 to 12 that was good news although it is apparent from what Paul writes elsewhere that there were still problems. Now the details of what happened next are not as clear. Different writers have attempted to come up with the precise sequence of events that would account for the evidence that we have in Scripture but here's what I think took place. After receiving this more encouraging report Paul sends Titus back to Corinth probably to make sure that the details of the collection were followed up on and in order to save him and them from any further embarrassment or tension and so Titus goes one way and Paul the other likely back down to Ephesus. At some point after arriving in Ephesus but probably not right away Paul sits down to compose another letter to the Corinthians. This is the letter that we know as 2 Corinthians and in this letter Paul does a number of things. He expresses his joy over their positive response to his instruction. He also explains why he had changed his travel plans and in so doing responds to some lingering criticism that were apparently going on because of that change of mind. He also urges them now to forgive and restore the one who had caused him pain and who they had finally disciplined. He gives a lengthy description of how in spite of his hardships God has sustained his ministry in the midst of it all and he gives them further and detailed instructions about the collection for the saints in Jerusalem. Apparently they had made a good beginning but then had wavered a bit and Paul who had already boasted about their generosity to others was afraid that they might not now live up to his boast. All of these things are dealt with in the first nine chapters of 2 Corinthians.

While all this is going on Titus is back in Corinth where he finds sadly that things have begun to deteriorate once again. Largely as a result of false apostles who were making the most of the circumstances to make all kinds of accusations against Paul. Titus response to this it seems was to not stick around very long but to sort of high tail it back to Paul to let him know first hand of the changed circumstances in Corinth. Response to this Paul takes up his pen once again and picking up where he left off on his as yet unsent letter. He writes the section we know as chapters 10 to 13 which are different in mood and character from what precedes them. As one commentator describes it these chapters these four chapters read like a last desperate attempt to bring the church to its senses. To secure again their pure devotion to Christ and to revive their loyalty to him as their father in the faith. In this section Paul also warns them of a planned third visit of his own where he would show them just what sort of authority he had if they didn't straighten up and fly right. According to Acts 20 Paul actually did make another visit to Greece and presumably would have made this promised third visit to Corinth at that time. Now that sequence of events may or may not be entirely accurate. But it is one that I believe does a good job of bringing into some sort of coherent framework all the various bits of information that we have about Paul and his companions and their movements as well as the material of Paul's letters themselves. And it is the understanding that we will take with us into our study of this letter when we begin looking at chapter 1 next week. Now with the few minutes we have remaining I want to simply draw your attention to some of the key verses scattered throughout this letter versus with which you may already be pretty familiar and which hopefully will peak your interest to understand them better and to find out the many good things that God has for us here. So see if any of this sounds familiar to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us and all our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Second Corinthians 1, 3. Second Corinthians 2, 15. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing to one of fragrance from death to death to the other of fragrance from life to life. Second Corinthians 4, 7. But we have this treasure and jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Second Corinthians 5, 1. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Second Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the oldest passed away behold the new has come. All this is from God who, through Christ, reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. Second Corinthians 6, 14. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness? Second Corinthians 7, 10. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret whereas worldly grief produces death. Second Corinthians 9, 6. The point is this, whoever soes sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever soes bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart that reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. Second Corinthians 10, 3. For though we walk in the flesh we are not waging war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. Second Corinthians 12, 7. And we will conclude with this. So to keep me from being conceded because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceded. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this that it should leave me but He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly if my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Clearly a very rich letter is in front of us and I hope you look forward to this series as much as I do to learn the many good things that God is going to show us. Let's pray together.