Getting into 2 Corinthians
2 Corinthians is not an easy epistle either to read or to study. Because Paul wrote a number of letters to the church in Corinth, at least four, the modernist scholars of the past, with their scissors-and-paste approach to scholarship have opined that 2 Corinthians is a compendium of these offerings because it has so much discontinuity within it. As I read it and then read it again during a period of intense anxiety, I realized how wooden such scholarship is -- and these scholars clearly had a low opinion of the intelligence of these who supposedly constructed 2 Corinthians from various bits and pieces, because they didn't drop the additions and digressions into what would have been the most appropriate places!
No, this is the produce of a brilliant mind that was deeply disturbed. His "anxiety for all the churches" (11:28) drove him to dart all over the place, lose the thread of his thoughts and then pick it up several chapters later, and to spill onto the page his raw emotions. When you are experiencing such anxieties as a result of ministry yourself, then the discombobulation of the letter makes perfect sense because you realize this is exactly how you are responding to the pressures that are upon you.
The situation is that the Corinthians were not only being pestered by super-apostles who were calling Paul's credentials into question, but they were tending to give into these interlopers' ideas and attitudes. The Corinthians were oh so 21st Century, for Corinth, in a more exaggerated manner than most of the Greek world, was into style and presentation -- and image was not something that Paul was particularly good at.
I imagine Paul as being like one of the most effective priests I know -- short, dumpy, of questionable health, with a scraggly beard and a far from attractive balding pattern! In this he was probably quite a contrast to these troublers who had come in from outside and who were rhetorically clever, had well-buffed bodies, and knew how to smooth-talk their way into peoples' hearts and lives. The truth is that some of the most wonderful Christian leaders I have ever known have been physically non-descript and usually have not been recognized by the wider church for the extraordinary things that they have achieved in Jesus' name. Paul, today would fit into that category.
What Paul is doing in 2 Corinthians is plead with the church that they do not turn aside from the gospel that he brought to them. He is asserting his own qualifications as an apostle of the heart set free, and encourages them to return to the essence of the faith that he had brought to them.
This is a difficult book because it covers the whole waterfront of emotions, and yet imbedded in it is some of the most profound theological truth about God's nature and our obedience. We see into the heart of a pastor and an evangelist. As Mike Thompson puts it, "We find him describing the shape of his ministry and revealing what makes him tick. We watch him work in crisis with a congregation surprisingly similar in some ways, perhaps, to our own" (page 7).
It is this collegiality with Paul that has drawn me to this letter, and which makes 2 Corinthians a crucial tool in forming and encouraging pastoral leaders in these difficult times. Did Paul mishandle the Corinthians occasionally? You bet he did -- much as you and I mishandle relationships in our congregations on a pretty regular basis. Have you and I ever had folks in the parish gang up on us and want to run us from town on a rail? Yes, and so was the attitude of many of the Corinthians toward the Apostles.
This, brothers and sisters, is heavy stuff!
No, this is the produce of a brilliant mind that was deeply disturbed. His "anxiety for all the churches" (11:28) drove him to dart all over the place, lose the thread of his thoughts and then pick it up several chapters later, and to spill onto the page his raw emotions. When you are experiencing such anxieties as a result of ministry yourself, then the discombobulation of the letter makes perfect sense because you realize this is exactly how you are responding to the pressures that are upon you.
The situation is that the Corinthians were not only being pestered by super-apostles who were calling Paul's credentials into question, but they were tending to give into these interlopers' ideas and attitudes. The Corinthians were oh so 21st Century, for Corinth, in a more exaggerated manner than most of the Greek world, was into style and presentation -- and image was not something that Paul was particularly good at.
I imagine Paul as being like one of the most effective priests I know -- short, dumpy, of questionable health, with a scraggly beard and a far from attractive balding pattern! In this he was probably quite a contrast to these troublers who had come in from outside and who were rhetorically clever, had well-buffed bodies, and knew how to smooth-talk their way into peoples' hearts and lives. The truth is that some of the most wonderful Christian leaders I have ever known have been physically non-descript and usually have not been recognized by the wider church for the extraordinary things that they have achieved in Jesus' name. Paul, today would fit into that category.
What Paul is doing in 2 Corinthians is plead with the church that they do not turn aside from the gospel that he brought to them. He is asserting his own qualifications as an apostle of the heart set free, and encourages them to return to the essence of the faith that he had brought to them.
This is a difficult book because it covers the whole waterfront of emotions, and yet imbedded in it is some of the most profound theological truth about God's nature and our obedience. We see into the heart of a pastor and an evangelist. As Mike Thompson puts it, "We find him describing the shape of his ministry and revealing what makes him tick. We watch him work in crisis with a congregation surprisingly similar in some ways, perhaps, to our own" (page 7).
It is this collegiality with Paul that has drawn me to this letter, and which makes 2 Corinthians a crucial tool in forming and encouraging pastoral leaders in these difficult times. Did Paul mishandle the Corinthians occasionally? You bet he did -- much as you and I mishandle relationships in our congregations on a pretty regular basis. Have you and I ever had folks in the parish gang up on us and want to run us from town on a rail? Yes, and so was the attitude of many of the Corinthians toward the Apostles.
This, brothers and sisters, is heavy stuff!
posted by Richard Kew at 4:31 AM
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