2 Corinthians

Scott J. Hafemann

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780310520702
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context.

To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections:

• Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context.
• Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible.
• Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved.

This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.

Text and Commentary on 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 1:1–2

PAUL, AN APOSTLE of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:

2Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Original Meaning

LETTER OPENINGS IN the first century followed the typical pattern, “(Sender) to (recipient): Greetings!” Paul customarily followed this form, but expanded these standard elements in order to indicate his own authority for writing, the recipient’s qualification(s) for receiving what is written, and the Christian perspective on what we desire for one another.1 In 2 Corinthians, however, Paul foregoes a detailed elaboration of his own authority and the status of the believers in Corinth (cf. 1 Cor. 1:1–3) in favor of a nearly standard salutation. His only expansions are the reminders that he is “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” and that the Corinthians are the “church of God,” who exist “together with all the saints throughout Achaia.”

This unusual simplicity serves to emphasize that Paul is an “apostle” (Gk. apostolos) and that he owes his calling as an apostle to the “will of God.” An apostolos is an emissary who is authorized and commissioned to carry out a personal mission on someone else’s behalf.2 Paul’s use of the genitive, “an apostle of Christ Jesus,” indicates that Christ is the one who has directly and ultimately sent him, while the reference “by the will of God” asserts that God is the intermediate agent of Paul’s apostleship.3 Christ is the one responsible for sending Paul, but God is the one who has made this sending possible. In other words, Christ sends Paul in accordance with God’s will.

Separated from Paul’s tradition and culture, it is easy to miss the significance of Paul’s self-designation. There is no parallel in the Greco-Roman world for the use of the noun “apostle” to refer to an emissary who carried an authorized commission as a matter of sovereign appointment. Rather, the New Testament concept derives from the Old Testament, where the verb apostello occurs approximately 696 times in the LXX to refer to sending someone out on a mission or special task (the noun apostolos occurs only once in the LXX in 1 Kings 14:6). In all but twelve of these passages it renders the Hebrew verb šalaḥ (= “to commission with a mission or a task”; cf. Gen. 32:4; Num. 20:14; Josh. 7:22; Judg. 6:35; 2 Chron. 36:15; Mal. 3:1).4

Although apostello is not a specifically religious term, in the LXX it becomes a technical designation for “the sending of a messenger with a special task” in which “the one who is sent is of interest only to the degree that in some measure he embodies in his existence as such the one who sends him.”5 This meaning anticipates a later rabbinic aphorism, that “the one sent by a man is as the man himself” (m. Ber. 5:5). Rengstorf consequently concludes that in contexts where sending with a religious purpose is in view, apostello begins to become “a theological term meaning ‘to send forth to service in the kingdom of God with full authority (grounded in God).’ ”6

In line with this development, Paul’s own use of the term corresponds most closely to the use of apostello in regard to Moses and the prophets, where it signifies that they had been sent with an official commission as a representative of Yahweh and were thus unconditionally subordinate to God’s will (cf. Ex. 3:10; Judg. 6:8, 14; Isa. 6:8; Jer. 1:7; Ezek. 2:3; Hag. 1:12; Zech. 2:8–9; 4:9; Mal. 3:1; 4:5). This is confirmed by the use of the verb in the New Testament as a whole, where it occurs 135 times, only twelve of which are found outside of the Gospels and Acts.7 Whereas in secular literature there is no essential distinction between pempo (to send) and apostello, in the NT pempo usually occurs when the emphasis is on the sending as such (cf. Rom. 8:3; 2 Thess. 2:11), whereas apostello carries the nuance of a commission.8

This same emphasis on being sent with a commission is found in the seventy-nine uncontested uses in the New Testament of the corresponding noun, “apostle” (apostolos), where all ten of its occurrences in the Gospels refer to the twelve “apostles” who were commissioned and sent out by Christ.9 Hence, although Paul’s letters are the earliest writings of the New Testament, and although he uses the word apostolos more than any other New Testament writer, the origin of its specific use for Christian emissaries almost certainly goes back to Jesus, who himself was “sent” (apostello) by the Father (cf. Mark 9:37; Luke 4:43; John 5:36) and can therefore also be called an “apostle” (Heb. 3:1).

Moreover, the transition from the ministry of Jesus to that of the apostles is reflected in the fact that in the Gospels and Acts the action of “sending” (apostello) is emphasized, whereas in the letters the emphasis is on the one sent (apostolos). These statistics point to the unique meaning of “apostle” within early Christianity as a designation of those commissioned to preach and act in the authority of Christ’s name (cf. Matt. 10:1, 7–8; Mark 3:14; 6:30; Luke 9:1–2). Paul’s point in 2 Corinthians 1:1 is that the will of God that sent Jesus is the same will that Christ enacts in sending Paul to represent him as his “apostle.”

The simple declaration in 1:1 thus reminds Paul’s readers of his divinely appointed role and authority among God’s people, thereby opening the way for the defense of his apostolic ministry that will be the focus of so much of 2 Corinthians (see Introduction). Indeed, Paul’s self-designation in 1:1 is the first salvo in the battle to reaffirm his apostolic legitimacy (cf. 10:1–6). There can be no compromise between Paul’s claim here and the claims of those whom Paul will unmask as “pseudo-apostles,” “deceitful workmen,” and “servants” of Satan (cf. 11:13–15). This affirmation of Paul’s own authority as an apostle is most likely the reason why he also mentions Timothy, his “brother,” as a cosender of the letter.10 By associating Timothy with himself in this way, Paul reaffirms the legitimacy of Timothy’s ministry among them, both in his helping Paul to establish the church (cf. Acts 18:5) and in his recent visits on Paul’s behalf (cf. 1 Cor. 4:17; 16:10). This too underscores the validity of the gospel the Corinthians have received through Paul’s coworkers (cf. 2 Cor. 1:19).

Having asserted his own authority and the validity of Timothy’s earlier ministry among them, Paul turns to the Corinthians as his addressees (v. 1b). His warrant for writing (i.e., he is “an apostle of Christ Jesus”) is matched by their reason for receiving it (i.e., they are the “church of God”). Despite their past problems and recent rebellion, the repentance of the majority of the Corinthians (cf. 2:6; 7:2–16) has demonstrated that they continue to be God’s people (cf. 7:2–16). The designation “church” (ekklesia) is one of two terms used in the LXX to define the local gathering of God’s chosen people (cf., e.g., Deut. 9:10; Judg. 20:1–2; 1 Kings 8:14; Ps. 22:22; 26:5; 35:18; 40:9).11 Thus, just as Paul owed his life as an apostle to the same will of God that had called Moses and the prophets (cf. 2 Cor. 2:16b; 3:4–5), so too the Corinthians owed their existence as Christians to the same mercy of God that had chosen Israel.

Hence, these twin designations, “apostle … by the will of God” and “church of God,” connote a continuity with the people of God and her leaders under the old covenant. At the same time, they also underscore the reality of the new covenant, since Paul is an apostle “of Christ [i.e., Messiah] Jesus,” and they are the church of God, not the synagogue (cf. 3:14–18). Moreover, the Corinthians are part of a larger gathering of “all the saints” (hagioi; i.e., “holy ones”) scattered throughout the Roman province of Achaia, an area roughly equivalent with modern-day Greece. Corinth was the capital of Achaia and the home of the first of the interrelated churches in the region (cf. Acts 18:1–11; 1 Cor. 16:15).

Paul’s specific reference to Corinth in relationship to this wider network of churches reflects the primacy and significance of Corinth as the center of the Pauline mission in the region, from which the gospel spread like spokes on a wheel (cf. 10:15–16). In writing to Corinth, Paul is therefore writing to all of the churches in Achaia, not only because he viewed them as belonging to one another, but also because he knew that as things go in Corinth, so too in Achaia (cf. 9:2; 11:10). The problems in Corinth, past and present, were bound to impact the surrounding churches.

Given these problems, Paul’s use of “saints” to describe the believers in Achaia, including by implication the Corinthians (!), often surprises modern readers, since our word “saint” has come to designate those who have attained such a high degree of spirituality that they are set apart from the “normal” rank and file of Christians. Indeed, to be “holy” is to be “set apart.” But Paul uses it to refer to all believers as those who have been set apart as belonging to God. Far from describing a special class of Christians, all believers, as saints, are to live “holy” lives (for the Old Testament roots of the calling to be “saints,” see Ex. 19:5–6; Lev. 11:44; 20:24–26; Num. 23:9; Deut. 7:6; 14:2; Ps. 147:20).

Hence, just as Paul’s self-designation as an apostle began the battle for his own legitimacy, so too his describing the Corinthians as saints lays the foundation for his subsequent appeals throughout the letter (cf. 2 Cor. 6:13; 6:14–7:1; 7:2–3; 13:1–10). Those who are truly saints will show themselves to be so by responding positively to Paul’s self-defense. For, in reality, it is not Paul’s apostleship that is now on the line, but the faith of those who continue to reject his gospel and its embodiment in his calling to suffer on behalf of God’s people (cf. 5:20–6:2; 10:8; 12:19).

Finally, the play on words that exists in Greek between the normal word for “hello” (charein) and the Christian term for “grace” (charis) is lost in the English translation of Paul’s greeting (cf. Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3). At the point where Paul’s hearers would have expected to hear “hello!” (charein), Paul wishes them “grace” (charis). Paul wishes his readers a continuing experience of God’s merciful gifts, from forgiveness and justification to deliverance from the power of sin and eternal life. Paul can do so because Christ’s death on the cross for those who deserve only God’s wrath makes such grace possible.

Accordingly, Paul’s desire that they experience “peace” is not primarily a wish for untroubled circumstances. Rather, he wishes them that comprehensive shalom or well-being that characterizes the lives of believers, individually and corporately, when all is right with God, a possibility also granted by the grace of God through Christ. Paul’s two wishes are therefore inextricably interrelated. “Peace” is an expression of the “grace” of God in the life of the believer. The significance of this grace and the peace of reconciliation that it engenders will be detailed in 5:11–6:2. But in view of the controversy still raging in Corinth, Paul’s otherwise standard wish takes on from the beginning an added sense of poignancy and pain. Only those who accept Paul’s greeting as an expression of his genuine apostolic authority will receive what “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” desire for them.

Bridging Contexts

PAUL IS AN “Apostle” and an “apostle.” In applying this text, it is important to keep in mind that there were two types of apostles within the early church. On the one hand, there were the original “twelve Apostles,” who were sent out by Jesus himself during his earthly ministry and were later confirmed in their calling by witnessing the resurrected Christ (cf. Mark 3:14; 6:7, 30; 9:35; 10:32; 11:11; cf. Acts 1:2, 22; 1 Cor. 15:5). As a result, their authority was derived directly from Christ himself. The replacement of Judas with Matthias according to the qualifications reported in Acts 1:12–26 indicates that this class of apostles was fixed both in number and in kind in order to maintain the parallel between the twelve Apostles and the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Luke 6:13; Acts 8:1; Rev. 21:12–14).

These Apostles of Christ made up the nucleus of the new covenant people of God, establishing the continuity between Israel and the church. But whereas physical lineage determined the twelve patriarchs, the twelve Apostles, like the faithful remnant within the nation of Israel, existed by virtue of Christ’s calling. The role of the twelve Apostles was not to initiate and receive a blessing for their physical descendants, but to represent Christ by providing the authoritative leadership and foundational teaching for the church, God’s “children” (cf. Acts 2:42; 6:2; 15:2, 22–23; 1 Cor. 12:28; Gal. 1:18–19; Eph. 2:20; 3:5; 4:11; 2 Peter 3:2; Jude 17; Rev. 18:20; 21:14). These were “Apostles” with a capital “A.”

On the other hand, there were those “apostles” who may not have seen the risen Christ, but who were sent out by the early churches to preach and administer in Christ’s name. Not all who saw the risen Christ were sent out as apostles (cf. 1 Cor. 15:6), just as not all those sent out as apostles by the churches had seen the risen Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 8:23). Moreover, no ma...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• How to Use This Commentary
• Series Introduction
• General Editor’s Preface
• Author’s Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Outline
• Annotated Bibliography of Selected Commentaries and Monographs
• Text and Commentary on 2 Corinthians
• Scripture Index
• Subject Index
• Notes