2 Corinthians

Covers 2 Corinthians 1

Why Paul can say all God's promises find their yes in Jesus and no one else — a clear statement of the gospel, and how being placed in Christ makes those promises ours and seals us by the Spirit.

Covers 2 Corinthians 3

On Paul's insistence that our sufficiency comes only from God — why recognizing that capable is not the same as sufficient keeps a believer dependent on the Spirit and guards a long, healthy life of ministry against self-glory.

Covers 2 Corinthians 4

How Paul can call his afflictions light and momentary — not toughness or temperament, but a perspective fixed on the unseen and eternal, where the weight of coming glory dwarfs even the worst temporal suffering.

Covers 2 Corinthians 4

How Paul, who endured beatings, shipwreck, and stoning, could call such suffering light and momentary affliction — two ways to reorient perspective toward the unseen and eternal, weighing present trials against the reward laid up in heaven.

Covers 2 Corinthians 5

How Paul's longing to be away from the body and at home with the Lord shifted over fifteen years from intellectual assent to heartfelt yearning — driven by a deepening awareness of personal sin and the brokenness of the world.

Covers 2 Corinthians 5

Using an offbeat image to read Paul's longing to be further clothed in our heavenly dwelling — a gut check on whether living too comfortably in step with the world keeps us from noticing our spiritual nakedness and yearning for heaven.

Covers 2 Corinthians 5

A technical proposal on the mechanics of substitutionary atonement — wrestling with Deuteronomy 24:16's rule that each dies for his own sin, and suggesting that Jesus' death gave God the means to forgive and absorb humanity's debt rather than swapping one death for another.

Covers 2 Corinthians 7

On Paul's call to bring holiness to completion — why many activist evangelical churches, reacting against empty pietism, neglect the active pursuit of holiness, and why faithful service and a visibly distinct life of holiness both belong together.

Covers 2 Corinthians 9

Reclaiming Paul's promise that those who sow bountifully reap bountifully from televangelist abuse — God enriches the generous not so they can be rich but so they can give still more, multiplying both heavenly reward and earthly capacity to give.

Covers 2 Corinthians 9

Distinguishing Paul's giving promise from health-and-wealth preaching — God does multiply what the generous give, but increases their seed for sowing rather than their standard of living, entrusting more to those who prove faithful stewards.

Covers 2 Corinthians 11

Paul's refusal of support from the wealthy Corinthians to keep any barrier from the gospel — a challenge to the American Christian instinct to guard personal rights over the good of others and the advance of God's kingdom.

Covers Exodus 20 · 2 Corinthians 11

Recovering the command against taking the Lord's name in vain as bearing his name fruitlessly rather than using God as an expletive — paired with Paul's warning in 2 Corinthians 11 that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light in a spiritual war over truth.

Covers 2 Corinthians 12

Wrestling with Paul's call to boast in weakness so Christ's power may rest on us — why a lifetime spent proving one's own sufficiency makes admitting weakness grate, and how God reshapes an identity rooted in achievement into one rooted in Christ.

Covers 2 Corinthians 12

Why 'my power is made perfect in weakness' is one of the hardest passages to live out for someone driven to prove his own sufficiency — and how the Church's design, with no one person sufficient alone, reframes weakness as the place God works.

Covers 2 Corinthians 13

Paul's charge to examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith — pushing back on the Evangelical fixation with a one-time conversion prayer, and arguing that biblical faith is a present, ongoing trust and loyalty, not a past event.