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2 Corinthians

2 Corinthianschapter 13

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Speaks with:2 Corinthians 10×3Romans 16×2Matthew 18×1Deuteronomy 19×1Deuteronomy 17×12 Corinthians 1×1

Summary

Chapter summary

Paul's third visit. By the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. He prays for their perfection. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Henry reads the closing as a benediction of the Trinity upon the restored church.

Context

Epistle · Paul — 2 Corinthians overview

  • A. 1–4 By Two or Three Witnesses: This Time He Will Not Spare
  • B. 5–10 Test Yourselves — Is Christ in You?
  • C. 11–14 Farewell, and the Grace of the Three

The outline

  1. A.By Two or Three Witnesses: This Time He Will Not Sparevv. 1 to 4

    Read vv. 1 to 4 →

  2. B.Test Yourselves — Is Christ in You?vv. 5 to 10

    Read vv. 5 to 10 →

  3. C.Farewell, and the Grace of the Threevv. 11 to 14

    Read vv. 11 to 14 →

The world behind this chapter

2 Corinthians 13
When
Written from Macedonia, before the third visit · c. AD 55–56
Where
Final warnings, a legal principle, and a benediction.
Who first heard it
A church about to receive Paul in person for the third time.

The history

The rule he cites — every charge established by the evidence of two or three witnesses — comes straight from the Law of Moses and governed Jewish judicial procedure. Applying it here signals that his coming visit will involve formal examination of accusations, not private grumbling.

The word he uses for testing and for being disqualified belongs to the assaying of metals: coinage was checked for purity, and false coin was rejected. Corinth, a commercial city handling money constantly, knew the process. Paul turns it on them — examine yourselves, test yourselves — before they test him.

His plan to be severe if necessary rests on the authority he says the Lord gave him for building up and not for tearing down, and he says he hopes the letter will make severity unnecessary.

The closing greeting mentions the holy kiss, the ordinary Mediterranean greeting between family members, adopted by these congregations as the sign that they were kin.

What it meant to them

For the Corinthians, the last chapter put the choice in their hands. He would rather be thought weak and find them strong; his prayer is for their restoration, not his vindication.

And the letter that began with comfort ends with one of the oldest three-fold blessings in Christian use — the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit — spoken over a church that had spent two years fighting with the man saying it.

Sources cited

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 2 Corinthians 13. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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