2 Corinthians2chapter 2

2 Corinthians 2:1-2

I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness: Paul explains the delayed visit from chapter one in its plainest terms, a second painful visit would have served no one, not Paul and not the church still recovering from the first. If I make you sorry, who is he then that maketh me glad, but the same which is made sorry by me: verse 2 states the logic behind the decision, Paul's own joy is bound up with the church's, so a visit that only multiplied grief on both sides would have defeated its own purpose. The commentators read the pair of verses as Paul's pastoral reasoning laid open rather than an excuse offered after the fact.

2 Corinthians 2:3-4

I wrote this same unto you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice: the severe letter Paul sent instead of the visit was meant to spare both sides a worse grief in person. Having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all: even while writing correction Paul names the bond he trusts is still intact. Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears: verse 4 tells what the severe letter cost its author, not a cold rebuke but a letter written weeping, and the commentators note that a shepherd's discipline and a shepherd's love are shown here as the same act, not two.

2 Corinthians 2:5-6

If any have caused grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part, that I may not overcharge you all: Paul widens the injury from himself alone to the whole congregation, refusing to make the matter a personal grievance. Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many: the majority's discipline is called enough, and the man's identity is read two ways among the commentators, some holding him the incestuous offender of 1 Corinthians 5, others a different man who wronged Paul personally during the painful visit between the letters. Either way the point of the verse stands untouched, that the church's discipline had already done its work and needed no further weight added to it.

2 Corinthians 2:7-8

So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him: the same apostle who once called for discipline now calls just as firmly for its end, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow, a real danger the commentators take seriously, that unbounded grief can undo a man discipline was meant to restore. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him: verse 8 asks for a public, formal act of restoration, not merely a private softening of feeling. The pastoral principle the bench draws from the pair of verses has outlasted the particular case, that church discipline aims at a sinner's repentance and restoration, never at his destruction.

2 Corinthians 2:9-11

To this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things: the severe letter had a second purpose besides the offender's discipline, a test of the whole church's obedience to Paul's apostolic word. To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ: Paul's own forgiveness is granted representing Christ's authority, not his private feeling, so that the church's restoration of the man carries the same weight as Christ's own. Lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices: verse 11 names the real danger behind excessive severity, that an enemy who cannot destroy a church by outright attack will gladly use its own discipline against it, turning correction into division.

2 Corinthians 2:12-13

Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord: Paul names an open door for the gospel, real opportunity plainly from God, and then does something that surprises every reader expecting him to stay. I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: anxiety over the Corinthian crisis, and over Titus who carried news of it, outweighed even a fruitful door. Taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia: the commentators read the two verses together as evidence of how deeply the Corinthian trouble weighed on Paul, enough to turn him away from an opening he elsewhere would have seized without hesitation.

2 Corinthians 2:14

Causeth us to triumph in Christ translates thriambeuo, the verb for a Roman general's triumphal procession, and the bench reads the figure carefully, Christ as the victor leading his own in the train of his triumph, captives turned into willing participants in his victory rather than trophies of defeat. And maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place: the incense burned along a Roman triumph's route becomes Paul's picture for the gospel itself, a fragrance released everywhere the procession passes, whatever the anxiety of the previous verse. The commentators note the sudden turn from Paul's own restlessness to this outburst of thanksgiving as characteristic of the whole letter, comfort breaking in on affliction without warning.

2 Corinthians 2:15-16

For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: the fragrance of the triumph is the same fragrance in every nostril, but its effect divides hearers into two outcomes, and Paul says the difference lies in the hearer, not in the gospel preached. To the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life: verse 16 states the same truth as a stark parallel, the identical message working opposite ends in opposite hearers, life to those who receive it and death to those who refuse it. And who is sufficient for these things: the question that closes the verse is not despair but the hinge into the chapter that follows, where Paul answers that his sufficiency is of God alone.

2 Corinthians 2:17

We are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: Paul names the rival teachers at Corinth directly for the first time, kapeleuo, the verb for a huckster diluting wine to sell more of it for less cost, a trade of the gospel for profit. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ: against that trade Paul sets his own manner of preaching, sincere, sourced in God, and conducted as before a witness who cannot be deceived. The verse closes the chapter on the same note that opened chapter one, Paul's ministry defended not by credentials but by its own transparent conduct.