2 Corinthians6chapter 6

2 Corinthians 6:1-2

We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain: synergountes, fellow workers alongside God, and the bench reads the appeal as continuing straight out of chapter 5's ministry of reconciliation, an urgency that a grace already received could still be received to no effect if the Corinthians drift back to the false apostles. Verse 2 seals the urgency with Isaiah 49:8, for he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee, the prophet's word to the Servant applied to the present gospel hour. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation doubles the now for emphasis, and the exposition holds it as Paul's own statement that delay is the one thing grace does not promise to wait for.

2 Corinthians 6:3-5

Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: Paul turns to his own record as proof of the grace he has just urged them not to waste, and the bench notes the shift from exhortation to autobiography as the pattern the whole letter follows, doctrine defended by a life. But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses opens a catalogue that will run nine items long before it changes register, and verse 5 adds the concrete blows, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings. The list reads as the hardship catalogue the letter is famous for, and the exposition treats it as Paul's credentials offered in place of the letters of commendation his rivals carried.

2 Corinthians 6:6-7

By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned: the catalogue turns from what Paul endured to what marked his character under it, and the bench notes the Holy Ghost named alongside virtues as their source, not one item among equals but the power behind the rest. By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left: verse 7 names the weapon, panoplia dikaiosynes, righteousness worn as full armour, offensive on the right hand and defensive on the left as the older commentators read the phrase, the same military figure Paul draws out fully in Ephesians 6. The exposition presents the pair of verses as Paul's answer to any charge that hardship alone proves a true ministry, character and truth proving it alongside the suffering.

2 Corinthians 6:8-10

By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true: the catalogue turns paradoxical, nine antitheses in three verses, and the bench reads the form itself as argument, a ministry proved genuine precisely by how the world's opposite verdicts fail to touch it. As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed continues the pattern through mortal danger survived again and again, and verse 10 closes on the note the letter keeps returning to, as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. The exposition names the last line as the same strength in weakness thread that runs from the sentence of death in chapter 1 to the thorn in chapter 12, joy and poverty and possession held together without contradiction because their source is Christ and not circumstance.

2 Corinthians 6:11-13

O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged: the catalogue's plainspoken defense breaks into direct address, Paul naming the church by name, a warmth the bench reads as genuine rather than rhetorical given what follows in chapter 7. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels: any coldness between them is not on his side, and the image is affection literally cramped, restricted in its own capacity to receive what Paul offers freely. Now for a recompence in the same, I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged: the appeal closes as a father's plea rather than a rival's demand, asking only that the same openness he has shown be returned.

2 Corinthians 6:14

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: heterozygountes, the yoking of two unlike animals, drawn from Deuteronomy 22:10's prohibition on plowing with an ox and an ass together, unequal in strength and kind and so harmful to both. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? states the principle in two questions expecting the answer none, and the bench reads the verse as governing Christian association broadly, business partnership, marriage, and any bond that forces shared direction, the applications named as applications and never expanded past what the text itself gives.

2 Corinthians 6:15-16

The catena's last three questions follow together, what concord hath Christ with Belial, what part hath he that believeth with an infidel, and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols, Belial a name for worthlessness that came to stand for Satan himself in Jewish usage, the sharpest of the four contrasts. For ye are the temple of the living God: the argument climbs from questions to identity, the church itself named the temple, and the citation that follows is a composite the bench traces to Leviticus 26:12, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, God's covenant promise to Israel now spoken over the church without displacing the people to whom it was first given. The temple figure recalls 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19, the separation Paul urges resting on identity rather than on mere rule keeping.

2 Corinthians 6:17-18

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you: the catena continues with language the bench traces to Isaiah 52:11's call out of Babylon, applied here to separation from idolatrous entanglement rather than to any single historical exile, the pattern of exodus reused as the shape of holiness. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty: verse 18 closes the citation with words the bench reads against 2 Samuel 7:14, God's promise to David of a son who would be his own, now spoken over every believer, sons and daughters both named where the Davidic promise had named a son alone. The exposition presents the whole catena, Leviticus 26:12, Isaiah 52:11, and 2 Samuel 7:14 woven together, as Paul's proof from Scripture itself that the separated life he has just commanded rests on God's own covenant promises rather than on a bare command.