Grace and Peace

From the Apostle to the Church of God: Grace and Peace

we spent our time together last week trying to get a thirty thousand-foot view of the entire book—acquainting ourselves with the historical context and the major themes found in the letter. And we did that so that we might be properly equipped to understand the text in its context.

And we spoke about how understanding the text in its context, while necessary for all faithful biblical interpretation, is especially necessary in the case of understanding 2 Corinthians. And that's because there is so much history between Paul and the church in Corinth that the letter of 2 Corinthians rests on. We mentioned that it is a very historically situated letter. Among all of the letters that Paul wrote, 2 Corinthians is the most closely tied to the events of historical circumstances (cf. Harris, 1). And so because we can't hope to properly understand 2 Corinthians without understanding the history of the relationship between Paul and this church, we spent a large portion of our time together last week in New Testament history class, re-tracing the steps of Paul's interaction with the Corinthian church. And so if you weren't here last week, let me encourage you to get that introductory message on CD or download it from the website, because it really does lay the necessary groundwork for our study of this great letter.

And I don't want to reiterate all of that history, but I do want to remind you of the basic context for our study this morning. We mentioned last time that 2 Corinthians...