This morning, I am in the fifth week of my sermon series entitled “Strength in Weakness,” looking at the New Testament book of 2 Corinthians. If you are unfamiliar with this book, it is a letter written by an early church leader named Paul to a church he had started around the year 50 AD in the Greek city of Corinth, which in Paul’s day was part of the Roman Empire. As we have seen in the first few chapters, after Paul moved on from Corinth to start other churches, the relationship between Paul and the church became strained, and so throughout this letter, including the beginning of this section, we see Paul having to defend himself against false teachers who have been slandering him and remind the Corinthians of his love for them. In the section we read last week, he talked about how suffering is part of being a follower of Jesus, as we sacrificially love others just as Jesus sacrificially loved us.
