This morning, I am beginning a new sermon series called Strength in Weakness, based on the New Testament book Second Corinthians, the Apostle Paul’s second letter in the Bible to the church at Corinth. As we begin a new year of sermons, I want to reiterate that we believe that:
2 Timothy 3:16-17 - All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
And that goes for the letters of Paul as well as the gospels or any other book of the Bible. When you read a New Testament letter like 2 Corinthians, you need to understand that these letters are not addressed to you. They weren’t dropped out of the sky to 21st century America. They are letters addressed to specific people in a specific context. This means that some of what is written will be particular to the culture, while some of it will be transcultural – for all people in all circumstance and all times. And so, in order to understand what these passages meant to its listeners and what it means for us today, you need to do some work to understand the historical and cultural context: what the culture was like, what the Corinthian church was like, and what problems were going on in that he was addressing. This may mean consulting commentaries, Bible dictionaries, concordances, other Biblical as well as historical sources outside of the Bible. With that in mind, let’s begin with the first two verses of 2 Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 1:1-2 - Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
