Bible Commentaries

We ¹ then, [as] workers together [with him], beseech [you] also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.

(1) Men do not only need the ministry of the Gospel before they have received grace, in order that they may be partakers of the Gospel, but also after they have received grace they need to continue in it.

² (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time ^a accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now [is] the accepted time; behold, now [is] the day of salvation.)

(2) In that grace is offered, it is by the grace of God, who has appointed times and seasons to all things, that we may take occasion when it is offered.

(a) Which I of my free mercy and love towards you liked and appointed. And at this time God poured out his marvellous love upon us.

³ Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed:

(3) He shows the Corinthians a pattern of a true minister in his own example, and in Timothy and Silvanus, to the end that he might procure authority for himself and his companions like him, as he purposed from the beginning.

But in all [things] ^b approving ourselves as the ministers of God, ⁴ in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,

(b) Declare and indeed show. {(4)} He first of all reckons up those things which are neither always in the ministers, nor without exception, unless they are there according to the minister's bodily condition. Patience, however, is an exception, which also is one of the virtues which ought to always be in a good minister.

In stripes, in imprisonments, in ^c tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings;

(c) In tossing to and fro, finding no place of rest and quietness.

⁵ By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,

(5) Secondly he reckons up such virtues as are necessary, and ought alway be in them, and by which as by good armour, all pitfalls and hindrances may be overcome.

By the ^d word of truth, by the ^e power of God, by the ^f armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,

(d) Preaching of the Gospel.

(e) Power to work miracles, and to subdue the wicked.

(f) Uprightness.

⁶ O [ye] Corinthians, our mouth is ^g open unto you, our heart is enlarged.

(6) Going about to rebuke them he says first that he deals with them sincerely and with an open and plain heart, and in addition complains that they do not do the same in loving their Father.

(g) The opening of the mouth and heart signifies a most earnest affection in him that speaks, as it happens commonly with those that are in some great joy.

Ye are not ^h straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own ⁱ bowels.

(h) You are in my heart as in a house, and that no narrow or confined house, for I have opened my whole heart to you; but you are inwardly narrow towards me.

(i) After the manner of the Hebrews, he calls those tender affections which rest in the heart, "bowels".

⁷ Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

(7) Now he rebukes them boldly, because they became fellows with infidels in outward idolatry, as though it were an indifferent thing. And this is the fourth part of this epistle, the conclusion of which is, that those whom the Lord has condescended to in calling them his children, must keep themselves pure, not only in mind, but also in body, that they may be completely holy to the Lord.

And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what ^k part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

(k) What can there be between them?

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the ^l living God; as God hath said, I will ^m dwell in them, and walk in [them]; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

(l) He sets the living God against idols.

(m) God dwells with us, because Christ has become God with us.