2 Corinthians

The Book of II Corinthians

Something Painful This Way Comes Part 1

Every letter written by the Apostle Paul, and, indeed, all of the books of the Bible, have their own particular appeal. That is no less true of this great second epistle of Paul to the Corinthians that we are beginning to study now. What is the appeal of this book?

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Something Painful This Way Comes Part 2

In yesterday’s lesson we saw that although Paul’s letter had been well received by the Corinthians, there were still some problems. Apparently people had come to Corinth who were not altogether unlike those who had come to Galatia and had caused trouble there earlier. They were speaking against Paul particularly, saying that he was not really an apostle and that he certainly was not a faithful minister. These troublemakers also accused Paul of theft.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Something Painful This Way Comes Part3

It seems to me that there are a variety of reasons why hardships and suffering come into our lives. One reason is that such things are just common to humanity. Job wrote about this and spoke wisely when he said, “Yet man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). He was simply saying it is part and parcel of life to have troubles. You are going to get sick. Eventually you are going to suffer the loss of members of your family and others by death. There is no particular reason. There does not have to be any deep explanation. These things are part of life.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Something Painful This Way Comes Part4

There is a fourth reason for suffering. Paul discusses the reason here in 2 Corinthians. Paul explained that God allowed him to suffer, and also to experience the comfort of God in his suffering, in order that he, as a minister of God, might comfort those who are likewise suffering. Have you ever thought about your suffering that way? You experience a great illness. Have you ever thought that God allows you to have that in order that you might speak, as a Christian, a word of comfort to someone else who is going through the same thing?

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Something Painful This Way Comes Part 5

About the same rough time frame that the Apostle Paul was writing, there was a great Roman, Cicero, who also did a lot of writing. He lost his beloved daughter Tullia, the chief delight of his heart. She died at a young age and Cicero was absolutely broken by the loss. Cicero had a friend whose name was Sopicius Severus who did what any good friend would do.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

When God Reschedules Plans Part1

It is a very difficult thing to have your plans changed when you have worked them out carefully. It is especially difficult when you are criticized as a result of having to change them. I am able to identify with the Apostle Paul a bit, who obviously was a very organized person and did not like to have his plans changed.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

When God Reschedules Plans Part 2

Yesterday we saw that Paul’s change of plans gave rise to unreasonable and destructive criticism. It is hard to believe that people who had benefited by Paul’s ministry would be as petty as that or, even if they were not the ones who made the slander, that they were petty enough to at least listen to it. But, that is the way it is. This is true in Christian work. I regret to say it, but there is a great deal of petty criticism leveled.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

When God Reschedules Plans Part 3

 One of my predecessors at Tenth Presbyterian Church, Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, used to compare the conscience to a sundial. A sundial gives a good approximation of time when the sun is shining on it. But, if the sun is not shining on it, it does not give good time at all. If you go out in the garden at night and look at a sundial when the moon is shining on it, it might say, 7 a.m., but it is not 7 a.m.; it is the middle of the night.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Final Greetings — Part One

Final Greetings1 Corinthians 16:1-24Theme: Practical Christian living.This week’s lessons provide us with practical teaching on giving, loving, and standing firm.
Lesson

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Final Greetings — Part Two

Final Greetings1 Corinthians 16:1-24Theme: Practical Christian living.This week’s lessons provide us with practical teaching on giving, loving, and standing firm.
Lesson

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Final Greetings — Part Four

Final Greetings1 Corinthians 16:1-24Theme: Practical Christian living.This week’s lessons provide us with practical teaching on giving, loving, and standing firm.
Lesson

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Final Greetings — Part Five

Final Greetings1 Corinthians 16:1-24Theme: Practical Christian living.This week’s lessons provide us with practical teaching on giving, loving, and standing firm.
Lesson

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Now is the Time — Part One

Now Is the Time2 Corinthians 5:1 – 6:2Theme: The urgency of the Gospel.This week’s lessons remind us that we are not guaranteed a tomorrow.
LessonThis week we will be studying a long passage containing two separate sections. In the first verse of each of those sections, we find the words, we know.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Faithful to the Very End — Part One

 It has struck me that there are many practical evidences for the power of God in Christianity. One of them is, in my judgment, in what we in theology call the perseverance of the saints. Perseverance is evidenced when believers in Christ do not give up in the Christian life even though there are many arguments in favor of giving up on many occasions.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Faithful to the Very End — Part Four

As Paul thinks ahead to this third visit, he wonders if this one might turn out like the second. It is a great concern to him. Paul said in verse 14 that his real objective was different from that of the false prophets, who were there to gather a following, or to make money, or to acquire a reputation.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Faithful to the Very End — Part Five

Paul feared that he would find quarreling among the Corinthian believers. We know that there was quarreling, because he mentioned it earlier in these letters. He also feared discovering among them jealousy, outbursts of anger, and factions (dividing up into exclusive groups).

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Making Sure — Part One

Making Sure2 Corinthians 13:1-14Theme: Assurance.This week’s lessons exhort us to examine ourselves to see if we are truly followers of Christ. Lesson

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Making Sure — Part Two

It is one thing to practice discipline where there is a clear violation of the law of God, and there is unrepentant behavior after much careful concern and pleading with the person, and a great deal of effort in prayer.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Making Sure — Part Three

There are great passages that talk about the doctrines of assurance and eternal security. There are three key passages. One is the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel where Jesus is speaking. He says there that he holds his people in his hand. He is the Shepherd; he has called them to himself.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Making Sure — Part Four

Paul said examine yourself. So how can we do that? In John’s first letter, he was writing to people who were shaken up because of the Gnostics – people who had come into their midst professing a greater measure of enlightenment.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

Making Sure — Part Five

I say to you as the Apostle Paul said to the Christians at Corinth: examine yourselves to see whether you are really in the faith. You might have learned many things about God, but if you learn much about the faith and are not actually born again, what you have learned is to no advantage.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

The God Who Provides – Part One

It is not difficult to find examples of people who have allowed the love of money to ruin their spirituality and to nullify the effect of their witness. History is full of such examples, and they come from our time also. In the book of Joshua we are told of the sin of Achan that caused the defeat of the armies of Israel at Ai.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

My Grace is Sufficient for You – Part 1

Theme: A Cruel Theology
This week’s lessons talk about how God’s grace is sufficient for the individual and personal trials that come from our own weaknesses, limitations, and struggles.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:9

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

My Grace is Sufficient for You – Part 2

Theme: Boasting in Suffering
This week’s lessons talk about how God’s grace is sufficient for the individual and personal trials that come from our own weaknesses, limitations, and struggles.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:9
How does Paul deal with this problem of the attacks from the “super-apostles”? The way he does it is marvelous and a great example for those who are trying to deal with difficult people as they themselves pursue Christian work.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

My Grace is Sufficient for You – Part 4

Theme: The Lessons of the Thorn
This week’s lessons talk about how God’s grace is sufficient for the individual and personal trials that come from our own weaknesses, limitations, and struggles.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:9

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

My Grace is Sufficient for You – Part 3

Theme: Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh and Ours
This week’s lessons talk about how God’s grace is sufficient for the individual and personal trials that come from our own weaknesses, limitations, and struggles.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:9
At this point Paul must have been embarrassed that he had been forced to mention even this one vision, because it is against this background—all I have been describing—that he talks about his thorn in the flesh (v. 7).

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

My Grace is Sufficient for You – Part 5

Theme: God’s Power in Human Weakness
This week’s lessons talk about how God’s grace is sufficient for the individual and personal trials that come from our own weaknesses, limitations, and struggles.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:9
Yesterday we looked at two lessons concerning our burdens arising from Paul’s thorn. We will look at the last three today.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

The Grace of Giving, Part 1

Theme: Giving in the Churches of Macedonia and Corinth
 
This week’s lessons teach us how the grace of God in Christ drives both our attitude and our actual practice of giving to support Christian causes.
 
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 8:1
 
I have been writing about some very practical matters in these studies, but it is hard to imagine a more practical matter than our giving to God, specifically giving money to support spiritual causes.

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

The Grace of Giving, Part 3

Theme: Overflowing Joy and Extreme Poverty
 
This week’s lessons teach us how the grace of God in Christ drives both our attitude and our actual practice of giving to support Christian causes.
 
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 8:1
 
 Yesterday we looked at the first element of “God’s Formula for Great Giving.” Today we look at the other two.
 
Overflowing joy. In what were the Macedonian Christians joyful?

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

The Grace of Giving, Part 2

Theme: A Severe Trial
 
This week’s lessons teach us how the grace of God in Christ drives both our attitude and our actual practice of giving to support Christian causes.
 
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 8:1
 
Anyone who has ever tried to get someone else to give to religious or charitable causes knows how difficult motivating another person can be. So we are wise to ask: How does Paul move the Corinthians to be faithful in this area?

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

The Grace of Giving, Part 4

Theme: The Secret of Great Giving
 
This week’s lessons teach us how the grace of God in Christ drives both our attitude and our actual practice of giving to support Christian causes.
 
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 8:1
 
Verse 5 adds a further explanation of the remarkable giving of the Macedonian Christians: “And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will.” I call this a further explanation

Keep Reading
The Book of II Corinthians

The Grace of Giving, Part 5

Theme: The Greatest Example of Great Giving
 
This week’s lessons teach us how the grace of God in Christ drives both our attitude and our actual practice of giving to support Christian causes.
 
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 8:1
 
When I began to write about the giving of the churches of Macedonia I said that this was Paul’s first motivating example of great giving. It was a good one, as you can see.

Keep Reading

Subscribe to the Think & Act Biblically Devotional

Alliance of Confessional Evangelicals

About the Alliance

The Alliance is a coalition of believers who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith and proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a Reformed awakening in today’s Church.

Canadian Donors

Canadian Committee of The Bible Study Hour
PO Box 24087, RPO Josephine
North Bay, ON, P1B 0C7