Beginning

A house waiting in the heavens

5 For we know that if our earthly house, our present “tent,” is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house no human hands have built: it is everlasting, in the heavenly places. ² At the present moment, you see, we are groaning, as we long to put on our heavenly building, ³ in the belief that by putting it on we won’t turn out to be naked. ⁴ Yes: in the present “tent,” we groan under a great weight. But we don’t want to put it off; we want to put on something else on top, so that what is doomed to die may be swallowed up with life. ⁵ It is God who has been at work in us to do this, the God who has given us the spirit as the first installment and guarantee.

The judgment seat of the Messiah

⁶ So we are always confident: we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. ⁷ We live our lives by faith, you see, not by sight. ⁸ We are confident, and we would much prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹ So we work hard, as a point of honor, to please him, whether we are at home or away. ¹⁰ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of the Messiah, so that each may receive what has been done through the body, whether good or bad.

The Messiah’s love makes us press on

¹¹ So we know the fear of the Lord; and that’s why we are persuading people—but we are open to God, and open as well, I hope, to your consciences. ¹² We aren’t trying to recommend ourselves again! We are giving you a chance to be proud of us, to have something to say to those who take pride in appearances rather than in people’s hearts.

¹³ If we are beside ourselves, you see, it’s for God; and if we are in our right mind, it’s for you. ¹⁴ For the Messiah’s love makes us press on. We have come to the conviction that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all in order that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised on their behalf.

New creation, new ministry

¹⁶ From this moment on, therefore, we don’t regard anybody from a merely human point of view. Even if we once regarded the Messiah that way, we don’t do so any longer. ¹⁷ Thus, if anyone is in the Messiah, there is a new creation! Old things have gone, and look—everything has become new!

¹⁸ It all comes from God. He reconciled us to himself through the Messiah, and he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. ¹⁹ This is how it came about: God was reconciling the world to himself in the Messiah, not counting their transgressions against them, and entrusting us with the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ So we are ambassadors, speaking on behalf of the Messiah, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore people on the Messiah’s behalf to be reconciled to God. ²¹ The Messiah did not know sin, but God made him to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might embody God’s faithfulness to the covenant.

6 So, as we work together with God, we appeal to you in particular: when you accept God’s grace, don’t let it go to waste! ² This is what he says:

Look! The right time is now! Look! The day of salvation is here!

God’s servants at work

³ We put no obstacles in anybody’s way, so that nobody will say abusive things about our ministry. ⁴ Instead, we recommend ourselves as God’s servants: with much patience, with sufferings, difficulties, hardships, ⁵ beatings, imprisonments, riots, hard work, sleepless nights, going without food, ⁶ with purity, knowledge, great-heartedness, kindness, the holy spirit, genuine love, ⁷ by speaking the truth, by God’s power, with weapons for God’s faithful work in right and left hand alike, ⁸ through glory and shame, through slander and praise; as deceivers, and yet true; ⁹ as unknown, yet very well known; as dying, and look—we are alive; as punished, yet not killed; ¹⁰ as sad, yet always celebrating; as poor, yet bringing riches to many; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

¹¹ We have been wide open in our speaking to you, my dear Corinthians! Our heart has been opened wide! ¹² There are no restrictions at our end; the only restrictions are in your affection! ¹³ I’m speaking as though to children: you should open your hearts wide as well in return. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?

Don’t be mismatched

¹⁴ Don’t be drawn into partnership with unbelievers. What kind of sharing can there be, after all, between justice and lawlessness? What partnership can there be between light and darkness? ¹⁵ What kind of harmony can the Messiah have with Beliar? What has a believer in common with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ What kind of agreement can there be between God’s temple and idols? We are the temple of the living God, you see, just as God said:

7 So, my beloved people, with promises like these, let’s make ourselves clean from everything that defiles us, outside and inside, and let’s become completely holy in the fear of God.

The God who comforts the downcast

² Make room for us! We haven’t wronged anybody, we haven’t ruined anybody, we haven’t taken advantage of anybody. ³ I’m not saying this to pass judgment against you; I’ve already said that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together. ⁴ I speak to you freely and openly; I regularly boast about you; I am full of comfort, and fuller still of joy, over and above all our trouble.

⁵ You see, even when we arrived in Macedonia, we couldn’t relax or rest. We were troubled in every way; there were battles outside and fears inside. ⁶ But the God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the arrival of Titus, ⁷ and not only by his arrival but in the comfort he had received from you, as he told us about your longing for us, your lamenting, and your enthusiasm for me personally.

As a result, I was more inclined to celebrate; ⁸ because, if I did make you sad by my letter, I don’t regret it; and, if I did regret it, it was because I saw that I made you sad for a while by what I had written. ⁹ Anyway, I’m celebrating now, not because you were saddened, but because your sadness brought you to repentance. It was a sadness from God, you see, and it did you no harm at all on our account; ¹⁰ because God’s way of sadness is designed to produce a repentance which leads to salvation, and there’s nothing to regret there! But the world’s way of sadness produces death.

Our boasting proved true!

¹¹ Just look and see what effect God’s way of sadness has had among you! It’s produced eagerness, explanations, indignation, fear, longing, keenness, and punishment. You have shown yourselves faultless in the whole business. ¹² So if I’m writing to you, it’s not because of the person who’s done the wrong, nor because of the people who were wronged, but so that you can recognize for yourselves, in God’s presence, just how eager you really have been for us. ¹³ We have been comforted by all of this.

On top of all our comfort, though, the real celebration came because Titus was so overjoyed. You really did cheer him up and set his mind at rest. ¹⁴ I wasn’t ashamed of the various boasts I had made to him about you. Just as I had always spoken the truth to you, so our boast to Titus turned out to be true as well. ¹⁵ He is constantly yearning for you deeply as he remembers the obedience you showed, all of you, and how you welcomed him with fear and trembling. ¹⁶ I am celebrating the fact that I have confidence in you in everything.

The generosity of the Macedonian churches

8 Let me tell you, my dear family, about the grace which God has given to the Macedonian churches. ² They have been sorely tested by suffering. But the abundance of grace which was given to them, and the depths of poverty they have endured, have overflowed in a wealth of sincere generosity on their part. ³ I bear them witness that of their own accord, up to their ability and even beyond their ability, ⁴ they begged us eagerly to let them have the privilege of sharing in the work of service for God’s people. ⁵ They didn’t just do what we had hoped; they gave themselves, first to the Lord, and then to us as God willed it. ⁶ This put us in a position where we could encourage Titus that he should complete this work of grace that he had begun among you. ⁷ You have plenty of everything, after all—plenty of faith, and speech, and knowledge, and all kinds of eagerness, and plenty of love coming from us to you; so why not have plenty of this grace too?

Copying the generosity of the Lord Jesus

⁸ I’m not saying this as though I was issuing an order. It’s a matter of putting their enthusiasm and your own love side by side, and making sure you genuinely pass the test. ⁹ For you know the grace of our Lord, Messiah Jesus: he was rich, but because of you he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. ¹⁰ Let me give you my serious advice on this: you began to be keen on this idea, and started putting it into practice, a whole year ago; it will now be greatly to your advantage ¹¹ to complete your performance of it. If you do so, your finishing the job as far as you are able will be on the same scale as your eagerness in wanting to do it. ¹² If the eagerness is there, you see, the deed is acceptable, according to what you have, not according to what you don’t have. ¹³ The point is not, after all, that others should get off lightly and you be made to suffer, but rather that there should be equality. ¹⁴ At the present time your abundance can contribute to their lack, so that their abundance can contribute to your lack. That’s what makes for equality, ¹⁵ just as the Bible says: “The one who had much had nothing to spare, and the one who had little didn’t go short.”

Paul’s companions are on their way

¹⁶ But God be thanked, since he put the same eagerness for you into Titus’s heart. ¹⁷ He welcomed the appeal we made, and of his own accord he was all the more eager to come to you. ¹⁸ We have sent along with him the brother who is famous through all the churches because of his work for the gospel. ¹⁹ Not only so, but he was formally chosen by the churches to be our traveling companion as we engage in this work of grace, both for the Lord’s own glory and to show our own good faith. ²⁰ We are trying to avoid the possibility that anyone would make unpleasant accusations about this splendid gift which we are administering. ²¹ We are thinking ahead, you see, about what will look best, not only to the Lord, but to everybody else as well.

²² Anyway, along with the two of them we are sending our brother, who has proved to us how eager and enthusiastic he is in many situations and on many occasions. He now seems all the more eager because he is convinced about you. ²³ If there’s any question about Titus, he is my partner, and a fellow worker for you. As for our brothers, they are messengers of the churches, the Messiah’s glory. ²⁴ So please give them a fine demonstration of your love, and of our boasting about you! Show all the churches that you mean business!

Please have the gift ready!

9 When it comes to the service you are doing for God’s people, you see, I don’t need to write to you. ² For I know your eagerness, and indeed I boasted about it to the Macedonians, saying that Achaea had been ready since last year. Your enthusiasm has stimulated most of them into action. ³ I have sent the brothers so that our boasting about you in this respect may turn out to be true—so that you may be ready, just as I said you were. ⁴ Otherwise, imagine what it would be like if people from Macedonia came with me and found you weren’t ready! That would bring shame on us in this business, not to say on you. ⁵ So I thought it necessary to exhort the brothers that they should go on to you in advance, and get everything about your gracious gift in order ahead of time. You’ve already promised it, after all. Then it really will appear as a gift of grace, not something that has had to be extorted from you.

God loves a cheerful giver

⁶ This is what I mean: someone who sows sparingly will reap sparingly as well. Someone who sows generously will reap generously. ⁷ Everyone should do as they have determined in their heart, not in a gloomy spirit or simply because they have to, since “God loves a cheerful giver.” ⁸ And God is well able to lavish all his grace upon you, so that in every matter and in every way you will have enough of everything, and may be lavish in all your own good works, ⁹ just as the Bible says:

¹⁰ The one who supplies “seed to be sown and bread to eat” will supply and increase your seed, and multiply the yield of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be enriched in every way in all single-hearted goodness, which is working through us to produce thanksgiving to God. ¹² The service of this ministry will not only supply what God’s people so badly need, but it will also overflow with many thanksgivings to God. ¹³ Through meeting the test of this service you will glorify God in two ways: first, because your confession of faith in the Messiah’s gospel has brought you into proper order, and second, because you have entered into genuine and sincere partnership with them and with everyone. ¹⁴ What’s more, they will then pray for you and long for you because of the surpassing grace God has given to you. ¹⁵ Thanks be to God for his gift, the gift beyond anything words can describe!