2 Corinthians · chapter 6 of 13
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2 Corinthians 6 is Paul's plea to the Corinthians: not to receive the grace of God in vain, for now is the day of salvation. He describes how he carries out his ministry amid trials and virtues, asks them to return his affection and urges them not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, remembering that they are the temple of the living God.
Paul has spoken of reconciliation and of his ministry as an ambassador for Christ. Now he makes a personal appeal to the Corinthians, a mix of tenderness and warning. The chapter has three parts: a plea, a testimony about his life in ministry and an exhortation to live in holiness.
As God's fellow worker, Paul urges the Corinthians not to receive the grace of God in vain. He quotes a promise of God about the acceptable time and day of salvation and affirms that this time is now. They give no cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited.
In everything they present themselves as servants of God: with great endurance in afflictions, hardships and calamities, under beatings, imprisonments and riots, in labors, sleepless nights and hunger. They do it with purity, knowledge, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech and the power of God. They pass through honor and dishonor, good report and bad. They are treated as impostors, yet are true; as unknown, yet well known; as dying, yet alive; as punished, yet not killed; as grieving, yet always glad; as poor, yet enriching many; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.
Paul says his mouth is open to the Corinthians and his heart is wide. They are not restricted by him, but by their own affections. He asks them, as children, to widen their hearts in return.
He then urges them not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, and asks what righteousness and wickedness have in common, or light and darkness, Christ and Belial, a believer and an unbeliever, the temple of God and idols. They are the temple of the living God, for God promised to live and walk among his people and be their God. So they must separate from what is unclean; then God will welcome them as a Father, and they will be his sons and daughters.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Paul recalls that God has a favorable time, and that time is now: this is the day of salvation. Grace asks for a present response, not a postponed one.
Paul commends himself as a servant of God through great endurance in afflictions, hardships and calamities, beatings and imprisonments. His credential is perseverance in suffering, not prestige.
Paul lives the paradox: grieving yet always glad, poor yet enriching many. Life with Christ is not measured by appearances.
Believers are the temple of the living God, and God lives and walks among them. That reality is the basis of the exhortation to live in holiness and to take care with whom we join ourselves.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Not to receive the grace of God in vain. — 2 Corinthians 6:1
Answer: It is now, at this very time. — 2 Corinthians 6:2
Answer: So that the ministry will not be discredited. — 2 Corinthians 6:3
Answer: Grieving yet always glad, poor yet enriching many, having nothing yet possessing everything. — 2 Corinthians 6:10
Answer: Not to be unequally yoked with them. — 2 Corinthians 6:14
Answer: The temple of the living God. — 2 Corinthians 6:16
2 Corinthians 6 invites us not to postpone our response to God and to live so that the gospel is not discredited. Someone who teaches in Sunday school or leads a small group can ask whether anything in their conduct puts an unnecessary obstacle before those who watch them.
The unequal yoke touches daily life: partnerships, relationships and commitments that pull a person away from God. Many apply the text to dating and marriage, and others to business or life partnerships. Without despising unbelievers, whom we must love and serve, the text asks us to guard the alliances that shape our character.
2 Corinthians 6 ends with the promise that God will be a Father to those who separate from evil. Chapter 7 completes the exhortation to cleanse ourselves from every defilement and tells how Titus brought Paul news that comforted him about Corinth's repentance.
It is an image of two animals of different kinds harnessed under the same yoke, which do not work well together. Paul applies it to a close union between believers and unbelievers that pulls the former into practices contrary to their faith. The text is broad and applies to different relationships, such as marriage, partnerships and worship.
It is a name used in the Hebrew Bible for wickedness or worthlessness and which in later Jewish texts became a name for the devil. Paul uses it in contrast with Christ to show they are incompatible.
No. He had already said in 1 Corinthians that Christians live among the unbelievers of this world. What he asks is not to form alliances that compromise faithfulness to God or to take part in idolatrous practices, while continuing to serve and witness to everyone.