3rd Missionary Trip - Lorin

ditional letters that Paul wrote to the Corinthians are lost and thus not contained in the New Testament.
The overall perspective of these three letters provides general insight into the pastoral writing ministry
of the apostle. First Corinthians as Paul’s response to two sets of reports and questions provided to him first
by members of Chloe’s household (chapters one through seven) and second by a delegation that traveled to
Ephesus from Corinth (chapters eight through sixteen) reveal a church struggling with many very serious spiritual
issues. These ranged from rank immorality by church members to serious theological issues around whether
Jesus was raised from the dead or not. Systematically, the apostle covers each of the problems one by one addressing
each issue both with theological principle, sometimes based on Old Testament teaching and with practical
admonitions about how to behave oneself as a believer. His words are firm and direct, but come out of deep
pastoral concern for the church.
Second Corinthians follows a somewhat similar and yet has a distinctively different tone. Paul’s source of
understanding about the church at Corinth comes from the report of Titus who met up with the apostle in an unnamed
city in the province of Macedonia. Three general themes unfold in the body proper of this letter: chapters
1-6, Paul’s understanding of ministry both as he experienced it and understood it theologically; chapters 8-9, the
relief offering for the Judean believers; chapters 10-13, a vigorous defense of his apostleship against lingering
criticism of Paul at Corinth. Permeating the entire letter is a profound sense of the blessing of serving Christ,
even though at times it is hard and enormously difficult.
Romans was letter as a letter of introduction by the apostle in anticipation of a future visit to the church.
He had never been to Rome, but did know many leaders in the church through contracts in other places. Very
carefully crafted, this letter puts on the table the essence of Paul’s preaching of the Gospel of Christ around the
central theme of the righteousness of God. The first eleven chapters stress that theme in terms of its theological
meaning, while chapters twelve through fifteen underscore it in terms of how the righteousness of God impacts
the daily life of believers individually and corporately. Linguistically and literarily it is far and away the best crafted
letter of all those linked to the apostle Paul. Part of the credit for this goes to the superior writing skills of Tertitus
who did the actual writing of the letter (Rom. 16:22), and also the different nature of this letter from all the others
in the Pauline collection of the New Testament.
The major emphasis on ministry activity during this missionary trip centers on the relief offering that Paul
was receiving from the churches to help the Jewish Christian churches in Judea and Jerusalem: 1 Cor. 16:1-4;
2 Cor. 8-9; Rom. 15:25-27. This was a massive undertaking that involved the collection of a very large sum of
money from the churches in the provinces of Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia for the relief of the suffering
of fellow Christians in the churches of Judea. The logistics of collecting and guarding this money took substantial
time and effort. But Paul and those associates traveling with him throughout the trip were assisted by representatives
appointed in every city from the individual churches to assist in the delivery of this offering. By the time the
group left Corinth on the journey to Jerusalem the delegation was made up of quite a large number of individuals.
The manner and the delivery of this gift to believers back in Jerusalem followed customary patterns typically used
by Diaspora Jews to deliver the annual temple tax to the temple leadership in Jerusalem. The sums of money
involved here reached astounding levels annually of what today would be valued as being in the hundreds of
millions of dollars. What was collected by Paul did not reached those levels but none the less amounted to a
substantial sum of money. The apostle was willing to devote so much time and energy to this project because it
represented a symbolic expression of the outpouring of God’s harvest blessings from the Gentile churches to the
Jewish Christian communities in Judea. Thus delivery was made to the leaders in Jerusalem during the Jewish
festival of Pentecost in 57 AD. But beyond the symbolic value of the offering, it represented a real effort of bonding
and authentic Christian ministry of believers to other believers standing in great need of help. It helped cross
the racial barriers between Jew and Gentile at a time of heightened racial tensions in Palestine.
Paul’s understanding of ministry as summarized by Luke in the farewell address to the Ephesian leaders
at Miletus (Acts 20:17-35) is complemented by Paul’s depiction of ministry in 2 Corinthians 1-6. He anticipates
much of this in the letter Proem of 1:3-11, and especially with the foundational prayer of thanksgiving
in 1:3, Εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ πατὴρ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν καὶ θεὸς πάσης
παρακλήσεως, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation.
Much of his discussion centers on facing the difficult challenges of doing ministry in Asia and Macedonia
during that period of time, and even up to that point in time. The persecution, the emotional burdens posed by
the churches often with all their problems, his concern for the welfare of his associates such as Titus whom he
mentions prominently here, -- all of these and more presented the apostle with real tests of his commitment to
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