3rd Missionary Trip - Lorin

one he calls τοῦτο τὸ μὴ πάλιν ἐν λύπῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐλθεῖν, this one not again coming to you in pain.
At some point after the sending of First Corinthians to the church, Paul decided to make a trip from Ephesus
to Corinth personally. None of the details regarding this trip are known beyond the very minimal statements
listed above from Second Corinthians. Perhaps when Sosthenes, and probably Timothy as well, returned to
Ephesus after delivering First Corinthians, their reports alarmed the apostle to such an extent that he became
convinced that a personal visit from him was the only way to help the church resolve its problems.
The above references suggest that at least one aspect of the problem was personal animosity by some
in the Corinthian church against Paul. The nature of that hostility is not spelled out, but seems likely to have been
based on Paul’s insistence in First Corinthians that stern actions be taken against church members living in immorality.
For those non-Jews who grew up in the utterly immoral culture of Greco-Roman society taking on a new
religious commitment with heavy moral demands was indeed challenging. Everything in their religious heritage in
paganism had taught them that their lifestyle was completely okay and that religion did not make moral demands
on its adherents. But Christianity represented a drastically different demand upon them. And in their minds Paul
stood as the source of Christian religious understanding and demands. He did not present himself in any pompous
stance of power and authority, as would the religious leaders of the various cults they came out of. He was
a very ordinary looking and acting person. Why should they pay any attention to what he said?
And thus Paul will be forced to answer such charges extensively in Second Corinthians 10-13 especially.
5. Sorrowful Letter
Essential point: written from Ephesus after return from Corinth, possibly contained partially in 2 Cor. 10-
13, but most likely lost
Date: AD 55
Sources: 2 Cor. 2:4; 7:8
2 Cor. 2:3-4. 3 And I wrote as I did, so that when I came, I might not suffer pain from those who should have
made me rejoice; for I am confident about all of you, that my joy would be the joy of all of you. 4 For I wrote you out
of much distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant
love that I have for you.
3 καὶ ἔγραψα τοῦτο αὐτό, ἵνα μὴ ἐλθὼν λύπην σχῶ ἀφʼ ὧν ἔδει με χαίρειν, πεποιθὼς ἐπὶ πάντας ὑμᾶς ὅτι ἡ ἐμὴ
χαρὰ πάντων ὑμῶν ἐστιν. 4 ἐκ γὰρ πολλῆς θλίψεως καὶ συνοχῆς καρδίας ἔγραψα ὑμῖν διὰ πολλῶν δακρύων, οὐχ
ἵνα λυπηθῆτε ἀλλὰ τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε ἣν ἔχω περισσοτέρως εἰς ὑμᾶς.
2 Cor. 7:8-10. 8 For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it (though I did regret it, for I see that
I grieved you with that letter, though only briefly). 9 Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your
grief led to repentance; for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us. 10 For godly grief
produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.
8 Ὅτι εἰ καὶ ἐλύπησα ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ, οὐ μεταμέλομαι· εἰ καὶ μετεμελόμην, βλέπω [γὰρ] ὅτι ἡ ἐπιστολὴ ἐκείνη
εἰ καὶ πρὸς ὥραν ἐλύπησεν ὑμᾶς, 9 νῦν χαίρω, οὐχ ὅτι ἐλυπήθητε ἀλλʼ ὅτι ἐλυπήθητε εἰς μετάνοιαν· ἐλυπήθητε
γὰρ κατὰ θεόν, ἵνα ἐν μηδενὶ ζημιωθῆτε ἐξ ἡμῶν. 10 ἡ γὰρ κατὰ θεὸν λύπη μετάνοιαν εἰς σωτηρίαν ἀμεταμέλητον
ἐργάζεται· ἡ δὲ τοῦ κόσμου λύπη θάνατον κατεργάζεται.
At some point, probably not too long at this second trip to Corinth, Paul wrote a third letter to the Corinthians
coming down hard on them for their unrepentance. The visit had not accomplished its goal of bringing the
Corinthians to repentance before God for their behavior. Now he sought to accomplish this through a letter.
Again this letter is lost, although more scholars consider 2 Cor. 10-13 to be a major part of this third letter.
186 The integrity of Second Corinthians will be addressed below, but at this point let me indicate that in my
view the arguments in behalf of the integrity of Second Corinthians outweigh those against it. One of the major
186One of the major interpretive issues in modern scholarship for Second Corinthians has been whether what we have today was
written at one time, or whether it represents the combining of pieces of two or more separate letters written by Paul at different times
to the Corinthians. Very few modern scholars would challenge the claim of this document to have come from Paul. Instead, the hotly
debated issue is whether it represents one letter, or at least two separate letters later combined into a single document.
Note the summary of Murray Harris:
We have seen that the Pauline authorship of 2 Corinthians is a virtually universal assumption among NT scholars (see 1.a
above). But when we turn to investigate the integrity, as opposed to the authenticity, of this letter, we are confronted with a
complex array of data in the text, and, perhaps not surprisingly, with a bewildering variety of partition hypotheses.
A brief descriptive survey of the most influential or noteworthy theories which propose that our canonical 2 Corinthians
is composed of more than two separate letters or of several dislocated parts will indicate the main areas of dispute.
[Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament
Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Milton Keynes, UK: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.; Paternoster Press, 2005), 8.]
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