2 Corinthians 6 explained: Hardship, Open Hearts and Belonging

Don't waste grace (vv. 1-2)

Paul sees himself as working alongside God and pleads with the Corinthians not to let God's kindness, which he calls grace, make no real difference in them. He quotes Isaiah 49:8, a promise about a coming time of rescue, and says that time is now.

Proof through hardship (vv. 3-7)

Some in Corinth doubted Paul, so rather than offering letters of recommendation he points to how he has lived: beaten, jailed, mobbed, sleepless and hungry, yet patient, honest and kind. He pictures right living as weapons or armor held on the right side and the left, most likely meaning he is protected and ready on every side.

A life of contradictions (vv. 8-10)

Paul sets how critics saw him and his companions (frauds, nobodies, half dead, poor) beside what he says was really true. Being poor yet making many rich refers to sharing something of spiritual worth, not money.

Open your hearts (vv. 11-13)

The relationship had been strained, and Paul speaks like a parent who feels shut out. He says the coldness is on their side, not his, and asks them to return his affection.

Mismatched partners (vv. 14-15)

A yoke is the wooden beam joining two animals to pull a plow, and the Law of Moses forbade plowing with an ox and a donkey together. Paul uses the picture to warn against being bound together with people outside the faith, setting light against darkness and Christ against Belial, a name meaning worthlessness that Jewish writings of the time used for Satan.

God's people as his temple (vv. 16-18)

Corinth was full of temples to other gods, and Paul says the community itself is God's temple, the place where God lives, so it has no place alongside idols. He weaves together promises from the Hebrew scriptures about God living among his people and treating them as his sons and daughters.

Key verse: 2 Corinthians 6:10

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on how far the warning about being yoked with unbelievers reaches: some apply it mainly to marriage, some to any close partnership such as business, and others read it more narrowly as a warning against taking part in pagan temple worship.

Something to think about

When has the way someone handled hard times made you trust them more, or less, than anything they said about themselves?