The Listener’s Commentary

2 Corinthians 6:1-10   6:1 And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain— 2 for He says, “At a favorable time I listened to you, And on a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is “a favorable time,” behold, now is “a day of salvation”— 3 giving no reason for taking offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited, 4 but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in difficulties, 5 in beatings, in imprisonments, in mob attacks, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, 6 in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, 7 in the word of truth, and in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, 8 by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report; regarded as deceivers and yet true; 9 as unknown and yet well known, as dying and yet behold, we are alive; as punished and yet not put to death, 10 as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing all things.     BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2   11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade people, but we are well known to God; and I hope that we are also well known in your consciences. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to be proud of us, so that you will have an answerfor those who take pride in appearance and not in heart. 13 For if we have lost our minds, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose on their behalf. 16 Therefore from now on we recognize no one by the flesh; even though we have known Christ by the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their wrongdoings against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.   6:1 And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain— 2 for He says, “At a favorable time I listened to you, And on a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is “a favorable time,” behold, now is “a day of salvation”—     BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2   11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade people, but we are well known to God; and I hope that we are also well known in your consciences. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to be proud of us, so that you will have an answerfor those who take pride in appearance and not in heart. 13 For if we have lost our minds, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose on their behalf. 16 Therefore from now on we recognize no one by the flesh; even though we have known Christ by the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their wrongdoings against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.   6:1 And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain— 2 for He says, “At a favorable time I listened to you, And on a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is “a favorable time,” behold, now is “a day of salvation”—     BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

2 Corinthians 5:1-10   5:1 For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed, in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven,3 since in fact after putting it on, we will not be found naked.4 For indeed, we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a pledge. 6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8 but we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive compensation for his deeds done through the body, in accordance with what he has done, whether good or bad.   BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net  

2 Corinthians 4:7-18   7 But we have this treasure in earthen containers, so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who live are constantly being handed over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh. 12 So death works in us, but life in you. 13 But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written: “I believed, therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore we also speak, 14 knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus, and will present uswith you. 15 For all things are for your sakes, so that grace, having spread to more and more people, will cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. 16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day.17 For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.   BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

2 Corinthians 4:1-6   4:1 Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, 2 but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in trickery nor distorting the word of God, but by the open proclamation of the truth commending ourselves to every person’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants on account of Jesus. 6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.   BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

2 Corinthians 3:1-18   3:1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you?2 You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all people, 3 revealing yourselves, that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ.5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7 But if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stones, came with glory so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness excel in glory. 10 For indeed what had glory in this case has no glory, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory. 12 Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in ourspeech, 13 and we are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not stare at the end of what was fading away. 14 But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. 15 But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts; 16 but whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.   BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

2 Corinthians 2:12-17   12 Now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened for me in the Lord, 13 I had no rest for my spirit, not finding Titus my brother; but saying goodbye to them, I went on to Macedonia. 14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us reveals the fragrance of the knowledge of Him in every place. 15 For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: 16 to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? 17 For we are not like the many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.   BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

2 Corinthians 1:23-2:11   23 But I call God as witness to my soul, that it was to spare you that I did not come again to Corinth. 24 Not that we domineer over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy; for in your faith you are standing firm.  2:1 But I decided this for my own sake, that I would not come to you in sorrow again. 2 For if I cause you sorrow, who then will bethe one making me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me? 3 This is the very thing I wrote you, so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice; having confidence in you all that my joy was the joy of you all. 4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears; not so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you. 5 But if anyone has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not for me, but in some degree—not to say too much—for all of you.6 Sufficient for such a person is this punishment which was imposed by the majority, 7 so that on the other hand, you should rather forgive and comfort him, otherwise such a person might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. 9 For to this end I also wrote, so that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. 10 But one whom you forgive anything, I also forgive; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did so for your sakes in the presence of Christ, 11 so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.   BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

2 Corinthians 1:12-22   12 For our proud confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you. 13 For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand, and I hope you will understand until the end; 14 just as you also partially did understand us, that we are your reason to be proud as you also are ours, on the day of our Lord Jesus. 15 In this confidence I intended at first to come to you, so that you might twice receive a blessing; 16 that is, to pass your way into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and by you to be helped on my journey to Judea. 17 Therefore, I was not vacillating when I intended to do this, was I? Or what I decide, do I decide according to the flesh, so that with me there will be yes, yes and no, no at the same time? 18 But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no. 19 For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—was not yes and no, but has been yes in Him. 20 For as many as the promises of God are, in Him they are yes; therefore through Him also is our Amen to the glory of God through us. 21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, 22 who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.     BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener’s Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net