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The Ministry’s Credentials Include Scars and an Open Heart

2 Corinthians 6

The big picture

The appeal of reconciliation becomes urgent without becoming theatrical. Paul takes Isaiah's accepted time and says, "behold, now is the day of salvation," while placing equal pressure on the integrity of the ministers who carry that message. His credentials then look unlike polished success: afflictions, imprisonments, labor, sleeplessness, patience, purity, kindness, truth, divine power, and a series of paradoxes in which public appearance never tells the whole truth. After that long catalogue he addresses Corinth directly: "our heart is enlarged." The defense of ministry is ultimately aimed at relational room, not merely at winning an argument. The final section turns to incompatible allegiances, climaxing in the claim, "ye are the temple of the living God." Separation from idols is grounded not in isolation for its own sake but in God's promise to dwell with, receive, and be Father to his people. The next chapter will build directly from those promises.

In this chapter

2 Corinthians 6: The Ministry’s Credentials Include Scars and an Open Heart
Chapter scene2 Corinthians 6

Scripture beside the summary

2 Corinthians · King James Version · 18

2 Corinthians 6:1-3

The Accepted Time Is Not Left in the Quotation’s Past

Paul takes Isaiah's "time accepted" out of quotation marks and plants it directly in the Corinthians' present: "behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." The urgency grows out of the reconciliation he has just described, not out of an attempt to manufacture panic. Receiving grace "in vain" means the gift cannot be treated as a word that leaves the hearer untouched. Yet Paul immediately places responsibility on the ministers too. He wants to give "no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed." The burden is not pushed entirely onto the audience while the messenger claims exemption from scrutiny. The same now that presses for response also presses for integrity in the way the appeal is carried. Paul will follow with a catalogue of hardship, patience, purity, and love, showing that urgency does not require theatrical pressure. It produces endurance and care under the eye of God.

2 Corinthians 6:1-3: The Accepted Time Is Not Left in the Quotation’s Past
Chapter scene2 Corinthians 6

Deep dive

The workers’ appeal continues the embassy of reconciliation in the preceding chapter. Receiving grace "in vain" names the possibility of a response that does not bear its intended result; the phrase prevents the Corinthians from treating grace as a word that leaves their relation to the message untouched. Paul supports the appeal with Isaiah 49:8, where divine hearing and help belong to the promised day of salvation.

The repeated "now" brings the citation into the situation of those being addressed. Paul is not constructing a date chart from Isaiah. He is declaring the urgency of the reconciliation announced in Christ. The next concern is his own ministry’s conduct: he seeks to place no stumbling block that would bring it into blame. The responsibility is therefore not loaded entirely onto the hearers. Those carrying the urgent message are also accountable for how they carry it. The transition into the coming catalogue of hardships explains why the time’s importance produces endurance and care rather than theatrical pressure.

Words to trace: accepted, salvation, time, beseech, blamed, Giving

Verse-by-verse path

  1. 2 Corinthians 6:1

    “With him” is printed in italics: the King James supplied it, and the Greek leaves open whether Paul works together with God or with the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 3:9, “we are labourers together with God”, supports the first. “In vain” is eis kenon, into emptiness.

  2. 2 Corinthians 6:2

    The quotation is Isaiah 49:8, spoken to the Servant whom God gives “for a covenant of the people”. Paul’s own line uses a stronger word than Isaiah’s, euprosdektos, well accepted, favourable, and the whole verse is set off as a parenthesis in the King James.

  3. 2 Corinthians 6:3

    “Offence” is proskope, something to trip over. “Blamed” is momaomai, to find fault or sneer; Greeks personified carping criticism as the god Momus. The verb appears in the New Testament only here and in 8:20, where Paul guards the collection money against blame.

2 Corinthians 6:1-3

King James Version

1We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.

2(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

3Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed:

2 Corinthians 6:4-10

An Apostolic Reference List with Very Little Polish

If this is a reference list, it is one almost designed to lose the glossy brochure. Paul begins with "much patience" and then names afflictions, necessities, distresses, stripes, imprisonments, labor, sleeplessness, and fasting. Hardship is not the whole credential, though. The list turns to pureness, knowledge, longsuffering, kindness, "love unfeigned," the word of truth, and the power of God. Then public reputation starts sliding around under his feet: "by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report," as deceivers yet true, unknown yet well known, dying yet alive. The paradoxes do not rename every defeat as a secret success. They show that visible condition and popular verdict cannot exhaust the reality of a ministry grounded in Christ. Paul can be sorrowful "yet alway rejoicing," poor "yet making many rich," and outwardly possessing nothing while refusing to let deprivation define the whole account.

Deep dive

The list begins with patience and moves through afflictions, beatings, imprisonments, labor, sleeplessness, and fasting. It is an unusual set of credentials only if authority is expected to advertise uninterrupted comfort. Paul then names purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Spirit, and unfeigned love. Hardship alone is not the credential. The manner of service within hardship matters, and the truth and power associated with God remain central.

The closing pairs refuse to let public classification determine the whole reality. A minister can be called a deceiver and remain truthful, seem unknown and yet be known, approach death and still live. The sorrow and rejoicing pair does not mean the sorrow was a performance. Likewise, material poverty does not prevent enriching others through the ministry, and possessing all things does not erase the preceding lack. The argument is not an invitation to rename every failure a secret triumph. Paul gives specific reasons why visible condition and popular verdict cannot by themselves settle the character of a ministry grounded in Christ.

Words to trace: report, afflictions, alway, approving, armour, chastened

Verse-by-verse path

  1. 2 Corinthians 6:4

    “Approving” is synistemi, the commending word of 3:1 and 5:12, now given its real content. “Patience”, hypomone, heads the list and governs it: the nine hardships that follow fall into three groups of three, and patience is what carries all of them.

  2. 2 Corinthians 6:5

    “Stripes” are floggings; 11:24–25 counts five Jewish lashings of thirty-nine and three Roman beatings with rods. “Tumults” are riots, like those at Philippi, Thessalonica and Ephesus in Acts. “Watchings” are sleepless nights, and the “fastings” may be hunger from poverty rather than chosen fasts.

  3. 2 Corinthians 6:6

    The list turns from what was suffered to how it was borne. “Unfeigned” is anypokritos, without a mask, from hypokrites, a stage actor; Romans 12:9 asks for love “without dissimulation”, the same word. “The Holy Ghost” sits in the middle of the virtues as their source.

  4. 2 Corinthians 6:7

    Soldiers carried a weapon in the right hand and a shield on the left, so “on the right hand and on the left” means armed for attack and defence at once. The armour returns in 10:4, “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal”, and in full in Ephesians 6:13–17.

  5. 2 Corinthians 6:8

    The pairs are doxa and atimia, honour and dishonour, and dysphemia and euphemia, evil report and good, the second of which gives English “euphemism”. “Deceivers” is planos, the word the chief priests used of Jesus, “that deceiver” (Matthew 27:63).

  6. 2 Corinthians 6:9

    “As dying, and, behold, we live” and “chastened, and not killed” follow Psalm 118:17–18 closely: “I shall not die, but live… The LORD hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death.” The psalm of the rejected stone supplies the apostle’s self-portrait.

  7. 2 Corinthians 6:10

    “Making many rich” anticipates 8:9, where Christ “became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich”. “Possessing” is katecho, to hold fast, the verb of 1 Corinthians 7:30, “they that buy, as though they possessed not”; the list ends on possession after all.

2 Corinthians 6:4-10

King James Version

4But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,

5In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings;

6By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,

7By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,

8By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;

9As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;

10As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

2 Corinthians 6:11-13

There Is Room on His Side of the Relationship

After the catalogue of scars and contradictions, Paul stops and addresses them by name: "O ye Corinthians." His mouth is open and his heart is "enlarged," so the defense of his ministry is not only an argument about legitimacy. It is an argument spoken from inside affection. The KJV's cramped language, "ye are straitened in your own bowels," makes the relational problem sound almost architectural. Paul says there is room on his side. The shortage is not space for Corinth in his heart, but corresponding openness from them. His parent-child language intensifies the appeal without undoing his earlier refusal to dominate their faith. He is not asking merely to win a case and then go home with the verdict. "Be ye also enlarged" asks for a relationship that has room to live again. The point underneath the whole defense is reconciliation, not simply successful self-vindication.

There is room on his side of the relationship
Chapter scene2 Corinthians 6
Asia Minor
Asia Minor

Deep dive

The address "O ye Corinthians" brings the long description of ministry back to the people in front of the letter. Mouth and heart are both open. Paul claims not only that he has spoken freely but that affection accompanies the speech. The KJV’s references to being straitened and to the bowels use the language of cramped space and inward affection. The difficulty, as Paul presents it, is not a shortage of room for them in him.

The desired return is enlargement on their side. The parent-child language does not cancel the earlier refusal to have dominion over their faith. Here it gives the appeal an intimate form, asking that the relationship not remain one-sided. This small passage is easily overshadowed by the striking catalogue before it and the warning after it. Yet it states the relational purpose that holds Paul’s defense together. He is not content merely to win a dispute about credentials while leaving the church at an emotional distance. He asks for the mutual openness that would make reconciliation more than a formal settlement.

Words to trace: enlarged, straitened, bowels, children, Corinthians, heart

Verse-by-verse path

  1. 2 Corinthians 6:11

    Paul addresses a church by name in mid-letter only three times: here, “O foolish Galatians” (Galatians 3:1), and “ye Philippians” (Philippians 4:15). “Our mouth is open” means we have spoken frankly, with nothing held back, the parresia of 3:12 in practice.

  2. 2 Corinthians 6:12

    “Straitened” is stenochoreo, to be squeezed into a narrow place, the verb of 4:8, “not distressed”. “Bowels”, splanchna, were the seat of feeling, as English uses “heart”; Philippians 1:8 speaks of longing “in the bowels of Jesus Christ”.

  3. 2 Corinthians 6:13

    “A recompence in the same” means a return in kind: open to me as I have opened to you. The bracketed “I speak as unto my children” recalls 1 Corinthians 4:14–15, where Paul called himself their father, having begotten them “through the gospel”.

2 Corinthians 6:11-13

King James Version

11O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.

12Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.

13Now for a recompence in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18

The Community Is a Temple, Not a Neutral Meeting Place

Paul stacks incompatible pairings until the final one makes the point unmistakable: "what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" Righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness, Christ and Belial, believer and unbeliever are not presented as harmless differences inside one shared allegiance. The unequal yoke is therefore broader than a rule about one kind of relationship. Its climax is worship and the community's identity: "ye are the temple of the living God." Then Scripture supplies the positive center of separation. God will dwell among his people, receive them, and "will be a Father unto you," while they are sons and daughters. Separation is not described as an empty clearing where every human connection disappears. It belongs to a new location of loyalty and belonging. The command to "come out from among them" stands beside promises of divine presence and family, which is why the next chapter can begin by drawing holiness directly from "these promises."

The community is a temple, not a neutral meeting place
Chapter scene2 Corinthians 6

Deep dive

The unequal yoke image concerns a partnership that binds unlike allegiances into a shared direction. Paul expands it through righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness, Christ and Belial, belief and unbelief, and finally temple and idols. The passage does not expressly identify the yoke only as marriage. Its immediate climax concerns worship and the community’s identity as the living God’s temple, so narrowing it to one kind of relationship leaves much of the argument unexplained.

The scriptural language combines promises associated with God dwelling among his people, separation from uncleanness, and fatherly reception. Leviticus 26:11-12 and Isaiah 52:11 are important sources for that sequence. The Corinthians’ status as a temple supplies the reason that an idol cannot simply be treated as another agreeable occupant. The command is paired with a promise of reception rather than ending in an empty space outside every relationship. Sons and daughters belong to the Father who receives them. The next chapter’s opening sentence will explicitly draw the demand for cleansing from these promises.

Words to trace: Lord, temple, agreement, Almighty, Belial, believeth

Verse-by-verse path

  1. 2 Corinthians 6:14

    “Unequally yoked” is heterozygeo, to be yoked with a different kind of animal, found only here in the New Testament. It draws on Deuteronomy 22:10, “Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together”, where two animals of unequal strength drag the plough off its line.

  2. 2 Corinthians 6:15

    “Belial” is Hebrew for worthlessness, used in the Old Testament for scoundrels, “sons of Belial” (1 Samuel 2:12), and by Paul’s time a name for Satan, as in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is its only appearance in the New Testament. “Infidel” is apistos, simply one who does not believe.

  3. 2 Corinthians 6:16

    “Agreement” is synkatathesis, a vote cast together, a joint decision. The quotation joins Leviticus 26:11–12 to Ezekiel 37:27, the covenant formula “I will be their God, and they shall be my people”, first spoken of the tabernacle standing in Israel’s camp.

  4. 2 Corinthians 6:17

    The words come from Isaiah 52:11, “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing”, said to the priests carrying the temple vessels out of Babylon. “I will receive you” is from Ezekiel 20:34, where God gathers Israel out of the nations.

  5. 2 Corinthians 6:18

    The promise adapts 2 Samuel 7:14, “I will be his father, and he shall be my son”, said of David’s heir, and widens it to the whole people, adding “daughters” as Isaiah 43:6 does. “Lord Almighty” is pantokrator, the Greek rendering of “LORD of hosts”, found elsewhere in the New Testament only in Revelation.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18

King James Version

14Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

15And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

16And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

17Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

18And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

Questions to keep in mind while reading

  1. Identify the audience, problem, argument, command, and pastoral purpose.
  2. Follow connecting words so that one sentence remains inside the author’s reasoning.
  3. Distinguish a universal theological claim from an instruction shaped by a particular situation.

Text first

Where readers differ

The chapter summary begins with what the passage says and how its parts fit together. It does not assume one denomination has already settled every question. Where a conclusion depends on a tradition, literary theory, or historical reconstruction, that dependence is named openly.

The KJV text is presented first. Interpretive conclusions are labeled, and differences are introduced only when they help a reader understand why serious communities do not always reach the same answer.

Comparative interpretive notes for this chapter are in preparation. Until reviewed notes are ready, this page separates the KJV text from summary and application without claiming that serious readers agree on every question.

Questions beneath the surface

  1. What account of God, human freedom, responsibility, and the good life emerges from 2 Corinthians 6?
  2. Which tension does the chapter refuse to resolve quickly?
  3. What changes when the chapter is read as part of the whole canon rather than as an isolated moral lesson?
  4. Where might a sincere reader confuse a familiar tradition with something the text states directly?

Questions for serious personal contemplation

These open-ended questions make room for tension, honest response, prayer, and conclusions that remain accountable to the chapter.

Observe without rushing

  1. What part of 2 Corinthians 6 makes you stop, feel unsettled, or feel surprised, and why?

  2. Which detail in the passage would be easiest to overlook? How does that detail change your understanding?

  3. Where do you see tension between what happens and this focus: 2 Corinthians 6 develops its own movement around accepted, enlarged, Lord, receive, report?

  4. What important question does the passage leave open instead of resolving quickly?

Examine your inner life honestly

  1. Which person, response, fear, or desire in the passage feels most like your own life right now?

  2. What assumption about God, other people, or yourself does this text challenge?

  3. Which part would you rather soften, avoid, or explain away too quickly? What might that reaction reveal?

  4. If this Scripture could ask you one direct question, what do you think it would ask?

Respond with wisdom and courage

  1. What do you need to remember, confess, grieve, thank God for, or trust after reading this passage?

  2. How might another faithful person read this situation differently without ignoring the text?

  3. What obedient response would be costly, uncomfortable, or slow, yet still faithful to Scripture?

  4. What question will you carry into prayer this week, and which verses will you keep in front of you?

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Source: eBible.org · eng-kjv2006