Paul: Apostle to the Nations, An Introduction

9. 2 Corinthians: Treasure in Clay Jars

189 Chapter 9 2 Corinthians: Treasure in Clay Jars Where Do We See god’s Power? In response to the missionary conversation and preaching of the apostle Paul, you were baptized some months ago. It was a glorious event.You felt the Spirit’s surge of power then and for weeks afterward. Your belief in Jesus as the Christ is still solid, but you wonder why God’s power is not evident in your life in more obvious ways that can be seen by others. Because of that concern, your ears immediately pick up Paul’s remarks as his latest letter is read in the assembly of believers: “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us”(2 Cor 4:7).You know all about clay jars. You store olive oil and wine in them at home, see them in most shops and all corner snack bars, and see pieces of broken jars everywhere you walk. Clay jars are wonderful objects in which to store things, but they do crack and can break—just like you. But God gives the treasure of the good news of Jesus to you, a very breakable yet usable clay jar. And that reminds you that the power is God’s and is hidden to unseeing eyes. 190 | Paul: Apostle to the Nations The twenty-first-century reader might think 1 Corinthians should have resolved all problems among the Christ-believers in Corinth. Unfortunately, by the time of 2 Corinthians, the circumstances confronted by Paul were even more complex and difficult than before,with rival missionaries creating at least part of the new problem. To investigate how Paul deals with the new situation,we will need to do some detective work on 2 Corinthians.Our letter may,in fact,be a composite document created when someone placed together two or more originally separate letters. Once we have explored the possibilities, we will discover a Paul who is battling— sometimes brilliantly—for his apostolic life. Seams In the previous chapter, we saw that a literary seam in a document consists of “a block of material that is a clearly defined unit and seems out of place when compared with the material preceding and following it. Such seams can be either indications of material inserted into a previously existing document or signs of a document put together by an editor from originally independent documents or fragments of documents.”1 Readers of 2 Corinthians have identified several places that may indicate such seams: between chapters 1–9 as a unit and chapters 10–13 as a unit; between 2:13 and 2:14; between chapters 8 and 9; and between 6:14—7:1 and the material on either side of it. Our discussion will begin with the Fig. 9.1 The bēma, the ceremonial platform used on civic events for addressing the people , from the Corinthian forum. Photo courtesy of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Chapter 9: 2 Corinthians: Treasure in Clay Jars | 191 seam that involves the entire content of 2 Corinthians. Each of the other three seams deals with progressively smaller amounts of text. BETWEEN cHAPTERS 1–9 AND 10–13 As Victor Paul Furnish writes,“Any thoughtful reader of canonical 2 Cor[inthians] will be struck at once by the abrupt shift—not only in subject matter but also in tone and style—between chaps. 9 and 10.”2 The shift is even more obvious when chapters 10–13 as a unit are compared with chapters 1–9 as a unit. In chapters 1–7, Paul looks back at the beginning of fresh agitation against him. He traces that opposition up to his complete reconciliation with the congregation , so chapter 7 ends, “I rejoice, because I have complete confidence in you” (7:16).Then follow two chapters that appeal for money. In chapters 10–13, the situation seems quite different. In those chapters, Paul’s battle with his opponents is at its height. The following passage is illustrative of his approach in 10–13: “And what I do I will also continue to do, in order to deny an opportunity to those who want an opportunity to be recognized as our equals in what they boast about. For such boasters are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ...