[Image: 2 Corinthians 11.32-33. Paul escapes Damascus in a basket. "If I must boast," he writes to critics who call him boastful, "let me boast of the things that show my weakness."]
Powell describes the city Corinth as a sort of counterpart to Athens. Wanting the prestige of Athenians' elevated culture, wealthy Corinthians spent lavishly on arts and entertainment.
Paul's efforts won Jew and gentile, rich and poor to the church at Corinth. But not long after he left for other missions, concern for status distorted relationships within the church and diluted the gospel message. In Powell's formulation, a faction of the Corinthians "identif[ies] only with the risen Christ, not with the crucified Christ" (297). Paul drives home his message that freedom from judgement under the Jewish law does not mean "anything goes": "all things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial" (1 Cor 6.12). The benefits he means are unity and the glory of God.
Paul keeps writing letters to his beloved church. Though we don't have these other letters, we do have a sense of what they said. Paul refers to one of these in 1 Corinthians, and to others in 2 Corinthians, along with allusions to a disastrous visit in the time between 1 and 2, when a member "did [Paul] wrong" (7.12) and Paul left in anger. Paul refers to his challenge to the church, sent by another letter, "to prove their obedience by disciplining" that member. He admits that he has put off another visit because the prospect of another rejection was too great for him. 2 Corinthians is the letter he writes after hearing from Titus that the Corinthians have done as he asked.
There's another tension between Paul and Corinth. Between letters, a group of traveling preachers seduces the Corinthians with letters of recommendation, superior erudition, some kind of different teaching (a "glory gospel," Powell calls it), and commanding physical presence -- all while mocking Paul for ineloquence, dubious authority, "weak" physique, and boastfulness. Paul answers them with ridicule of his own. My favorite part is where Paul plays "can you top this?" with a list of humiliations he has suffered for Christ. To be so weak and yet so successful, he must have God on his side (12.9-10, Powell 320).
Powell finds evidence of a happy ending. The Corinthians valued the letters enough to copy and preserve them. Then Paul writes in Romans of his success raising funds in Corinth.
Powell likens 2 Corinthians to a Hollywood sequel that doesn't hang together as well as the first. Powell lays out how scholars have accounted for the abrupt changes of topic and mood. The theory is that the missing letters are actually patched into the text of 2 Corinthians. One place is clear-cut, where an impassioned plea for reconciliation cuts suddenly to a section about mixing with pagans (6.14-7.1), then resumes (7.2). Powell gives details with caveats (313). For me, it's an elegant and pleasing way to read the letter.
Powell ends with a wry sequel. 40 years after 2 Corinthians, the Bishop of Rome writes scathingly of factions in the church at Corinth who defy church elders. Powell asks, "Where have we heard that before?"
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