Renewal through Suffering: A Study of 2 Corinthians (Studies of the New Testament and its World | SNTW)
Overview
Paul’s opening remarks in his second letter to the Corinthian church make reference to certain troubles or problems he faced (problems which could possibly lead to imminent death from either an illness or persecution). Harvey uses these references as a springboard to understanding the profound but difficult language found in this epistle. He begins by exploring the social, economic and religious consequences of illness or disability in antiquity. Paul uses his malady as an opportunity to present a new understanding of suffering for the first-century Christian. The remainder of Harvey’s book acts as a running commentary on this biographical approach to understanding 2 Corinthians.
Top Highlights
“Corinthians. In the course of that letter he referred to ‘fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus’ (15:32” (Page 112)
“But none of these explanations had been adequate to account for the pain, the humiliation, the disability and the dashing of long-held hopes involved (for Paul) in the experience of standing on the very brink of death. Instead, he had discovered in it and through it a solidarity with Christ in his sufferings and an interior renewal in counterpoint to the battering of his outward person which meant that there was now no suffering beyond the reach of the ‘consolation’ offered by God through Christ.” (Page 118)
“The discovery inspires the radically new concepts of ‘carrying about the corpse-like” (Page 31)
“Conform, transform: these ‘form’ (μορφ-) words17 play a significant part in his analysis of Christian life and experience. Already in Galatians 4:9 he can speak of enabling Christ to be ‘formed’ in Christian converts; in Romans (8:29) he declares that they are predestined to be ‘conformed’ with the image of his son. This conformity involves transformation,18 similar to, but also greatly superior to, that of Moses when exposed to the divine glory (2 Cor. 3:18); it implies ‘renewal’ of the mind (Rom. 12:2)—part of the ‘inner man’ that is ‘renewed’ even when the outer man is being destroyed (2 Cor. 4:16); but it depends also on total identification with Christ, not only in his present risen and glorious state, but in his suffering and death (Phil. 3:10).” (Page 120)
“This episode presented him with the problem of suffering in its sharpest form. In a moment when he was led to ‘despair even of remaining alive’ he was faced by the apparent destruction of his self-confidence, his hopes and his credibility in the eyes of others.” (Page 31)
- Title: Renewal through Suffering: A Study of 2 Corinthians
- Author: A. E. Harvey
- Series: Studies of the New Testament and its World (SNTW)
- Publisher: T & T Clark
- Publication Date: 1996
- Pages: 153