2 Corinthians 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul explains how he carries out his work of announcing the good news: openly, honestly, and pointing to Jesus rather than to himself. He describes the hardships he and his coworkers face and says the power at work in them clearly comes from God and not from themselves. He closes by contrasting present trouble, which he calls light and brief, with a lasting glory, and by saying that what can be seen is temporary while what cannot be seen is eternal.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • Because we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.
   • We received this ministry through mercy.
2. 4:2
   • We have renounced the hidden things that bring shame.
   • We do not walk in cunning.
   • We do not adulterate the word of God.
   • By the open showing of the truth we commend ourselves to every human conscience.
   • We do this in the sight of God.
3. 4:3
   • If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing.
4. 4:4
   • The god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe.
   • The blinding is so that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should not shine on them.
   • Christ is the image of God.
5. 4:5
   • We do not preach ourselves.
   • We preach Christ Jesus as Lord.
   • We preach ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake.
6. 4:6
   • God said that light should shine out of darkness.
   • God has shone in our hearts.
   • The purpose is to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.
   • That glory is seen in the face of Christ.
7. 4:7
   • We have this treasure in vessels made of clay.
   • The purpose is that the surpassing greatness of the power may be God's.
   • The power is not from us.
8. 4:8
   • We are pressed in every way.
   • We are not crushed.
   • We are perplexed.
   • We are not driven to despair.
9. 4:9
   • We are persecuted.
   • We are not abandoned.
   • We are struck down.
   • We are not destroyed.
10. 4:10
    • We always carry about in the body the dying of Jesus.
    • The purpose is that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body.
11. 4:11
    • We who live are always being handed over to death for Jesus' sake.
    • The purpose is that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal flesh.
12. 4:12
    • Death is at work in us.
    • Life is at work in you.
13. 4:13
    • We have the same spirit of faith.
    • It is written: I believed, and therefore I spoke.
    • We also believe.
    • Therefore we also speak.
14. 4:14
    • We know that the one who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus.
    • He will present us together with you.
15. 4:15
    • All things are for your sakes.
    • The purpose is that grace, increasing through the many, may make thanksgiving overflow to the glory of God.
16. 4:16
    • For this reason we do not lose heart.
    • Our outward man is decaying.
    • Our inward man is being renewed day by day.
17. 4:17
    • Our affliction is light.
    • Our affliction is momentary.
    • Our affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.
18. 4:18
    • We do not fix our attention on the things that are seen.
    • We fix our attention on the things that are not seen.
    • The things that are seen are temporary.
    • The things that are not seen are eternal.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

"We faint not" does not mean fainting or blacking out; the Greek word means to lose heart, run out of nerve, and give up. The word behind "ministry" is the ordinary term for service or an assigned job, the kind of word used of waiting tables or running errands, not a clerical office.

4:2

"Dishonesty" in 1611 English covered shameful or disgraceful conduct in general, not lying in particular. "Craftiness" is cunning trickery. "Handling the word of God deceitfully" uses a word taken from the marketplace, meaning to adulterate goods, the way a trader waters the wine or mixes cheap grain into good. "Commending ourselves" is Paul answering critics who said he carried no proper credentials.

4:3

"Hid" translates a word meaning veiled or curtained off. It continues the picture Paul has been using in the previous chapter, of the veil Moses put over his face and of a veil lying over people's minds as they listen.

4:4

"World" here renders a Greek word meaning age or era, a stretch of time rather than the planet. Paul does not say who he means by "the god of this world," and readers have taken the phrase in more than one way. "Image" translates eikon, an exact likeness or representation, the word used of a portrait or of a ruler's head stamped on a coin.

4:5

The word behind "servants" is the ordinary Greek word for a slave: someone owned by another and entirely at his disposal. Paul is deliberately picking the lowest-status word available.

4:6

"God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness" quotes the opening of Genesis, where the first spoken act of creation is "Let there be light."

4:7

"Earthen vessels" are unglazed clay pots, the cheapest and most breakable containers in an ancient household, thrown out once cracked. People did store money and valuables in such jars, which is part of the point: the container is worth nothing next to what is inside it.

4:8

The four contrasts in these two verses turn on pairs of closely related words. "Troubled" means pressed or squeezed, and "distressed" means hemmed into a space too narrow to move in. The sense is: crowded, yes; boxed in with no way out, no.

4:9

"Forsaken" means left behind by a companion who walked off. "Cast down" is the word for being knocked flat, as a fighter is floored or a soldier goes down in battle.

4:10

"The dying of the Lord Jesus" translates a noun that names the process of being put to death rather than a single completed event. The verb behind "bearing about" suggests carrying something around with you everywhere you go.

4:12

Paul means his danger helps other people. He risks his own life so they can hear about Jesus.

4:13

The quotation is from Psalm 116, in the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures that Paul and his readers used.

4:14

"Present" is the word for bringing someone forward and formally introducing them, as one would present a person before a king or in a courtroom.

4:15

"Redound" is an old English word meaning to overflow, or to flow back so as to produce a result. It has almost dropped out of modern use.

4:16

"Outward man" and "inward man" are not two separate persons. The outer self is the visible, physical life that ages and wears out; the inner self is the same person considered as onlookers cannot see them.

4:17

"Weight of glory" is a deliberate play on words: the Hebrew word for glory comes from a root meaning heaviness, so glory is weighty by nature while the affliction is called "light." "A far more exceeding" renders a piled-up Greek phrase, something like "beyond all measure to beyond all measure."

4:18

"Temporal" here means lasting only for a time, temporary. It does not carry the modern sense of worldly or non-religious.