2 CORINTHIANS 6 — AMBASSADORS IN AFFLICTION AND THE CALL TO SEPARATION

Chapter 6 continues the long defense of Paul's ministry (2:14–7:4). The first verses finish the appeal begun in 5:20, and the middle section is a famous catalog of the sufferings and the virtues that mark a true minister of Christ. The appeal in verses 11–13 is deeply personal and prepares for 7:2–4, and the passage between (6:14–7:1) has long puzzled interpreters because it seems to interrupt the flow. Some have suggested that it is a fragment from another letter, but there is no manuscript support for that view, and the passage connects naturally with the surrounding material: Paul asks the Corinthians to open their hearts to him and close them to the false teachers and idolatrous practices that were competing for their loyalty. The Corinthians lived in a city where participation in temple feasts, trade guilds, and civic religion was socially expected, so the call to separation was practical and costly.

Paul's catalog of hardships and his call to separation had practical effects that outsiders noticed. Early Christians refused to participate in the sacrifices and festivals that were woven into civic life, and this made them seem odd and sometimes dangerous. Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, wrote to the emperor Trajan around AD 112 about the Christians in his province. He found that they gathered before dawn, sang to Christ "as to a god," and bound themselves by oath not to commit theft, fraud, or adultery. His investigation turned up no crimes, only what he called a stubborn and excessive superstition. This independent, hostile source confirms that the Christian community of the early second century was marked by moral seriousness and a refusal to compromise its worship. The paradoxes of verses 8–10 also describe the Christian condition in the Roman world: regarded as impostors, dying yet living, poor yet enriching others.