What is the meaning of 2 Corinthians 3:1? Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? • Paul has just finished celebrating the new-covenant ministry (2 Colossians 2:14-17) and knows it could sound like self-promotion. He pauses to ask if he’s slipping into boasting. • Scripture consistently warns against self-commendation; “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (2 Colossians 10:17-18; Proverbs 27:2). • Paul’s question is rhetorical—his life and sufferings already testify to his calling (2 Corinthians 6:3-10). • By raising the issue himself, he disarms critics before they can accuse him, echoing 1 Corinthians 4:3-4 where he says, “It is the Lord who judges me.” Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you • Traveling teachers often carried written endorsements (Acts 18:27; Romans 16:1). Certain Judaizers had flaunted such papers to gain influence in Corinth (Galatians 1:6-9). • Paul reminds believers that genuine authority rests on God’s call, not human paperwork (Galatians 1:11-12). • The Corinthians had already witnessed signs, wonders, and changed lives through Paul’s ministry (2 Colossians 12:12); that evidence outweighed any formal letter. or from you? • Ironically, if letters were required, the Corinthians themselves should have written commendations for Paul, since they owed their faith to his preaching (1 Corinthians 9:1-2). • Their transformed hearts were his real letter, “written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God” (2 Colossians 3:2-3), just as Jesus taught that fruit confirms a tree (Matthew 7:16-20). • By pointing this out, Paul turns the tables: those demanding credentials are the ones who lack them (2 Colossians 11:22-23). summary Paul’s rhetorical questions expose the folly of measuring ministry by human endorsements. He neither boasts in himself nor courts validation through letters. The only credential that matters is the Spirit-written testimony of changed lives—evidence the Corinthians already embody. |
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