Today is the day of salvation
6
📚We then, as workers together 📖 with him, plead with you also not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 📚For he says,I have heard you in an
acceptable time,
and in the day of salvation
I have helped you.
Look, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.
Paul’s troubles, sufferings, and manner of life
3 📚We are giving no offense in anything, so that our ministry will not be not blamed,
6:3 Some people there were determined to discredit Paul’s ministry. He was determined that he himself should not discredit it.⚜
4 📚but in everything we show ourselves to be servants of God: in much patient endurance, in troubles, in hardships, in distresses, 5 📚in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in hard work, in sleeplessness, in fastings,
6:4-5 Compare 2 Cor 1:8; 4:8-9; 11:23-29; 1 Cor 4:9-13. It was in patiently enduring such things that they showed themselves to be true servants of Christ. What a contrast this must have been with the lives of the false teachers being accepted in Corinth, and this is something the Christians there should have seen with their own eyes.⚜
6 📚by pureness, by understanding, by patience, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, 7 📚by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour 📖 of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
6:6-7 Now he speaks of the qualities and power he revealed in his service for God. These are things every servant of Christ should have and cultivate. He is saying that such spiritual fruit in his life was proof that he was God’s servant and not a false prophet. Compare Matt 7:16-20.⚜
8 📚by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, regarded as deceivers, and yet true, 9 📚regarded as unknown, and yet well-known; as dying, and, see, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 📚as sorrowful 📖, yet always rejoicing; as poor 📖, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things 📖.
6:3-10 Paul continues to defend his ministry. See 2 Cor 1:12-14. His emphasis on this shows his fear that some, or even many, in the church at Corinth might reject him as Christ’s ambassador, and accept the false teachers with their perverted gospel. So he sets before them his character and experiences. They reveal that he was a true servant of God.⚜
6:8-10 He went on serving God regardless of what people said about him, regardless of his sufferings, regardless of his feelings, regardless of his poverty. In all circumstances he was proving that 2 Cor 5:14 was true of him.⚜
11 📚O you Corinthians, our mouth is open to you, our heart has been made wide. 12 📚You are not restricted by us, you are restricted in your own inner being. 13 📚Now in return for this (I speak as to my children) you open wide to us.
6:11-13 Opening wide the heart means making room in them. It indicates love and concern – 2 Cor 7:2-3. Often the hearts of Christians are cramped and narrow. They have room only for the things which concern themselves. Compare Phil 2:4, 21.⚜
Believers should not unite with unbelievers
14 📚Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion has light 📖 with darkness? 15 📚And what accord has Christ with Belial 📖? Or what part has the one who believes with an unbeliever? 16 📚And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said,
I will dwell in them, and walk
in them, and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
6:16 Believers are the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; Eph 2:21-22). Unbelievers are either worshipers of literal idols or idols in the mind (Eph 5:5), or make themselves like idols. So what agreement can there be between these two vastly different sorts of people? Paul refers to some Old Testament verses to show something of the meaning of being the temple of God – Lev 26:11-12; Jer 32:38; Ezek 37:27.⚜
17 📚Therefore come out from among them,
and be separate, says the Lord,
and do not touch what is unclean,
and I will receive you,
18 📚and will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.
6:14-18 Paul now sets forth this very important truth – believers in Christ are the special people of God and they should behave accordingly. Compare Deut 7:3-6; 1 Pet 2:9-12; John 17:6-10, 17-19. Verse 14 gives a principle which applies to all believers in all times and in all places. They must not form any close alliances with unbelievers. “Yoked” indicates being joined very closely together in a common aim and work. See Deut 22:10. Believers are yoked with Christ (Matt 11:28-29), so they must not yoke themselves with those who reject Christ. This certainly forbids marriage between believers and unbelievers (see also 1 Cor 7:39; Ezra 9:1-2; Neh 13:23-27; Mal 2:12). It also forbids fellowship with false teachers who preach a perverted gospel or who deny some of the basic truths of the Bible.
Of course, Paul is not forbidding believers to work in a place where unbelievers work, or to hire unbelievers to work for them. And it does not mean that they should cut themselves off from all contact with unbelievers (1 Cor 5:9-10). Paul himself associated with unbelievers in order to win them to Christ (1 Cor 9:19-23. Compare Matt 11:19). But here he forbids close fellowship and common goals with unbelievers, any relationship which would lead to a compromise of Bible principles, or endanger the fellowship of believers with Christ. Any believer who acts against this principle is inviting trouble.
In vs 14-16 Paul asks five questions to show how foolish and wrong it is for believers to join themselves to unbelievers. Things and persons which have nothing in common should not be treated as if they did have. Separation from all evil and all evil persons is God’s command for His people (v 17).⚜
6:17-18 Paul refers to OT Scriptures to give a fitting conclusion to this section. He does not give an exact quotation of any one verse, but probably had in mind such verses as Isa 52:11-12; 2 Sam 7:14; Jer 31:9; Isa 43:6. See the great thing he sets before those who are willing to be a distinct separate holy people. They lose the fellowship and pleasures of the world, but they gain the fellowship of Almighty God. Many people would like to have both, but this is not possible (Jam 4:4).⚜