Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
2 Corinthians 5:11-6:13, New creation, Christ's ambassadors and a list of hardships
Because one died for all, anyone in Christ is a new creation; Paul, God's ambassador, appeals to the Corinthians to be reconciled to God and commends his ministry with a long list of hardships and paradoxes.
2 Corinthians 5:11-6:13, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul explains what drives him: Christ's love, shown when one died for all, so that the living now live for him. Anyone joined to Christ belongs to a new creation, and God, who has made peace between the world and himself through Christ, has made Paul his ambassador to urge people to be reconciled. Paul backs his appeal with a long list of hardships and paradoxes, poor yet enriching many, owning nothing yet having everything, and asks the Corinthians to open their hearts to him as he has to them.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/present-age-and-age-to-come\/","n":"This age and the age to come","s":"Jews divided history into the present age, under the rule of evil nations, and the age to come, when God would rule unchallenged. The sufferings expected before the change were called birth pangs.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/ambassadors\/","n":"Envoys and ambassadors","s":"An ambassador spoke for one state to another, in Paul's day usually as the emperor's legate in the East. The way an envoy was received honored or insulted the one who sent him, and communities chose respected envoys to carry their gifts.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/orators-and-sophists\/","n":"Orators, rhetoric and boasting","s":"Public speaking was the great skill of the Greek city. Traveling orators performed for crowds and gathered paying students, audiences judged them on voice and gesture as well as argument, and the fans of rival speakers boasted of their own man against the rest.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sages-and-philosophers\/","n":"Philosophers and their schools","s":"Stoics, Epicureans and other schools taught a whole way of life in lecture halls and marketplaces. A traveling teacher with a message about God would be heard, and judged, as one more philosopher.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/working-with-your-hands\/","n":"Manual work and the leisured class","s":"The well-to-do despised people who worked with their hands. A respectable teacher was expected to live on a patron, on fees or even on begging, so an apostle who made tents for his keep looked low class.","r":""}
Early texts such as Jubilees and the Dead Sea Scrolls use the language of new creation mainly for the coming world, as in Isaiah 65:16-18, while later rabbis used it of someone who made a proselyte (Keener and his notes). The ESV Study Bible ties it to Isaiah 43 and 65-66 and to Israel's final restoration. Greek speakers often spoke on concord, urging reconciliation and unity (Keener and his notes). An ambassador was usually the emperor's legate in the East, and how an envoy was treated honored or shamed his sender (Keener and his notes). "Philosophers often listed their hardships, sometimes in triads," Keener writes, to prove the sincerity of their message, and the cultural backgrounds notes count nine hardships and eight virtues in 6:4-10, followed by sets of contrasts, a pattern worthy of any orator. Soldiers carried a spear or sword in the right hand and a shield in the left (Keener and his notes). Cynic and Stoic philosophers claimed to own the world while owning nothing (Keener and his notes). Wright and Bird see the hardship lists of 4:7-15 and 6:3-10 preparing for the boasting of chapter 11, a sign of the letter's underlying unity.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 2 Corinthians 5:16-17, 5:18-19, introduction to 5:20-6:10, and on 5:20, 6:4-5, 6:7 and 6:10
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 2 Corinthians 5:17, 5:20, 6:4-10 and 6:7
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 2 Corinthians 5:17
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 21, 1 and 2 Corinthians, The argument of 2 Corinthians
