2 Corinthians 3King James Version
Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men. Not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory.
Paul explains why he does not lose heart despite the crushing pressure of ministry. The treasure of the gospel lives in fragile clay jars precisely so the power is obviously God's. He catalogues a series of paradoxes: troubled but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, struck down but not destroyed. The reason he persists is the resurrection: the same God who raised Jesus will raise those who carry his dying in their bodies.
Weakness is not a flaw in the ministry design; it is the design, because power that cannot be explained by the vessel demands explanation by the source.
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." (2 Corinthians 4:7) It is the theological key to every paradox that follows: fragility is not a problem to be fixed but a feature that directs credit correctly.
A clay pot sits in bright sunlight. Inside it, a lamp burns. The pot is cracked in several places, and light leaks out through the cracks. The cracks are not the problem. They are how anyone outside can see the flame.
Paul and his unnamed co-workers carrying the dying of Jesus in their bodies. Christ, whose resurrection is the logic underneath every survival. The god of this world (v.4), named as the one blinding unbelievers.
This is one of the densest chapters in the New Testament for the theology of suffering. Paul is not merely accepting hardship; he is arguing that it is structurally necessary. The earthen vessel theology provides the ground for the ministry philosophy that will culminate in chapter 12 with the thorn in the flesh. Weakness is the argument for God.
The phrase 'we faint not' appears twice. Paul is not triumphant; he is holding on. Sometimes faithfulness is just refusing to quit when everything says quit.
1Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
2Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
3Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
4And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
5Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
6Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
7But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
8How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
9For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
11For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
12Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.