2 Corinthians Chapter 6
Combating Opposition by Authentic Living
6:1 We’re working with him and urging you not to receive God’s grace for nothing. 2 He says,
“I listened to you at the right time;
I helped you at a time of salvation” [Is 49:8].
That “right time” is now; that “time of salvation” is now. 3 We try not to offend in anything so people won’t find fault with our ministry. 4 We try to commend ourselves as ministers in endurance, affliction, hardship, distress, 5 beatings, imprisonment, mob violence, labors, sleeplessness, hunger; 6 in purity, knowledge, longsuffering, kindness, a holy spirit, genuine love, 7 in the message about the truth, the power of God; by the weapons of goodness in the right hand and the left; 8 through honor and disrespect, bad report and good; as deceitful but true, 9 unknown but well-known, as dying but alive, punished but not put to death; 10 as grieved but always rejoicing, as owning nothing but having everything.
11 We’ve spoken freely to you, Corinthians; we’ve opened our hearts wide open. 12 We’re not restraining you; your inward parts are restraining you. 13 Open up to us. (I’m talking as if I’m talking to my children.)
2 Cor 6:1-13
Christians as God’s Temple
14 Don’t get unequally yoked to unbelievers. How can goodness team up with lawlessness? What does light have in common with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What part does a believer have with a disbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between God’s sanctuary and idols? We’re God’s living sanctuary—like he said,
“‘I’ll live and move among them;
I’ll be their God,
and they’ll be my people [Lev 26:12; Jer 32:28; Ezek 37:27].
17 So come out from among them
and be separate,’ the LORD says.
‘Don’t touch anything unclean,
and I’ll welcome you in [Is 52:11; Ezek 20:34, 41].
18 I’ll be your Father,
and you’ll be my sons and daughters’ [2 Sam 7:8; Is 43:6; Jer 31:9; Hos 1:10],
the LORD Almighty says” [Amos 3:13 LXX; 4:13 LXX].