2 Corinthians Chapters 1-3
I have struggled with trying to group and summarize 2 Corinthians individual chapters more than any other letters in the Bible. I have prayed over the book, plus reread all of 2 Corinthians countless times trying to form the body for an outline.
Writer’s block over Paul’s 2nd letter to these Corinthians has clogged my mind, like plaque clogs arteries. It wasn’t much of a problem to summarize the overall theme of the book in our last article. However, as I dug into the details, the trench seemed to constantly cave in on me, as if a KUB water main was leaking in it. Amelia Earhart’s plane couldn’t be any harder to find.
After the umpteenth revisiting of 2 Corinthians, my problem finally dawned on me like a sunrise over Clinch Mountain at Bean Station.
My problem was that Paul was interweaving rhetorical devices and literary devices together one after another to get the Corinthian’s attention. I just wasn’t seeing it clearly. His rhetoric in 2 Corinthians is constant.
Couple Paul’s use of rhetoric with 1st century Corinthian specific colloquialisms, then sprinkle in a Hebrew idiom or two, and voila. Trying to write that outline is enough to make a 21st century Tennessee boy’s head explode.
Imagine if somehow I could send the first paragraph of this article to someone in the distant future—would they understand it?
Better yet, pretend we could send it back in time to the 1st century Corinthians.
In order to even begin comprehending what I’m saying they would have to know a little about 21st Century in Tennessee. Would someone in the past know about plaque clogging arteries? Will a far future person know that KUB is an acronym or symbol for something else?
Even though Amelia Earhart’s plane was lost in the 20th century, many people today readily recognize Earhart’s name and story. Will anyone know Amelia’s story in the 26th century? Would it be important to know where Clinch Mountain is to really appreciate a sunrise at Bean Station?
The point is, context matters. Context is much more than fairly straightforward details, like a person, place or thing. Context includes a vast array of information, including literary devices used. Often, to understand certain literary devices, one must understand the cultural context, even to the point of regional dialect.
For example, if I ask a Union County native in the presence of a NYC born transplant: Where is our coworker? To which question the local replies “He fell in the hog lot and the hogs ate him.” I know what the local means: he doesn’t know where our coworker is. The NYC coworker however, either doesn’t have a clue what was said, or literally thinks hogs ate our coworker!
So, continuing with the song title themes begun last month, let me summarize what 2 Corinthians 1-3 is all about by quoting a few lines from the 1979 Commodores hit single, Still.
We made mistakes along the way
Somehow I know deep in my heart you needed me
Remembering the pain, if I must say
It’s deep in my mind and locked away
But then most of all, I do love you still.
― by Lionel Richie
Next time we will look into how Paul uses Old Testament events to educate the Corinthians about our Lord.
For more information on rhetorical & literary devices see:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/rhetorical-device/