Diamonds in a Cardboard Box: A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians

We have this treasure in jars of clay. The church at Corinth was being worked against by so-called super-apostles, polished, persuasive men who had turned their eloquence and social standing into a campaign against Paul. They painted him as frail, inconsistent, and perpetually beaten. They weren't entirely wrong about the facts. What they missed entirely was what those facts meant. Paul's response in Second Corinthians is one of the most searching and personal letters he ever wrote: a full-length account of the theology of Christian weakness, and why apparent fragility is exactly where God tends to display His greatest power. In this commentary, Douglas Wilson traces Paul's argument as he moves from the sufferings of apostolic ministry through the glory of the new covenant, the nature of gospel generosity, and the sharp irony of the fool's speech, where Paul out-boasts the boasters by cataloguing everything he has suffered. Two visions of the Christian life emerge by the end. On one side: a wall of marble tombs, magnificent and rotten. On the other: a pile of cracked clay pots filled with diamonds. Wilson's commentary helps the reader see which vision is worth inhabiting, and why the cracked pots always win.