Short History Of St. Paul's Epistle to The Corinthians

The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, also known as Second Corinthians, is the 8th book of the New Testament. The book, originally written in Greek, is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to the Christians of Corinth, Greece. The Epistle was purportedly written in the same year as the first, just two months after it. Given this historical analysis it would have been written a short time previous to the Apostle’s three months stay in Achaia (Acts xx. 3)

There is general acceptance of the reference in the book itself identifying the place of writing as Macedonia (chaps, vii.5, viii.1, ix. 2), which he reached after traveling through Troas (Chap, ii. 12) where he waited for a short time for Titus to return (Chap. Ii. 13).

The Epistle was instigated by information regarding the reception of the first Epistle. These reports were mainly favorable, with the majority of the church returning to their spiritual allegiance to their founder. However, pockets of resistance still remained, and in fact some had become even more entrenched in their opposition to Paul, strenuously denying his claim to apostleship (chap, x. 1-10).

The contents of this Epistle are thus very varied, but may be roughly divided into three parts: 1st, The apostle's account of the character of his spiritual labors (chap, i.—vii.); 2nd, Directions about the collections (chaps, viii., ix.); 3rd, Defense of his own apostolical character (chaps, x.-xiii. 10).