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Renewal through Suffering: A Study of 2 Corinthians is unavailable, but you can change that!

Paul’s opening remarks in his second letter to the Corinthian church make reference to certain troubles or problems he faced (problems which could possibly lead to imminent death from either an illness or persecution). Harvey uses these references as a springboard to understanding the profound but difficult language found in this epistle. He begins by exploring the social, economic and religious...

the problem of suffering in the present is the promise of a compensating reward in the future. When he wrote 1 Corinthians, therefore, Paul still shared the general supposition of his contemporaries that suffering is a purely negative experience. It may be a necessary discipline or chastisement imposed by God; it may be a school or contest in which the sage may cultivate a philosophical detachment; it may be just a more or less inexplicable deprivation of normal well-being that a Christian may believe
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