2 Corinthians 3:1-3

A Living Letter

3:1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we? ¹  3:2 You yourselves are our letter, ²  written on our hearts, known and read by everyone, 3:3 revealing ³  that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, ⁴  written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets ⁵  but on tablets of human hearts.

Romans 15:18-19

15:18 For I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in order to bring about the obedience ⁶  of the Gentiles, by word and deed, 15:19 in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem even as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.

Romans 15:1

Exhortation for the Strong to Help the Weak

15:1 But we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not just please ourselves. ⁷ 

Colossians 2:10

2:10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

Colossians 3:5

3:5 So put to death whatever in your nature belongs to the earth: ⁸  sexual immorality, impurity, shameful passion, ⁹  evil desire, and greed which is idolatry.

Colossians 3:10

3:10 and have been clothed with the new man ¹⁰  that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it.

Colossians 4:15

4:15 Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters ¹¹  who are in Laodicea and to Nympha and the church that meets in her ¹²  house. ¹³ 

Colossians 1:1-2

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ¹⁴  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 1:2 to the saints, the faithful ¹⁵  brothers and sisters ¹⁶  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ¹⁷  from God our Father! ¹⁸ 

[3:1]  ¹ tn The Greek construction anticipates a negative reply (“No, we do not”) which is indicated in the translation by the ‘tag’ at the end, “do we?”

[3:2]  ² tn That is, “letter of recommendation.”

[3:3]  ³ tn Or “making plain.”

[3:3]  ⁴ tn Grk “cared for by us,” an expression that could refer either to the writing or the delivery of the letter (BDAG 229 s.v. διακονέω 1). Since the following phrase refers to the writing of the letter, and since the previous verse speaks of this “letter” being “written on our [Paul’s and his companions’] hearts” it is more probable that the phrase “cared for by us” refers to the delivery of the letter (in the person of Paul and his companions).

[3:3]  ⁵ sn An allusion to Exod 24:12; 31:18; 34:1; Deut 9:10-11.

[15:18]  ⁶ tn Grk “unto obedience.”

[15:1]  ⁷ tn Grk “and not please ourselves.” NT Greek negatives used in contrast like this are often not absolute, but relative: “not so much one as the other.”

[3:5]  ⁸ tn Grk “the members which are on the earth.” See BDAG 628 s.v. μέλος 1, “put to death whatever in you is worldly.”

[3:5]  ⁹ tn Or “lust.”

[3:10]  ¹⁰ sn Put off all such things. The commands in vv. 8-9 are based on two reasons given in vv. 9-10 – reasons which are expressed in terms of a metaphor about clothing oneself. Paul says that they have put off the old man and have put on the new man. Two things need to be discussed in reference to Paul’s statement. (1) What is the meaning of the clothing imagery (i.e., the “have put off” and “have been clothed”)? (2) What is the meaning of the old man and the new man? Though some commentators understand the participles “have put off” (v. 9) and “have been clothed” (v. 10) as imperatives (i.e., “put off!” and “put on!”), this use of participles is extremely rare in the NT and thus unlikely here. It is better to take them as having the semantic force of indicatives, and thus they give an explanation of what had happened to the Colossians at the time of their conversion – they had taken off the old man and put on the new when they trusted in Christ (cf. 1:4). While it is difficult to say for certain what the background to Paul’s “clothing” metaphor might be (whether it is primarily Jewish and comes from the OT, or primarily Gentile and comes from some facet of the Greco-Roman religious milieu), it is nonetheless clear, on the basis of Paul’s usage of the expression, that the old man refers to man as he is in Adam and dominated by sin (cf. Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22), while the new man refers to the Christian whose new sphere of existence is in Christ. Though the metaphor of clothing oneself primarily reflects outward actions, there is a distinct inward aspect to it, as the rest of v. 10 indicates: being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. Paul’s point, then, is that Christians should take off their dirty clothing (inappropriate behavior) and put on clean clothing (behavior consistent with knowing Christ) because this has already been accomplished in a positional sense at the time of their conversion (cf. Gal 3:27 with Rom 13:14).

[4:15]  ¹¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[4:15]  ¹² tc If the name Nympha is accented with a circumflex on the ultima (Νυμφᾶν, Numfan), then it refers to a man; if it receives an acute accent on the penult (Νύμφαν), the reference is to a woman. Scribes that considered Nympha to be a man’s name had the corresponding masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ here (autou, “his”; so D [F G] Ψ Ï), while those who saw Nympha as a woman read the feminine αὐτῆς here (auth", “her”; B 0278 6 1739^[*^] 1881 sa). Several mss (א A C P 075 33 81 104 326 1175 2464 bo) have αὐτῶν (autwn, “their”), perhaps because of indecisiveness on the gender of Nympha, perhaps because they included ἀδελφούς (adelfou", here translated “brothers and sisters”) as part of the referent. (Perhaps because accents were not part of the original text, scribes were particularly confused here.) The harder reading is certainly αὐτῆς, and thus Nympha should be considered a woman.

[4:15]  ¹³ tn Grk “the church in her house.” The meaning is that Paul sends greetings to the church that meets at Nympha’s house.

[1:1]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:2]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ¹⁷ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ¹⁸ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.