Salutation.  Not an exotic salad I’m going to reveal the ingredients of.  It’s  “the word or phrase of greeting (as Gentlemen or Dear Sir or Madam) that conventionally comes immediately before the body of a letter” (Merriam-Webster).  (If you’re a texting-person, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.)  New Testament salutations we typically skim.  Just the same-old greetings.   Let’s get on to the important stuff! But in 2 Corinthians 1:1,2 there’s gold to be mined.  First, though, a glimpse of . . .

CORINTH, THE CITY

Image result for map of 1st century Greece

First-century Corinth has a population estimated as high as 200,000.  Every race and religion is represented.  Two harbors and a strategic location make it a major commercial center in southern Greece.

CORINTH, THE CITY’S CHARACTER

The city is notorious for morally-depraved living–a Wild West kind of place. Every pagan cult has a following here.  Temple prostitutes number close to 1,000.  “Corinthianize” is a word coined to signify the city’s sexual pleasures.

D.A. Carson (Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) comments . . .

“As noted, Corinth’s reputation is notorious. Among other things, archaeologists have discovered there clay representations of human genitals that were offered to Asclepius, the god of healing. Evidently, the hope was that that part of the body, suffering from venereal disease, would be healed. However, it is important to point out that Corinth’s reputation comes from what we know it to have been like prior to its devastation in 146 b.c. Thus we should be careful “not to read the old city’s character into the new city. . . . [Nevertheless], traditions like that die hard, and as a great port city it is unlikely that new Corinth established a reputation for moral probity . . . “

CORINTH, THE CHURCH

Dr. Gordon Fee (Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia) notes, “ . . . although they were the Christian church in Corinth, an inordinate amount of Corinth was yet in them . . . “

In the spring of 55 A.D. Paul makes an urgent visit to the church to try to restore strained relationships.  It becomes “a painful visit” (2 Corinthians 2:1).  The church largely ignored Paul’s 1 Corinthians’ instructions and are now listening to so-called apostles who oppose and belittle Paul.  Consequently, the church is mocking the apostle:  “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is of no account” (10:10).

THE SALUTATION TO THE CORINTHIANS

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:1,2).

Paul identifies himself as an apostle of Messiah Jesus by the will of God.  His claim to be officially sent by the Messiah according to God’s will contradicts the Corinthians’ mockery.  He’s not to be trifled with.  Not because of who he is but because of the authority of Jesus who sent him.

“Grace . . . to you” is more than a standard greeting starting ancient letters.  For Paul it is a prayer from the heart for God’s favor and power to be released into the lives of the Corinthians.  And he believes God’s grace will be released to the church in the words of his letter.

John Piper explains: ” . . . at the beginning of his letters Paul has in mind that the letter itself is a channel of God’s grace to the readers. Grace is about to flow ‘from God’ through Paul’s writing to the Christians. So he says, ‘Grace to you.’ That is, grace is now active and is about to flow from God through my inspired writing to you as you read — ‘grace [be] to you'” (Future Grace, p. 66-67).

This is remarkable–and brings us to . . .

THE SALUTATION TO US

I watch a contemporary jeans-clad preacher pace the platform,  holding the Bible folded over as if it were an ordinary soft-cover book.  0 I cringe.  I hear him read the text as casually as if it were the “The New York Times”.  And I wonder how anyone can read God’s words like that.

Some preachers attract such attention to themselves that they would accomplish more if they just reverently read the Bible to their listeners.  I’m certainly not putting down preaching.  But what’s important is God’s words, not the preacher’s. 

To say it another way, God’s grace comes to us through God’s words.

So it is when we read his words.  “Grace . . . to you”, wrote Paul–expecting that God’s favor and power would be released when the believers read what he’d written “breathed out” by God.

When we open our Bible, we can potentially encounter God the Holy Spirit.  His favor–his kindness we don’t deserve, his preferential treat we don’t merit–can be released to us.  In the same way, his power can be freed to flow.

The form that grace takes is up to the Giver.  It may be increased faith, insight that heightens our wonder of him, healing for our spirit or body,  deepened love for him and others, conviction of sin that calls for repentance, a comforting sense of his presence, peace in the midst of chaos, assurance of forgiveness, a brighter hope because he holds tomorrow.

But we can’t approach the Bible as if it were just another–even religious–book.  Come with reverence.  Come with prayer.  Come with a mind recognizing the book contains God’s words.  Come with a heart hungry for grace.

And come assured that the Holy Spirit through the Scripture is saying, “Grace to you.”

 Listen again . . .