2 Corinthians 10:2 Cross References - WNT

² I beseech you not to compel me when present to make a bold display of the confidence with which I reckon I shall show my 'courage' against some who reckon that we are guided by worldly principles.

¹ There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus;

⁵ For if men are controlled by their earthly natures, they give their minds to earthly things. If they are controlled by their spiritual natures, they give their minds to spiritual things.

¹⁸ But some of you have been puffed up through getting the idea that I am not coming to Corinth. ¹⁹ But, if the Lord is willing, I shall come to you without delay; and then I shall know not the fine speeches of these conceited people, but their power. ²⁰ For Apostolic authority is not a thing of words, but of power. ²¹ Which shall it be? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in a loving and tender spirit?

⁹ And when I was with you and my resources failed, there was no one to whom I became a burden--for the brethren when they came from Macedonia fully supplied my wants--and I kept myself from being in the least a burden to you, and will do so still. ¹⁰ Christ knows that it is true when I say that I will not be stopped from boasting of this anywhere in Greece. ¹¹ And why? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do. ¹² But I will persist in the same line of conduct in order to cut the ground from under the feet of those who desire an opportunity of getting themselves recognized as being on a level with us in the matters about which they boast. ¹³ For men of this stamp are sham apostles, dishonest workmen, assuming the garb of Apostles of Christ.

¹³ In what respect, therefore, have you been worse dealt with than other Churches, except that I myself never hung as a dead weight upon you? Forgive the injustice I thus did you! ¹⁴ See, I am now for the third time prepared to visit you, but I will not be a dead weight to you. I desire not your money, but yourselves; for children ought not to put by for their parents, but parents for their children. ¹⁵ And as for me, most gladly will I spend all I have and be utterly spent for your salvation. ¹⁶ If I love you so intensely, am I the less to be loved? Be that as it may: I was not a burden to you. But being by no means scrupulous, I entrapped you, they say! ¹⁷ Have I gained any selfish advantage over you through any one of the messengers I have sent to you? ¹⁸ I begged Titus to visit you, and sent our other brother with him. Did Titus gain any selfish advantage over you? Were not he and I guided by one and the same Spirit, and did we not walk in the same steps? ¹⁹ You are imagining, all this time, that we are making our defense at your bar. In reality it is as in God's presence and in communion with Christ that we speak; but, dear friends, it is all with a view to your progress in goodness. ²⁰ For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may not find you to be what I desire, and that you may find me to be what you do not desire; that perhaps there may be contention, jealousy, bitter feeling, party spirit, ill-natured talk, backbiting, undue eulogy, unrest;

² Those who cling to their old sins, and indeed all of you, I have forewarned and still forewarn (as I did on my second visit when present, so I do now, though absent) that, when I come again, I shall not spare you;

¹⁰ For this reason I write thus while absent, that when present I may not have to act severely in the exercise of the authority which the Lord has given me for building up, and not for pulling down.

¹⁶ This then is what I mean. Let your lives be guided by the Spirit, and then you will certainly not indulge the cravings of your lower natures. ¹⁷ For the cravings of the lower nature are opposed to those of the Spirit, and the cravings of the Spirit are opposed to those of the lower nature; because these are antagonistic to each other, so that you cannot do everything to which you are inclined. ¹⁸ But if the Spirit is leading you, you are not subject to Law. ¹⁹ Now you know full well the doings of our lower natures. Fornication, impurity, indecency, idol-worship, sorcery; ²⁰ enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of passion, intrigues, dissensions, factions, envyings; ²¹ hard drinking, riotous feasting, and the like. And as to these I forewarn you, as I have already forewarned you, that those who are guilty of such things will have no share in the Kingdom of God. ²² The Spirit, on the other hand, brings a harvest of love, joy, peace; patience towards others, kindness, benevolence; ²³ good faith, meekness, self-restraint. ²⁴ Against such things as these there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their lower nature with its passions and appetites. ²⁵ If we are living by the Spirit's power, let our conduct also be governed by the Spirit's power.

² which were once habitual to you while you walked in the ways of this world and obeyed the Prince of the powers of the air, the spirits that are now at work in the hearts of the sons of disobedience--to you God has given Life. ³ Among them all of us also formerly passed our lives, governed by the inclinations of our lower natures, indulging the cravings of those natures and of our own thoughts, and were in our original state deserving of anger like all others.