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Verse Takeaways
1
The Gospel Itself is Clear
Multiple commentators emphasize that if the gospel seems hidden, the fault is not in the message itself. Paul's message is clear and plain. The issue lies with the spiritual state of the hearer. Scholars like Barnes and Calvin use the analogy of the sun: it shines brightly, but a blind person cannot perceive its light. The problem is with the eyes, not the sun.
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Book Overview
2 Corinthians
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Commentaries
11
Albert Barnes
On 2 Corinthians 4:3
18th Century
Theologian
But if our gospel be hid. Paul here calls it his gospel because it was what he preached, or the message he bore. (See Barnes on Romans 16:…
AT Robertson
On 2 Corinthians 4:3
It is veiled in them that are perishing (εν τοις απολλυμενοις εστιν κεκαλυμμενον). Periphrastic perfect passive of καλυπτω, to vei…
Charles Ellicott
On 2 Corinthians 4:3
19th Century
Bishop
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.—Better, in both cases, as keeping the sequence of thought, has been veiled,…
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Charles Spurgeon
On 2 Corinthians 4:3
19th Century
Preacher
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost;
It was not hidden under fine language and oratorical flourishes on the pa…
Expositor's Bible Commentary
On 2 Corinthians 4:3
Paul’s Gospel, some had claimed, was designed only for a spiritually minded elite; what he said was obscure and what he did was underhanded (v.2).F…
John Calvin
On 2 Corinthians 4:3
16th Century
Theologian
But if our gospel is hid—it might have been an easy thing to slander what he had said about the clarity of his preaching, because he had m…
John Gill
On 2 Corinthians 4:3
17th Century
Pastor
But if our Gospel be hid
When the Gospel is called ours, the meaning is, not that ministers are the authors or subject of it; …
Matthew Henry
On 2 Corinthians 4:1–7
17th Century
Minister
The best of people would faint if they did not receive mercy from God. And that mercy which has helped us out, and helped us on, until now, we may …