The Meaning of 2 Corinthians 6:10 Explained

2 Corinthians 6:10

KJV: As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

YLT: as sorrowful, and always rejoicing; as poor, and making many rich; as having nothing, and possessing all things.

Darby: as grieved, but always rejoicing; as poor, but enriching many; as having nothing, and possessing all things.

ASV: as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

KJV Reverse Interlinear

As  sorrowful,  yet  alway  rejoicing;  as  poor,  yet  making  many  rich;  as  having  nothing,  and  [yet] possessing  all things. 

What does 2 Corinthians 6:10 Mean?

Context Summary

2 Corinthians 6:1-10 - Ambassadors For Christ
On God's side the work of reconciliation is complete. Everything has been done and is in readiness to make forgiveness and justifying righteousness possible as soon as a penitent soul asks for them. He only waits for us to make application for our share in the atonement of Calvary. Many as our trespasses have been, they are not reckoned to us, because they were reckoned to Christ. God wants this known, and so from age to age sends out ambassadors to announce these terms and urge men to accept them.
God sends none forth to entreat men without cooperating with them. When rain falls on a slab of rock, it falls in vain. Be not rock, but loam to the gentle fall of God's grace. Let none of us be stumbling-blocks by the inconsistencies of our character, but all of us stepping-stones and ascending stairways for other souls.
The three marvelous series of paradoxes in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10 deserve careful pondering. The first series enumerates Paul's sufferings on behalf of the Gospel; the second, his behavior under them; the third, the contrast between appearance and reality, as judged respectively by time and eternity. The stoic bears life's sorrows with compressed lips; the Christian, with a smile. Let us be always rejoicing, many enriching, and all things possessing. [source]

Chapter Summary: 2 Corinthians 6

1  That he has approved himself a faithful minister of Christ by his exhortations,
3  and by integrity of life,
4  and by patiently enduring all kinds of affliction and disgrace for the gospel
10  Of which he speaks the more boldly amongst them because his heart is open to them,
13  and he expects the like affection from them again;
14  exhorting them to flee the society and pollutions of idolaters,
17  as being themselves temples of the living God

Greek Commentary for 2 Corinthians 6:10

Always rejoicing [αει χαιροντες]
Even in sorrow (2 Corinthians 11:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:16; Romans 5:3-5; Romans 9:2; Philemon 2:18, Philemon 2:27; Philemon 3:1; Philemon 4:4, Philemon 4:15). [source]
Yet making many rich [πολλους δε πλουτιζοντες]
Old word from πλουτος — ploutos (wealth), to enrich. Spiritual riches Paul has in mind as in 1 Corinthians 1:5 (cf. Matthew 5:37). As having nothing and yet possessing all things (ως μηδεν εχοντες και παντα κατεχοντες — hōs mēden echontes kai panta katechontes). Contrast between μηδεν — mēden (nothing) and παντα — panta (all things, cf. 1 Corinthians 3:22) and εχω — echō (to have) and κατεχω — katechō (to hold down, to hold fast). Play on words (simple and compound) as in 2 Corinthians 3:2; 2 Corinthians 4:8. Climax of Paul‘s panegyric on the Christian ministry. He now resumes the thread of the story broken off in 2 Corinthians 2:14. [source]
As having nothing and yet possessing all things [ως μηδεν εχοντες και παντα κατεχοντες]
Contrast between μηδεν — mēden (nothing) and παντα — panta (all things, cf. 1 Corinthians 3:22) and εχω — echō (to have) and κατεχω — katechō (to hold down, to hold fast). Play on words (simple and compound) as in 2 Corinthians 3:2; 2 Corinthians 4:8. Climax of Paul‘s panegyric on the Christian ministry. He now resumes the thread of the story broken off in 2 Corinthians 2:14. [source]
Having - possessing [ἔχοντες - κατέχοντες]
The contrast is twofold: between having and not having, and between temporary and permanent having, or having and keeping. Compare Luke 8:15; 1 Corinthians 15:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:21; Hebrews 3:6. [source]

Reverse Greek Commentary Search for 2 Corinthians 6:10

Matthew 5:3 The poor [οἱ πρωχιὸ]
Three words expressing poverty are found in the New Testament. Two of them, πὲνης and πενιχρός , are kindred terms, the latter being merely a poetic form of the other, and neither of these occurs more than once (Luke 21:2; 2 Corinthians 9:9). The word used in this verse is therefore the current word for poor, occurring thirty-four times, and covering every gradation of want; so that it is evident that the New Testament writers did not recognize any nice distinctions of meaning which called for the use of other terms. Luke, for instance (Luke 21:2, Luke 21:3), calls the widow who bestowed her two mites both πενιχρὰν and πρωχὴ . Nevertheless, there is a distinction, recognized by both classical and ecclesiastical writers. While ὁ πένης is of narrow means, one who “earns a scanty pittance,” πρωχός is allied to the verb πτώσσειν , to crouch or cringe, and therefore conveys the idea of utter destitution, which abjectly solicits and lives by alms. Hence it is applied to Lazarus (Luke 16:20, Luke 16:22), and rendered beggar. Thus distinguished, it is very graphic and appropriate here, as denoting the utter spiritual destitution, the consciousness of which precedes the entrance into the kingdom of God, and which cannot be relieved by one's own efforts, but only by the free mercy of God. (See on 2 Corinthians 6:10; and see 2 Corinthians 8:9.) [source]
1 Corinthians 1:5 Ye were enriched in him [επλουτιστητε εν αυτωι]
First aorist passive indicative of πλουτιζω — ploutizō old causative verb from πλουτος — ploutos wealth, common in Attic writers, dropped out for centuries, reappeared in lxx. In N.T. only three times and alone in Paul (1 Corinthians 1:5; 2 Corinthians 6:10, 2 Corinthians 6:11). The Christian finds his real riches in Christ, one of Paul‘s pregnant phrases full of the truest mysticism. In all utterance and all knowledge (εν παντι λογωι και πασηι γνωσει — en panti logōi kai pasēi gnōsei). One detail in explanation of the riches in Christ. The outward expression (λογωι — logōi) here is put before the inward knowledge (γνωσει — gnōsei) which should precede all speech. But we get at one‘s knowledge by means of his speech. Chapters 1 Corinthians 12-14 throw much light on this element in the spiritual gifts of the Corinthians (the gift of tongues, interpreting tongues, discernment) as summed up in 1 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Corinthians 13:2, the greater gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:31. It was a marvellously endowed church in spite of their perversions. [source]
1 Corinthians 7:30 As though they possessed not [ως μη κατεχοντες]
See this use of κατεχω — katechō old verb to hold down (Luke 14:9), to keep fast, to possess, in 2 Corinthians 6:10. Paul means that all earthly relations are to hang loosely about us in view of the second coming. [source]
2 Corinthians 9:11 Enriched [πλουτιζομενοι]
Present passive participle of πλουτιζω — ploutizō for which see note on 1 Corinthians 1:5; note on 2 Corinthians 6:10; only other N.T. examples. [source]
2 Corinthians 2:14 But thanks be unto God [τωι δε τεωι χαρις]
Sudden outburst of gratitude in contrast to the previous dejection in Troas. Surely a new paragraph should begin here. In point of fact Paul makes a long digression from here to 2 Corinthians 6:10 on the subject of the Glory of the Christian Ministry as Bachmann points out in his Kommentar (p. 124), only he runs it from 2:12-7:1 (Aus der Tiefe in die Hohe, Out of the Depths to the Heights). We can be grateful for this emotional outburst, Paul‘s rebound of joy on meeting Titus in Macedonia, for it has given the world the finest exposition of all sides of the Christian ministry in existence, one that reveals the wealth of Paul‘s nature and his mature grasp of the great things in service for Christ. See my The Glory of the Ministry (An Exposition of II Cor. 2:12-6:10). [source]
Galatians 5:22 Joy [χαρά]
Comp. joy of the Holy Ghost, 1 Thessalonians 1:6, and see Romans 5:2; Romans 14:17; Romans 15:13; 2 Corinthians 6:10; Philemon 1:25; Philemon 4:4; 1 Peter 1:8; 1 John 1:4. [source]
2 Thessalonians 1:9 Glory of his power [δόξης τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ]
For glory see on 1 Thessalonians 2:12. Ἱσχὺς powernot often in Paul. It is indwelling power put forth or embodied, either aggressively or as an obstacle to resistance: physical power organized or working under individual direction. An army and a fortress are both ἰσχυρὸς. The power inhering in the magistrate, which is put forth in laws or judicial decisions, is ἰσχὺς , and makes the edicts ἰσχυρὰ validand hard to resist. Δύναμις is the indwelling power which comes to manifestation in ἰσχὺς The precise phrase used here does not appear elsewhere in N.T. In lxx, Isaiah 2:10, Isaiah 2:19, Isaiah 2:21. The power ( δύναμις ) and glory of God are associated in Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27; Revelation 4:11; Revelation 19:1. Comp. κράτος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ strengthof his glory, Colossians 1:11. Additional Note on ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον eternaldestruction, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 Ἁιών transliterated eon is a period of time of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle ( περὶ οὐρανοῦ , i. 9,15) says: “The period which includes the whole time of each one's life is called the eon of each one.” Hence it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one's life ( αἰών ) is said to leave him or to consume away (Il. v. 685; Od. v. 160). It is not, however, limited to human life; it signifies any period in the course of events, as the period or age before Christ; the period of the millennium; the mytho-logical period before the beginnings of history. The word has not “a stationary and mechanical value” (De Quincey). It does not mean a period of a fixed length for all cases. There are as many eons as entities, the respective durations of which are fixed by the normal conditions of the several entities. There is one eon of a human life, another of the life of a nation, another of a crow's life, another of an oak's life. The length of the eon depends on the subject to which it is attached. It is sometimes translated world; world representing a period or a series of periods of time. See Matthew 12:32; Matthew 13:40, Matthew 13:49; Luke 1:70; 1 Corinthians 1:20; 1 Corinthians 2:6; Ephesians 1:21. Similarly οἱ αἰῶνες theworlds, the universe, the aggregate of the ages or periods, and their contents which are included in the duration of the world. 1 Corinthians 2:7; 1 Corinthians 10:11; Hebrews 1:2; Hebrews 9:26; Hebrews 11:3. -DIVIDER-
-DIVIDER-
The word always carries the notion of time, and not of eternity. It always means a period of time. Otherwise it would be impossible to account for the plural, or for such qualifying expressions as this age, or the age to come. It does not mean something endless or everlasting. To deduce that meaning from its relation to ἀεί is absurd; for, apart from the fact that the meaning of a word is not definitely fixed by its derivation, ἀεί does not signify endless duration. When the writer of the Pastoral Epistles quotes the saying that the Cretans are always ( ἀεί ) liars (Titus 1:12), he surely does not mean that the Cretans will go on lying to all eternity. See also Acts 7:51; 2 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 6:10; Hebrews 3:10; 1 Peter 3:15. Ἁεί means habitually or continually within the limit of the subject's life. In our colloquial dialect everlastingly is used in the same way. “The boy is everlastingly tormenting me to buy him a drum.”-DIVIDER-
In the New Testament the history of the world is conceived as developed through a succession of eons. A series of such eons precedes the introduction of a new series inaugurated by the Christian dispensation, and the end of the world and the second coming of Christ are to mark the beginning of another series. See Ephesians 3:11. Paul contemplates eons before and after the Christian era. Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 2:7; Ephesians 3:9, Ephesians 3:21; 1 Corinthians 10:11; comp. Hebrews 9:26. He includes the series of eons in one great eon, ὁ αἰὼν τῶν αἰώνων theeon of the eons (Ephesians 3:21); and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews describes the throne of God as enduring unto the eon of the eons (Hebrews 1:8). The plural is also used, eons of the eons, signifying all the successive periods which make up the sum total of the ages collectively. Romans 16:27; Galatians 1:5; Philemon 4:20, etc. This plural phrase is applied by Paul to God only. -DIVIDER-
-DIVIDER-
The adjective αἰώνιος in like manner carries the idea of time. Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting. They may acquire that sense by their connotation, as, on the other hand, ἀΐ̀διος , which means everlasting, has its meaning limited to a given point of time in Judges 1:6. Ἁιώνιος means enduring through or pertaining to a period of time. Both the noun and the adjective are applied to limited periods. Thus the phrase εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα , habitually rendered forever, is often used of duration which is limited in the very nature of the case. See, for a few out of many instances, lxx, Exodus 21:6; Exodus 29:9; Exodus 32:13; Joshua 14:9; 1 Samuel 8:13; Leviticus 25:46; Deuteronomy 15:17; 1 Chronicles 28:4. See also Matthew 21:19; John 13:8; 1 Corinthians 8:13. The same is true of αἰώνιος . Out of 150 instances in lxx, four-fifths imply limited duration. For a few instances see Genesis 48:4; Numbers 10:8; Numbers 15:15; Proverbs 22:28; Jonah 2:6; Habakkuk 3:6; Isaiah 61:8. -DIVIDER-
-DIVIDER-
Words which are habitually applied to things temporal or material can not carry in themselves the sense of endlessness. Even when applied to God, we are not forced to render αἰώνιος everlastingOf course the life of God is endless; but the question is whether, in describing God as αἰώνιος , it was intended to describe the duration of his being, or whether some different and larger idea was not contemplated. That God lives longer than men, and lives on everlastingly, and has lived everlastingly, are, no doubt, great and significant facts; yet they are not the dominant or the most impressive facts in God's relations to time. God's eternity does not stand merely or chiefly for a scale of length. It is not primarily a mathematical but a moral fact. The relations of God to time include and imply far more than the bare fact of endless continuance. They carry with them the fact that God transcends time; works on different principles and on a vaster scale than the wisdom of time provides; oversteps the conditions and the motives of time; marshals the successive eons from a point outside of time, on lines which run out into his own measureless cycles, and for sublime moral ends which the creature of threescore and ten years cannot grasp and does not even suspect. -DIVIDER-
-DIVIDER-
There is a word for everlasting if that idea is demanded. That αἰώνιος occurs rarely in the New Testament and in lxx does not prove that its place was taken by αἰώνιος . It rather goes to show that less importance was attached to the bare idea of everlastingness than later theological thought has given it. Paul uses the word once, in Romans 1:20, where he speaks of “the everlasting power and divinity of God.” In Romans 16:26he speaks of the eternal God ( τοῦ αἰωνίου θεοῦ ); but that he does not mean the everlasting God is perfectly clear from the context. He has said that “the mystery” has been kept in silence in times eternal ( χρόνοις αἰωνίοις ), by which he does not mean everlasting times, but the successive eons which elapsed before Christ was proclaimed. God therefore is described as the God of the eons, the God who pervaded and controlled those periods before the incarnation. To the same effect is the title ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν αἰώνων theKing of the eons, applied to God in 1 Timothy 1:17; Revelation 15:3; comp. 2Timothy href="/desk/?q=2ti+1:9&sr=1">2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2), cannot mean before everlasting times. To say that God bestowed grace on men, or promised them eternal life before endless times, would be absurd. The meaning is of old, as Luke 1:70. The grace and the promise were given in time, but far back in the ages, before the times of reckoning the eons. -DIVIDER-
-DIVIDER-
Ζωὴ αἰώνιος eternallife, which occurs 42 times in N.T., but not in lxx, is not endless life, but life pertaining to a certain age or eon, or continuing during that eon. I repeat, life may be endless. The life in union with Christ is endless, but the fact is not expressed by αἰώνιος . Κόλασις αἰώνιος , rendered everlasting punishment (Matthew 25:46), is the punishment peculiar to an eon other than that in which Christ is speaking. In some cases ζωὴ αἰώνιος does not refer specifically to the life beyond time, but rather to the eon or dispensation of Messiah which succeeds the legal dispensation. See Matthew 19:16; John 5:39. John says that ζωὴ αἰώνιος is the present possession of those who believe on the Son of God, John 3:36; John 5:24; John 6:47, John 6:64. The Father's commandment is ζωὴ αἰώσιος , John 12:50; to know the only true God and Jesus Christ is ζωὴ αἰώνιος , John 17:3. -DIVIDER-
-DIVIDER-
Bishop Westcott very justly says, commenting upon the terms used by John to describe life under different aspects: “In considering these phrases it is necessary to premise that in spiritual things we must guard against all conclusions which rest upon the notions of succession and duration. 'Eternal life' is that which St. Paul speaks of as ἡ ὄντως ζωὴ thelife which is life indeed, and ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ θεοῦ thelife of God. It is not an endless duration of being in time, but being of which time is not a measure. We have indeed no powers to grasp the idea except through forms and images of sense. These must be used, but we must not transfer them as realities to another order.”-DIVIDER-
Thus, while αἰώνιος carries the idea of time, though not of endlessness, there belongs to it also, more or less, a sense of quality. Its character is ethical rather than mathematical. The deepest significance of the life beyond time lies, not in endlessness, but in the moral quality of the eon into which the life passes. It is comparatively unimportant whether or not the rich fool, when his soul was required of him (Luke 12:20), entered upon a state that was endless. The principal, the tremendous fact, as Christ unmistakably puts it, was that, in the new eon, the motives, the aims, the conditions, the successes and awards of time counted for nothing. In time, his barns and their contents were everything; the soul was nothing. In the new life the soul was first and everything, and the barns and storehouses nothing. The bliss of the sanctified does not consist primarily in its endlessness, but in the nobler moral conditions of the new eon, - the years of the holy and eternal God. Duration is a secondary idea. When it enters it enters as an accompaniment and outgrowth of moral conditions. -DIVIDER-
-DIVIDER-
In the present passage it is urged that ὄλεθρον destructionpoints to an unchangeable, irremediable, and endless condition. If this be true, if ὄλεθρος isextinction, then the passage teaches the annihilation of the wicked, in which case the adjective αἰώνιος is superfluous, since extinction is final, and excludes the idea of duration. But ὄλεθρος does not always mean destruction or extinction. Take the kindred verb ἀπόλλυμι todestroy, put an end to, or in the middle voice, to be lost, to perish. Peter says, “the world being deluged with water, perished ” ( ἀπολοῦνται 2 Peter 3:6); but the world did not become extinct, it was renewed. In Hebrews 1:11, Hebrews 1:12quoted from Isaiah href="/desk/?q=isa+51:6&sr=1">Isaiah 51:6, Isaiah 51:16; Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1. Similarly, “the Son of man came to save that which was lost ” ( ἀπολωλός ), Luke 19:10. Jesus charged his apostles to go to the lost ( ἀπολωλότα ) sheep of the house of Israel, Matthew 10:6, comp. Matthew 15:24. “He that shall lose ( ἀπολέσῃ ) his life for my sake shall find it,” Matthew 16:25. Comp. Luke 15:6, Luke 15:9, Luke 15:32. -DIVIDER-
-DIVIDER-
In this passage the word destruction is qualified. It is “destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, “ at his second coming, in the new eon. In other words, it is the severance, at a given point of time, of those who obey not the gospel from the presence and the glory of Christ. Ἁιώνιος may therefore describe this severance as continuing during the millennial eon between Christ's coming and the final judgment; as being for the wicked prolonged throughout that eon and characteristic of it, or it may describe the severance as characterizing or enduring through a period or eon succeeding the final judgment, the extent of which period is not defined. In neither case is αἰώνιος to be interpreted as everlasting or endless.sa180 [source]

1 Timothy 4:10 To this end [εις τουτο]
The godliness (ευσεβεια — eusebeia) of 1 Timothy 4:8. See 2 Corinthians 6:10 as Paul‘s own commentary. [source]
1 Peter 1:6 Ye greatly rejoice [αγαλλιαστε]
Present middle indicative (rather than imperative) of αγαλλιαομαι — agalliaomai late verb from αγαλλομαι — agallomai to rejoice, only in lxx, N.T., and ecclesiastical literature as in Matthew 5:12.Now for a little while (ολιγον αρτι — oligon arti). Accusative case of time (ολιγον — oligon) probably as in Mark 6:31, though it can be used of space (to a small extent) as in Luke 5:3.If need be Present active neuter singular participle of δει — dei (it is necessary). Some MSS. have εστιν — estin after δεον — deon (periphrastic construction). Condition of first class.Though ye have been put to grief (λυπητεντες — lupēthentes). First aorist passive participle (concessive circumstantial use) of λυπεω — lupeō to make sorrowful (from λυπη — lupē sorrow), old and common verb. See 2 Corinthians 6:10.In manifold temptations Just the phrase in James 1:2, which see note on. “Trials” clearly right here as there. Seven N.T. writers use ποικιλος — poikilos (varied). [source]
1 Peter 1:6 If need be [ει δεον]
Present active neuter singular participle of δει — dei (it is necessary). Some MSS. have εστιν — estin after δεον — deon (periphrastic construction). Condition of first class.Though ye have been put to grief (λυπητεντες — lupēthentes). First aorist passive participle (concessive circumstantial use) of λυπεω — lupeō to make sorrowful (from λυπη — lupē sorrow), old and common verb. See 2 Corinthians 6:10.In manifold temptations Just the phrase in James 1:2, which see note on. “Trials” clearly right here as there. Seven N.T. writers use ποικιλος — poikilos (varied). [source]
1 Peter 1:6 Though ye have been put to grief [λυπητεντες]
First aorist passive participle (concessive circumstantial use) of λυπεω — lupeō to make sorrowful (from λυπη — lupē sorrow), old and common verb. See 2 Corinthians 6:10. [source]
Revelation 2:9 Thy tribulation and thy poverty [σου την τλιπσιν και πτωχειαν]
Separate articles of same gender, emphasizing each item. The tribulation was probably persecution, which helped to intensify the poverty of the Christians (James 2:5; 1 Corinthians 1:26; 2 Corinthians 6:10; 2 Corinthians 8:2). In contrast with the wealthy church in Laodicea (Revelation 3:17). [source]

What do the individual words in 2 Corinthians 6:10 mean?

as being sorrowful always yet rejoicing poor many enriching nothing having and yet all things possessing
ὡς λυπούμενοι ἀεὶ δὲ χαίροντες πτωχοὶ πολλοὺς πλουτίζοντες μηδὲν ἔχοντες καὶ πάντα κατέχοντες

λυπούμενοι  being  sorrowful 
Parse: Verb, Present Participle Middle or Passive, Nominative Masculine Plural
Root: λυπέω  
Sense: to make sorrowful.
ἀεὶ  always 
Parse: Adverb
Root: ἀεί  
Sense: perpetually, incessantly.
δὲ  yet 
Parse: Conjunction
Root: δέ  
Sense: but, moreover, and, etc.
χαίροντες  rejoicing 
Parse: Verb, Present Participle Active, Nominative Masculine Plural
Root: χαίρω  
Sense: to rejoice, be glad.
πτωχοὶ  poor 
Parse: Adjective, Nominative Masculine Plural
Root: πτωχός  
Sense: reduced to beggary, begging, asking alms.
πολλοὺς  many 
Parse: Adjective, Accusative Masculine Plural
Root: πολύς  
Sense: many, much, large.
πλουτίζοντες  enriching 
Parse: Verb, Present Participle Active, Nominative Masculine Plural
Root: πλουτίζω  
Sense: to make rich, enrich.
μηδὲν  nothing 
Parse: Adjective, Accusative Neuter Singular
Root: μηδείς 
Sense: nobody, no one, nothing.
καὶ  and  yet 
Parse: Conjunction
Root: καί  
Sense: and, also, even, indeed, but.
πάντα  all  things 
Parse: Adjective, Accusative Neuter Plural
Root: πᾶς  
Sense: individually.
κατέχοντες  possessing 
Parse: Verb, Present Participle Active, Nominative Masculine Plural
Root: κατέχω  
Sense: to hold back, detain, retain.