2 Corinthians 3:1,2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Do we begin again While we thus speak and avow our integrity; to commend Or recommend; ourselves As some insinuate we do? Is it needful to do so? have we nothing but our own word to recommend us? St. Paul chiefly here intends himself, though not excluding Timothy, Titus, and Silvanus: or need we, as some others Namely, the factious and false teachers, referred to 2 Corinthians 11:22-23; epistles of commendation Recommendatory letters; to you From other churches; or recommendatory letters from you To others? As if he had said, Do I indeed want such recommendation? Nay, ye are our epistle Our recommendatory letter, more convincing than any bare words could be, as being a testimonial from God himself. He means that the change which had been produced in their hearts and lives, in their dispositions, words, and actions, by his ministry, and that of his fellow-labourers, a change which could not have been effected except by the power of God, was a demonstration that God had sent them, and was present with them, giving efficacy to the word of his grace, a letter written in our hearts Deeply engraven there, so that we never can forget it; known and read of all men Who knew what immoral persons you once were, and observe what you are now. By speaking as the apostle does in this and the preceding verse, he intimates that his apostleship did not depend on the testimony of men, and that he could go to no church where he was not known to be an apostle of Christ, and to have been instrumental in converting many to the faith, and making them new creatures in Christ.