We have this treasure in jars of clay. The church at Corinth was infested with so-called super-apostles. They were stylish and well-spoken, and they were out to turn the church against the apostle Paul. They cast him as a frail, indecisive fumbler who got beat up everywhere he went. So Paul responded with a full-length account of the glory of Christian weakness. This commentary traces Paul’s argument as he shows how Christ empowers us not only to endure persecution, diseases, and disasters, but to relish them. In the end, there are two competing visions of the Christian life. On the one hand there’s a wall of marble tombs, magnificent and rotten. On the other there’s a pile of clay pots, cracked or cracking, and filled with diamonds.