Thankfully for all ensuing generations of Christians, the first generation of Corinthian Christians were a quarrelsome, suspicious, and confrontative bunch of believers - or disbelievers, as the case may be. Their apparent tendency to listen to the “bad guys” and distrust the “good guys” inspired a poked and provoked Paul to pen two of his most important letters to that contentious Christian community.

It is in response to the niggling, naysaying of some of the Corinthians that Paul writes his second letter to this group of struggling Christians. The text we read this week is a continuation of the argument Paul had begun earlier in this letter, which use Moses’ own mountaintop experience as a template for the testimony now given. Just as Moses’ own reflection of God’s divine glory had bee…