The Beginning. This book is the seventeenth in a series of verse-by-verse preaching from various New Testament books of the Bible. It is an attempt to bring to the minds of the readers two things: (1) the meaning of the words in the verses, and (2) some practical applications of those words to the lives of both genuine Christians and non-Christians. Paul is the apostle of Jesus Christ by God's will. Before this, he imprisoned and agreed to the killing of Christians. The Lord Jesus Christ met him as he was going to Damascus to imprison Christians. On his way there, the Lord Jesus Christ saved him and called him to be an apostle. I believe Paul, not Mathias, was chosen by the Lord Jesus Christ to take the place of Judas Iscariot who betrayed the Saviour. Timothy was with Paul when he wrote 2 Corinthians and he was right there in the church of Corinth with all the genuine Christians in Achaia or northern Greece. This was Paul's second letter to them. In his first letter, he excoriated them because one of the men had committed incest with his father's wife. Paul is trying to encourage them in the things of the Lord Jesus Christ.