Six ways to encounter God here
A passage is not only to be understood; it is to be lived with. Choose how you want to meet God in 2 Corinthians 3:3, and Living Bread opens it right there.
The passage in its setting
Meeting God in a verse begins with hearing it where it lives, in the flow of 2 Corinthians 3. Read it slowly, and let the focal verse settle into its own context.
1 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
4 And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
The web of Scripture around it
Where this passage echoes across the Bible, from the cross-reference graph, 14 connected Scriptures. Each one is a door to meet God there too.
- Ezekiel 11:19
And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
- Jeremiah 31:33
But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be…
- Hebrews 8:10
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them…
- Hebrews 10:16
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
- Psalms 40:8
I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
- Exodus 31:18
And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
- 2 Corinthians 6:16
And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they sha…
- Hebrews 9:14
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
- Ezekiel 36:25
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
- Exodus 24:12
And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.
- Proverbs 3:3
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
- Psalms 84:2
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
- Proverbs 7:3
Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.
- Matthew 16:16
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
More to meet God in 2 Corinthians
How it points to Christ
Every Scripture ultimately leads to Jesus. See how the whole Bible points to Him in Christ in all Scripture, then meet Him for yourself.