Richard Bauckham Richard Bauckham is Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of St. Andrews. [p.4] 2 Corinthians has for a long time seemed to me among the most impressive documents of early Christianity. When I need to remind myself that the Christian message is convincing - still convincing today in spite of our great chronological and cultural distance from its first-century origins - I turn as readily to 2 Corinthians as I do to the gospels, and cannot remember failing to be impressed. The key to this impressiveness I find in the insight 2 Corinthians gives us into the way Paul integrated his message and his life. Remarkable as Paul's expositions of his message are, in Romans and Galatians, I find myself needing also to see, in 2 Corinthians, how Paul lived that message. A critical reader of Paul might wonder whether a message as exclusively concentrated on the death and resurrection of Jesus as Paul's gospel was could actually have the power to interpret and direct a man's actual living experience in a life-enhancing way. 2 Corinthians shows how in Paul's own instance it did. To say that Paul's autobiographical reflection in 2 Corinthians is impressive may be a little paradoxical, because Paul's obsession in this letter is with how unimpressive he is, or at least with the fact that the only impressive thing about him is his weakness. In this rambling apologia for his life and work as an apostle, Paul's weakness is the recurring theme.