“Scholars rarely posses both the gift of academic excellence and the ability to communicate their expertise in an extremely readable fashion; but Furnish succeeds admirably with the right balance of scholarship and practical application, offered in the most accessible prose. With a mastery of primary languages and sources, and a lucid discussion of the first-century context of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, the reader enters the worldview of the original recipients of this hard-hitting letter. In the end, Furnish successfully navigates the maze of difficulties faced by the commentator and, thankfully, helps the general audience understand what II Corinthians says and means.” – Publisher