Free Study Guide Included2 Corinthians: A Friends Illuminated Commentary
"We have this treasure in earthen vessels." Paul's most personal epistle — on suffering as the ground of authentic ministry, the new covenant of the Spirit, and the integrity that must mark all who speak in Christ's name.
- 13 chapters · ~45,000 words
- EPUB + Study Guide
This edition
Read itE-book · EPUB
- Time to read1.7 hours
- Length23,743 words
- Files1 EPUB, DRM-free
How we get 1.7 hours
This figure is here so you can compare one book against another. Every title on the site is timed from its own word count at the same reading speed — nothing is adjusted book by book — so if this edition says 1.7 hours and another says half that, the second one really is about half the reading. It is a measure of size, in the way a page count is. Your own pace is your own: at the speeds typical adult readers actually manage, this edition runs anywhere from 1.3 hours to 2.3 hours.
What is in this edition
| Modernized text | 23,743 words |
|---|---|
| Total | 23,743 words |
Counted from the text of the EPUB you receive. Navigation, the title page, the table of contents and the licence page are excluded — they are packaging, not reading.
The reading rate
238 words per minute, for adult silent reading of non-fiction, applied unchanged to every title on the site. We did not pick the number; it is the pooled result of a published meta-analysis. Nothing is adjusted book by book — that consistency is what makes two of these figures worth comparing.
Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2019.104047
190 studies, 18,573 participants.
The same paper puts most adult readers between 175 and
300 words per minute, and those two speeds give the
1.3 hours and 2.3 hours above.
Because time is words divided by speed, an even range of speeds produces an
uneven range of times, so 1.7 hours sits nearer the fast end of that
range than the middle of it.
If it were a paperback
Roughly 68–95 pages.
Words per printed page is a typesetting convention, not a measurement — it moves with trim size, type size and leading. The range above assumes 250–350 words a page. Friends Illuminated publishes no print edition of this book; the figure is here only because pages are a more familiar size than words.
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About This Edition
Second Corinthians is Paul’s most autobiographical letter, and early Friends read it as a mirror of their own experience. The passages on weakness, suffering, and the paradox of divine power made known through human frailty (chapters 4–6) resonated with Friends who were themselves enduring imprisonment, public mockery, and social ostracism. Paul’s insistence that authentic ministry is authenticated not by learning or social position but by the fruit it produces and the suffering it accepts — this was exactly the argument Friends made against the established clergy.
The commentary gives particular attention to Paul’s meditation on the new covenant in chapters 3–5, which Friends read as a direct continuation of Jeremiah 31: the ministry of the Spirit written on hearts rather than stone, the veil being lifted so that all may behold the glory of the Lord and be transformed from glory to glory. This vision of transformation — not merely imputed righteousness but actual sanctification — was central to the Quaker understanding of salvation. The free Group Study Guide provides discussion questions organized by chapter and theme.
