---
title: 2 Corinthians 1:1
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/2-corinthians-1-1/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/2-corinthians-1-1.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 2 Corinthians 1:1
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 2 Corinthians 1:1

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,  To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:

## JW Usage

JWs read 2 Cor 1:1 as Paul's standard greeting to the Corinthian congregation. The Watchtower's two-class system treats the addressees — "the church of God in Corinth, with all the saints in Achaia" — as referring to the anointed remnant in those locations rather than every believer. On this reading, the rest of the letter (including the new- covenant passages of chapter 3) speaks to the 144,000 only, with the great-crowd majority understood as beneficiaries of what is addressed to others.

## Protestant Usage

Paul addresses the letter to "the church of God that is in Corinth, with all the holy ones who are in all Achaia." The greeting is unconditional — there is no internal partition, no asterisk, no sub-class identifier. This greeting governs every "us" and "we" in the rest of the letter, including the pivotal "ministers of a new covenant" of 3:6 and the "we all... beholding the glory of the Lord" of 3:18. If only the 144,000 were in the new covenant, this greeting was Paul's moment to signal it; he does the opposite. The verse anchors the case that Paul's pronouns in chapter 3 carry no asterisks because the addressees in chapter 1 carry none.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Ministers of a New Covenant](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/new-covenant-2cor3-direct-mediation.md) — 2 Corinthians 3:6, 18 — Paul's 'us' has no asterisk [Salvation]