Week 45 2 Corinthians 2
Paul: for we are not like the many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity… I check a couple of other versions:
we aren’t like so many people who hustle the word of God to make a profit
we are not like a lot of folks who go about huckstering God’s message for a fee
we do not market the word of God for profit like so many
we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word.
(I’m not sure who was doing this. Simon Magus the Magician of Samaria comes to mind. But he wanted to pay the apostles so he could dispense the Holy Spirit – maybe to turn a profit but it doesn’t say that.)
Anyway Paul says that many people were Gospel Marketers. Merchandisers. Traders in the good-news. Wholesalers of the good-news.
He doesn’t say that what these Gospel Profiteers were teaching was incorrect (not saying for instance that Jesus didn’t rise-from-death – that would make them heretics). So I’d be inclined to give them the benefit-of-the-doubt that they were orthodox. But they were insincere. Paul said that a genuine gospeller had to be sincere.
In the NT church the gospel was being preached in two ways: a) sincerely (not motivated by material profit) and b) insincerely (with the aim of making-a-buck). And it looks like b) was a common option.
Note: quote from 2 Corinthians 2:17 (NASB CEB CJB CSB ESV). Simon Magus is in Acts 8.