OUTLINE OF THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS
The Glory of the Ministry of the Gospel
THE APOSTLE’S FINAL VINDICATION
Announcement of a Third Visit
23. How does he express his tender solicitude for the Corinthian Christians?
CONCERN FOR THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH
Now I have become foolish; you have forced me [by questioning my apostleship]. Actually I should have been commended by you [instead of being treated disdainfully], for I was not inferior to those super-apostles, even if I am nobody.
The signs that indicate a genuine apostle were performed among you fully and most patiently–signs and wonders and miracles.
For in what respect were you treated as inferior to the rest of the churches, except [for the fact] that I did not burden you [with my financial support]? Forgive me [for doing you] this injustice!
Now for the third time I am ready to visit you. I will not burden you [financially], because I do not want what is yours [not your money or your possessions], but you. For children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.
But I will very gladly spend [my own resources] and be utterly spent for your souls. If I love you greatly, am I to be loved less [by you]?
But be that as it may, I did not burden you [with my support]. But [some say that] I was sly and took you by trickery.
Did I take advantage of you or make any money off you through any of the messengers I sent you? [Certainly not!]
I urged Titus to go, and I sent the brother with him. Titus did not take advantage of you, did he? [No!] Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps? [Of course!]
All this time you have been thinking that we are [merely] defending ourselves to you. It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking [as one] in Christ; and everything, dearly beloved, is to strengthen you [spiritually].
For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you not to be as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish–that perhaps there may be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder;
I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality and decadence which they formerly practiced.
Comments by
F.B.Meyer
On
2 Corinthians 12:11-21
“I SEEK NOT YOURS, BUT YOU”
“The long burst of passionate self-vindication has now at last expended itself,” says Dean Stanley, and Paul returns to the point whence he diverged at 2Co_10:7, where he was avowing his intention to repress the disobedience of those who still resisted his authority at Corinth. “Now,” he says, “my folly is over. That I should have indulged in it is your fault, not mine.” What a comfort it is that he lays such repeated stress on his weakness! Instead of complaining of it, he used it as an argument with Christ that He should put forth more grace, and as an argument with his converts, that the results of his work had been granted as the divine endorsement of his apostolate.
Paul felt that his paternal relation to this church gave him the right to rebuke them, as a father rebukes his children. But he realized that they did not reciprocate his love, probably because they permitted the evil things enumerated in the closing verses. Often moral obliquity accounts for the decline and failure of love. Among other things, they had even accused him of getting money, if not directly, yet through Titus. But there were worse things still that needed to be dealt with, 2Co_12:20-21. Would that we were more often humbled to the dust by the sins of our brethren!
By Pastor Jeff Arthur
4 Qualities Of A Good Pastor
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