In the church at Corinth, those who complained Paul didn’t come to visit when promised likely included some who didn’t really want to see him. They just wanted to complain about him. That the church had finally done the right thing about the member who had sinned egregiously didn’t mean they were eager to welcome Paul back. This next chapter deals with this issue.
The logic here is that it’s not about Paul, but about Christ. The Lord’s grace is the power to change, to become more like Christ. It’s one thing to have that grace; it’s another to give it room to work and change you. Paul pleads with them not to stop at the threshold of faith, but to come on and make themselves at home. He quotes from Isaiah 49, a passage where the prophet declares that God is calling His people back from wandering morally. The same message applies to Corinth, because they had gotten far off track. Paul notes that the door to God’s courts is always open — any time is the right time to seek His face.
How could anyone take offense at that message? Sure, the path is difficult, but Paul didn’t build it; God did. Let them bring a complaint against Paul that will stand in God’s Presence. Paul and his team had consistently presented themselves as mere servants of the Lord. No matter what they went through, they sincerely served the gospel. Paul lists nine things they faced: they couldn’t give up, they faced persecution, hassles, challenges, beatings, arrests, riots, hard work, sleepless nights and starving. He also tells of nine ways he handled such sorrows: never compromising, knowing God’s Word, patient with people, not being a burden to anyone, relying on the Holy Spirit, operating in sacrificial compassion, clinging to the message, and leaving room for God to work.
But there are ten fruits proving that God does work: He equips for every task, grants the dignity of grace while the flesh dies, they were accused of evil for telling the good news, slandered as tramps while clinging to faith, nobodies who were recognized everywhere, killed and yet somehow still alive, punished but allowed to live, always in grief yet celebrating, beggars who made others wealthy, bereft of material possession but always fully supplied. By this time the folks in Corinth would have recognized things Paul had experienced that matched those lists. It’s not bragging; it’s simply being honest. God had carried Paul and his team through an awful lot.
Indeed, Paul had hidden nothing from them, and he loved them all unreservedly. He never put restrictions on them, but they had restricted themselves in trusting him. They were his own spiritual children; he appealed to them to reciprocate his love for them. It was they who kept themselves back from the rich blessings of God.
He uses an image of two completely different draft animals hitched together. They could not pull in the same harness and get anywhere, each having a different pace and abilities. Believers belong to Christ; the rest of the world belongs to the Devil. How do you reconcile righteousness and wickedness? It’s as different as night and day. We are committed to Christ; they don’t even believe in Him. How can the living temples of Christ become entangled in pagan idolatry?
Paul quotes Leviticus 26 where God insists that His nation must be holy so He can live among them and share His unspeakable wealth with them. He redeemed them in the Exodus, breaking the power of the Egyptian empire. Then he cites Isaiah 52 in a passage where God calls out to His people in offering yet another exodus from their slavery to some other imperial power. We were bought with a price; Christ has a priority claim on us.
