2 Corinthians 12:14-18 - Spend and be spent

In verse 14 Paul told the Corinthians that he was now ready to visit them a third time and he still didn’t want to be a burden to them financially. He made known that he was not interested in their possession or their saving but their souls. For he saw the Corinthians as his children. And he knew that children didn’t have to save up for the parents but rather the other way around. What Paul meant was that parents would have to save up for their children.

    

Paul was a self-giving, selfless man. His attitude was to give of himself totally and divest everything he had for the sake of the Corinthians. At the core of his being, Paul was a true servant. He would use all that he was and all that he had for the Corinthians whom he so loved. In a play of sarcasm, Paul posed a question. He was wondering how come they would not reciprocate his increasing love for them! For to respond to someone’s love by being loving in return should be a natural response. But this was not the case with the Corinthians. He wondered if they would continue to behave like a rejected child despite his love for them. He wondered whether to reduce his affection toward them in order to get them to love him more. To Paul, continuing to love them was the only way. And this he would gladly do and just hope that they would recognize how genuinely he had loved them and would respond with love toward him.

In verse 16, Paul again, through sarcasm, corrected another misconception they had about him. Some of them could have suggested that Paul sought to win them over only to exploit them once they had been won over. Paul was showing how disgusted and insulted he felt that they should thought of him that way. So in verses 17 and 18, he corrected that misconception. Rhetorically, he maintained that neither he nor anyone whom he had sent to help took advantage of them. He assured them that like him, Titus and those sent with him, acted with integrity.

 

We can see Paul’s love for the Corinthians very obviously. The more he loved them the less successful he seemed to be with them. Yet he refused to allow their lack of gratitude to stifle his love for them. He had set us an example to love, to give our energy and to give all that we have to bring the best out of those we minister to.