2 Corinthians 2:3–4

2 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 2

Paul’s Apostolic Kindness. 2 Cor. 2, 1–11.

Paul continues his explanation: V.3. And I wrote this same unto you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all. V.4. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears, not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.

This thought is brought out still more fully in the next verse: And I wrote you this very thing, lest in coming I should have sorrow from them from whom I ought to have cheer, firmly persuaded concerning you all that my joy is that of you all. The desire to spare them and to save himself pain had prompted the apostle to send his censure in writing, as he did in the first letter.

This course made it easier for both parties: it saved him an unpleasant experience, a factor all the weightier since their relation to him should at all times have been of a nature to cheer him. Just how much that meant for him appears from the fact that he was fully persuaded, that he felt the utmost confidence in them all, that his joy was the joy of them all. He was sure of the bond of sympathy between them; they would want to see him cheerful and happy at all times, and he, considering them all as his friends, would surely be willing to spare them a distressing experience.

The state of mind in which he wrote his first epistle the apostle did not care to experience again: For out of great affliction and anxiety of heart I wrote to you with many tears. Many sections of the first letter might seem harsh and conducive to anything but a feeling of joyfulness; but his very love for the Corinthians made his lamentation about their harm and his fear for their peril all the greater. He had held himself in check purposely, lest his opponents bring the charge of impulsiveness arid uncontrolled feeling.

But for all that, the accompanying circumstances were such as just stated by the apostle, his purpose in telling of them at this time being: Not that you should be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I so abundantly have toward you. Just as the love of the mother is most tender toward the sickly and weak child, just as the shepherd shows the depth of his love especially in his seeking of the one that is lost, so Paul in his care for all congregations, chap. 11, 28, yet had a special love for the Corinthians, because they were most in need of love and caused him the most anxiety.

The same pastoral love is today exhibited in thousands of cases with probably as little appreciation on the part of those that are the objects of this loving care.