Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Corinthians 1-4.

When Paul writes about his planned visit to Corinth, he explains why he chose not to make that visit.  Apparently, he had heard about members of the Church in Corinth using the man who was sleeping with his stepmother as an example of how tolerant and loving they were and this infuriated Paul.  As I understand what he writes here, he was afraid that if he visited them he would say the wrong things to the wrong people.  He was afraid that he would speak with anger to people with whom he was not angry, hurting their feelings and creating a rift between him and them.  Which teaches an important lesson about not allowing our emotions to overcome our reason when dealing with others.  Closely related to that, Paul has apparently heard news indicating that the man at the root of the problem has turned from his sin and instructs the Church in Corinth to forgive him and bring him back into fellowship, another important lesson for us.

Paul transitions to speaking about the source of his confidence.  His confidence does not come from his belief that he had particular talent.  Rather, Paul’s confidence came from his trust in God.  Paul did not believe that he had any competence in and of himself to accomplish God’s will or to spread God’s word.  He believed that God would use him to accomplish God’s purposes and he believed that we should share his confidence.  And if we put our confidence in God we will not use any sort of deception or lies in an attempt to promote the Gospel.  In fact,  we should recognize that everything we do should be done in service to God, and that our ability to serve God only comes from God working within us, not from any skill or ability for which we can take credit.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.