Parents and Children and Crafty Fellows - 2 Cor 12:13-19

Good morning, welcome to Kootenai Community Church Adult Sunday School. We will be in Second Corinthians for most of the rest of this natural lifetime.

Be that as it may, let's open in prayer. Father, as you filled your apostles with the

Holy Spirit so that they might proclaim the word of God and write down what we needed to have to be godly in Christ Jesus today, you did it perfectly.

And today we have the sufficient scriptures and we look into them this morning with delight, with anticipation, and with the opportunity to be changed by you and to glorify you even more in this day.

And so it is those things that we look to do by studying your word this morning. We'll thank you for what you're going to accomplish in us for the glory of the

Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen. So let's read to get some context.

We, let's see, we finished up, we were left, we left off somewhere in Second Corinthians.

Looks, pardon me, 13? You trying to mess me up,

Lanny? It almost worked. Yeah, you're right, verse 13. I thought you meant Second Corinthians 13. Okay, you were just messing with my head.

We left off on verse 12. We finished on verse 12. And so we'll, to get context, we're gonna start in chapter 12.

We'll start with verse 11 and read through the end of the chapter. Second Corinthians chapter 12, verse 11 through the end of the chapter.

Remember, Paul detests the requirement that the Corinthians put him under to become foolish by proclaiming his bona fides as an apostle.

But if he didn't, then the false apostle could possibly gain the upper hand and destroy even more of the work of Christ in the church at Corinth.

And so he unwillingly but necessarily gave his credentials to the

Corinthians. So some of that is what we will be looking at the end of that and following into a remarkable section where he's going to be visiting

Corinth again for the third time and trying to prepare them for that. Chapter 12, verse 11.

Second Corinthians. I have become foolish. You yourselves compelled me. Actually, I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was

I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles.

For in what respect were you treated as inferior to the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not become a burden to you?

Forgive me this wrong. Here for this third time, I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you, for I do not seek what is yours, but you, for children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.

And I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. If I love you the more, am

I to be loved less? Be that as it may, but be that as it may, I did not burden you myself.

Nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit. Certainly, I have not taken advantage of you through any of those whom

I have sent to you, have I? I urged Titus to go and sent the brother with him. Titus did not take any advantage of you, did he?

Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps? All this time, you have been thinking that we are defending ourselves to you.

Actually, it is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved.

For I am afraid that perhaps when I come, I may find you to be not what I wish, and may be found by you to be not what you wish, that perhaps there may be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances.

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, immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced.

Let it never be said that the Apostle Paul was afraid to call out wickedness. He would call it out by definition, and he would call it out by name, if necessarily, remember him when he talked about Alexander and Imanaeus in another epistle that he wrote.

But as we begin this section, or finish up chapter 12, I should say, we're going to be looking at more of the concerns he had about the

Corinthians. And in many ways, when we are trying to understand just what it was that the

Corinthians were failing at, what they were doing, Paul talks about what he might find when he'd visit them the third time.

And so we'll actually get a list you can put on your refrigerator if you'd like. Of the other things, some of the many things that the

Corinthian church was struggling with. This was a mightily struggling church, but God was at work in it, and many had repented and changed, but there were plenty that hadn't.

And Paul was concerned for all of them. He loved the entire church. He loved all that were there. He was concerned about all that were there, and we can be certain that he prayed for them by name.

I know that the elders here pray for the situations that are going on in our body, and we often pray by name, knowing some of the details.

And we love this church. I can just picture what Paul was going through. Sleepless nights, disturbances.

I am so glad that this is not a Corinthian church. From A .D.

60. It's a wonderful thing to serve with a body of Christ that seeks the

Lord and loves the word. And Paul, he had churches that he had founded that were doing that, but he had some that weren't.

And so as we finished up last week, it was at verse 12, which I got really mouthy on, really long -winded on.

Holy mackerel, like four pages of long -winded. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles, and we looked at what it meant to be a true apostle as opposed to a false apostle.

And we finished that up, and then we come to this verse, this interesting verse, chapter 12, verse 13.

For in what respect were you treated as inferior to the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not become a burden to you?

Apparently, one of the allegations that the Corinthians had made against Paul was that he treated the Corinthian church with less respect and honor than he did the other churches.

This apparently harks back to the fact that he would not take support from them. Paul had already dealt with this earlier in this earlier epistle to the

Corinthians as well as previous to this very epistle. So in 1

Corinthians 9, 6, as they were detailing some of their concerns, he was detailing some of his concerns back to them.

He says, or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working? They could have not refrained from working, but they chose to work.

Excuse me, they could have refrained from working, but they chose to work, to provide with their own hands as much as possible the necessary funds to visit and minister to the churches.

1 Corinthians 9, 13. Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar?

And then the same chapter, verses 15 through 18. But I have used none of these things, and I am not writing these things so that it will be done so in my case.

For it would be better for me to die than have any man make my boast an empty one. For if I preach the gospel,

I have nothing to boast of. For I am under compulsion, for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.

For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward, but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.

What then is my reward? That when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

And then in chapter 11 of this epistle, 2 Corinthians 11, verses seven through nine.

Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted?

Because I preach the gospel to you without charge. I robbed other churches by taking wages from them to serve you.

And when I was present with you and was in need, I was not a burden to anyone. For when the brethren came from Macedonia, they fully supplied my need.

And in everything, I kept myself from being a burden to you and will continue to do so. This is apparently something that rankled the

Corinthians. They wanted to contribute to his preaching of the gospel, to his work in the churches.

And he later on alludes to the fact that he will look for that when he goes to other churches, that they might contribute for him to travel to other churches to bring the gospel, to other parts of the country, excuse me, and found churches.

That's what he was doing here. He was trying not to be a burden to those in this new church that he had founded where he preached and worked for 18 months so as to prevent anyone from thinking he was doing it for pecuniary motives, just for the money.

And quite frankly, people who are truly serving God in the gospel ain't gonna get rich, and that's just fine.

That's just fine. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. God makes that decision.

But the point is, Paul's attitude and his intention was to serve no matter what and to provide his own way so that this newly founded church wouldn't have the problem of supporting him.

And they took it wrong. They took it wrong in many ways, and I'm not sure just how, but some of the false apostles were spreading false ideas.

Well, if he won't charge for it, then that message really must not be much, worth much, because he gets what he pays for.

That's just the wrong way to use that. That's a backwards way to use it, but that's apparently what they were doing.

So then, you have to just remember, a true man of God is more concerned about service to others than he is about being a burden to others by getting his needs taken care of.

In some respects, the fact that this kept coming up indicates that the Corinthians were kind of nitpicking.

The false teacher's first contention was that the reason he wouldn't take money from the Corinthian church was because he knew his ministry wasn't worth charging for.

Those same false apostles took everything they could get from the Corinthian church, and Paul alludes to that back in chapter 11, verse 20.

Then their second contention was that Paul did not want the Corinthians' support because he did not love them. Go figure.

This is completely debunked in chapter 11, verses seven through nine. Resorting to sarcasm again,

Paul begs the Corinthians to forgive him for not giving them a bill for his services. Please forgive me for not giving you a bill for my services.

Pretty amazing, but it's funny how when people want to dislike and disapprove and hurt someone, they will dig anything up they can to do that.

Sometimes the things that they come up with, have you not found they're really stupid, really silly? This is silly stuff.

Paul didn't charge them. He's probably less sarcastic than I would have been, far less sarcastic.

I wouldn't have been writing this. God wouldn't have used me. Any comments or questions on verse 13?

Verse 14, for here for this third time, this third time, I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you, for I do not seek what is yours, but you, for children are not responsible to save up for their parents.

Now I did have a graphic for this, but there's Paul's founding visit, then his former letter, in quotes, that's what he calls it, then in chapter seven of 1

Corinthians, we see excerpts of the Corinthians' first letter to him, where they asked all the questions about marriage and things like that, then there's 1

Corinthians, where he responds, then there's Paul's painful visit, his severe letter, the one that he agonized over, and went to meet

Timothy in Macedonia to see, I mean, gave up what appeared to be a potential for more ministry, and went to Macedonia to meet

Timothy, to meet, yeah, it was Timothy, to find out just what had happened, and he got a good report, or was it

Titus? It was Timothy, yeah. They both start with a

T, sorry, forgive me, I'm old. So then that was his severe letter, then 2 Corinthians, and then now, we're gonna be looking at Paul's anticipated visit, his third visit.

This was not that he was ready to come a third time, but that he was going to come a third time, and he would not be a burden to them this time either, and he wanted them to be ready for that, so that they wouldn't get up in arms about it again, about him not charging.

Here he alludes to the concept that children do not provide for their parents. It's a terribly out -of -kilter family, where the children feel they have to provide for their parents.

Now, it does happen. There are medical and some other kinds of issues, sometimes bankruptcies and things like that, where sometimes the children are looked to to help with the family, and that's fine, but the normal course of events is that the parents provide for the children in their upbringing, and then they send them out into the world, hopefully as arrows in the hands of God, and so that's what he's alluding to, that concept that goes back to from time immemorial, that parents provide for the children, not the reverse.

The Corinthians were Paul's spiritual children, and he gladly spent himself for them. They need to get, he says, if you will, in modern vernacular, they need to get this through their thick skulls, that he loves them, that he didn't charge for a specific purpose, that he will eventually charge them to help him take the gospel to regions beyond.

They can become a part of that, and they need to be spiritually ready to do that, spiritually ready to do that.

He is most concerned about their spiritual readiness, and so that's what he's doing in this letter and in explaining it to them, and then he says what most, hopefully most parents do say about their children in verse 15, and then we'll ask if there's questions.

He says, I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls.

If I love you more, am I to be loved less? What Paul did to the

Corinthians, or for the Corinthians, he did out of love for them. Here he allows that he is delighted to be spent in service.

Most gladly comes from the Greek, which means to be glad about something, to be delighted, sweet to you.

It was sweet to him to be spent in service to these people, and the word is the superlative of the word glad, and indicates great delight, extreme joy.

Spend and be expended are two forms of the same word. The idea is that Paul would gladly use his own substance to bless the

Corinthians, and he had done so many times. How many, and parents, good parents, that's how they feel for their children.

They're glad to provide for them. It's a delight, they don't look at it as a job. It's what you do, and it's delightful.

And when the children respond back in love and affirmation, what a blessing that is.

But the spending must be done, and Paul knows that. And the word spend, it talks about to incur expense.

It's exactly, I mean, it's straight out of the Greek dictionary, to incur expense. These outward demonstrations of Paul's love to the

Corinthians should have prompted love in return. Apparently, though, they had had something of the opposite effect.

The Corinthians were insulted by his giving spirit. He loved them more, and the result, he says, was that they might respond to him by loving him less.

That's just a reverse, it's reverse, I don't know, logic.

There is couched in that statement a plea to them not to do that. He's glad to be spent for them, and he's doing all he can through this letter, by the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, to communicate to the Corinthians that it is okay for him to spend himself and let them receive the services he had, that he gave to them, without cost at this time.

And remember, we talked about it earlier, I believe it was in this epistle, where he talks about the opportunities that will come in the future for them to spend, to send him to regions beyond, which is how it should work.

So any comments about 14, 15, 14, 15 questions? Verse 16, but be that as it may,

I did not burden you myself, nevertheless, and here's where some sarcasm comes in, crafty fellow that I am,

I took you in by deceit. Bait and switch, you're gonna have to pay for this, and then at the end, no, you don't have to pay.

Clearly, one of the accusations the false teachers were making against Paul is that he was deceitfully working, here's where the concern, another one of the concerns were coming from.

They were craftily, or they were craftily, or deceitfully positing that Paul was looking to get his hands on the money that was supposed to go to Jerusalem.

Remember a part of, especially in chapter eight, where we looked at the collection of money for the saints in Jerusalem that were struggling so mightily at that time in history, in the

Roman period? And all the churches of Macedonia and Achaia had come together and were putting together gifts, and actually, the

Corinthian church had started to put together a gift, and then this issue arose with the false apostles lying about Paul, and apparently, the collection was set aside, and so Paul urged them to get back at it and to get the collection made for the saints in Jerusalem.

Well, apparently, some of the false apostles were insinuating that Paul wanted that money.

He wants that money, and that's what's going on. The Greek word that is used for crafty fellow is used only here in the

New Testament, and it refers to someone who is ready to do anything for their own self -interest, and the word translated deceit is a

Greek word that refers to the bait that is used to catch an animal. The false apostles were accusing

Paul of a bait -and -switch tactic. He would make all the sorrowful, he would make all the sorrowful noise necessary about the plight of the saints in Jerusalem to elicit large sums of money and then take it for himself.

Of course, that never happens in modern times. We don't do that kind of thing. We're careful and kind and considerate, and we always check the facts, and we go to the person involved and ask them, and are you kidding me?

Somebody go on Facebook today? What's that? I'm being craftily deceitful, yeah.

Sarcastic. Frankly, this appears to be a demonstration of the scripture that teaches that people who are blaming others of things that they are not doing are actually often guilty of doing what they are accusing others of.

Romans chapter two, verse one. Therefore, you have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself.

For you who judge, practice the same things. What is it about us that when we've got something to hide, we project it onto other people?

And I'm thinking a great deal of this was going on with the false apostles. They were after money, and Paul talks about how the

Corinthians were foolish in their willingness to let themselves be taken advantage of by these people.

They beat you even, he says, about the face. So despite their false accusations and despite their bitterness,

Paul would continue to love them, that's the Corinthians, and would not burden them with anything that might cause them spiritual harm.

His love for the Corinthian church was a God -inspired love, and sadly, many of the Corinthians could not see that.

And truly, if you're in service, it had better start and be about love first, and then concern for the spiritual well -being.

Those need to be meshed together. And a lack of concern about yourself as well.

And that's where Paul was. That is not where the false apostles were. They were false teachers who were more interested in the money, and they would preach great swelling words necessary to tickle the ears of their hearers, but they would take them in and take their money, take their time, take their substance.

Does that happen today? No. Tell me it isn't true. I'm being craftily deceitful again.

Any comments about verse 16? We need to be aware of this.

It's okay for a preacher of the gospel, and even good to earn a living from preaching the gospel.

That is not what Paul is saying. But if the preacher of the gospel's interest is the making of a living, then he isn't called to be a preacher of the gospel.

If a decent lifestyle is a by -product of his service, his willing service, and giving himself to the

Lord and to the people that he serves, then so be it. But what is his focus? What do we know about him?

And what is he demonstrating? Paul demonstrated all the necessary requirements of a godly minister of the gospel.

And so that's where the false apostles went. They tried to unsettle that in the

Corinthians' minds. And brothers and sisters, when someone comes to you with something about somebody else, first thing you should say is, have you talked to them?

Well, no, I haven't. I've had this situation happen to me. Well, no, I haven't. I said, well, then, and you gotta be a little bit more diplomatic about it than I was a couple times.

Well, then, why are you talking to me? No, that's not how you do it. Well, you really shouldn't be talking to me until you've actually settled this with them and you know exactly what's going on.

And in one situation, the person said, I wouldn't talk to that person. I said, well, then I can't help you. We need to go to one another.

Matthew chapter five, Galatians chapter six, much of the Proverbs, we need to go to one another.

How many of the Corinthians took the time? Now, it was more difficult back then. I grant you that. It's not like today where you can shoot an email to somebody.

Oh, and a couple of other things. 75%, did you know that 47 % of statistics are made up on the spot?

But 75 % of communication is visual.

And so, texting and email are fine for, yes, the hamburger costs $7.

Why would we pay that? Or something like that. But if you really want to be able to communicate with someone, next best is telephone.

First best is face -to -face. Because then you know, you can see, you know the person, you can see the body language, you can see when you've offended, you can tell things that are going on that the words don't communicate and you can work those things out.

Too much of what we do today is done third party. Email or text or something like that.

And it is not communicating us. It's communicating the dictionary to someone. And you understand where I'm coming from with this?

It's important. People in Corinth should have said, well, these false apostles are saying things that I never saw of Paul.

I'm gonna go find out. Now again, it would have been more difficult back then. But if it's something that you can defame somebody over, it's important enough to go find out from the horse's mouth, if you will.

And no, I'm not calling Paul a horse. Verse 17, certainly, certainly, he says,

I have not taken advantage of you through any of those whom I have sent to you, have I? So when the false apostles in Corinth accused the apostle

Paul of preparing to pilfer the money that was to go to Jerusalem, they were also accusing those who worked with Paul.

Everybody who had a hand in this. And thus, they were bad -mouthing Titus, who was well -known to the

Corinthians, as well as other unnamed brothers, one of which was the one who was famous in the things of the gospel, and we don't really know who it is.

Remember, we talked about him, who it might have been. These three men were highly respected and thoroughly vetted in the church.

The Corinthians should have known better. If someone comes to me with an accusation about somebody that I know very well, and who would, in my mind, just not do that, my first response is, how do you know that?

I would never expect that. Doesn't sound like that person to me. Have you talked to them? Have you gone to them? And stop the conversation right there, because this has happened.

This has happened in this community, where people were accused of stuff that they didn't do, and it nearly undid their lives, and later on, it was found out that it wasn't true.

But the sad thing is, is that people remember the accusation more than they remember the truth that cleared up the accusation.

When I was in politics, I would be misquoted or misstated something, and I'd call the paper up, oh yeah, we'll print a retraction.

And it was on page A47 of the Sacramento Bee. I'm not kidding, that's where it was. No, A48, it was on an even -numbered page.

At least they gave me that. So, go to the person. These people knew

Titus. They knew the man whose fame was spread throughout the church and the things of the gospel.

So, Paul is saying, certainly, I've not taken advantage of you through them. Actually, the fact was, he couldn't have taken advantage through them because they were good men, and they wouldn't have done it.

Verse 18, I urged Titus to go, and I sent the brother with him. Titus did not take any advantage of you, did he?

Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps? Paul himself had urged

Titus to take part in the collection, most likely because he was well -known to the Corinthians, and he was trusted in that church.

It was a good move. Encourage someone who's well -known and trusted in a group of believers to work with them on providing a gift to someone who's in great need.

They themselves in Corinth knew that Titus, they knew Titus, that he would never take advantage of them, but he served them.

He had served them humbly and honorably, and they knew this. How could this be forgotten is a remarkable testimony to the ability of the human mind to be persuaded by artful demagogues and false teachers, people who know a turn of phrase and how to coach you along in starting to think wrong things about people.

The rhetorical question at the end of this verse should have elicited from the Corinthians a hanging head and a denunciation of the false teachers among them.

Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps? They knew Titus.

Titus was sent. Titus did everything honorably. Did we not also walk the same way, he says?

They should have known. They should have known. These, and when we look at this, and it's historical, it's 2 ,000 years ago, but these very things happen today, all over, where we believe little whispered things about people without actually going to the person being accused.

You know, and the problem is is that we're all sinners, and we've all messed up, and we've all done things in our lives that people can look at and say, well, maybe

I can see that in him, because none of us are perfect. Only the Lord Jesus Christ could never have anything at all ever hung on him.

Paul killed Christians. So some of this, there were probably, I don't know what was going on in the

Corinthian church, but the apostles, the false apostles were probably saying, you remember what he used to do? He used to get letters and drag your family into the courtyard, into the courts of the

Sanhedrin and the Romans and have them executed. This is the man that you're trusting with your money. And there would have been a few there who would have known that and should have known better, should have known better.

So Paul has to defend himself to all these false accusations in a church that he founded with his own sweat, blood, and tears, blood, sweat, and tears.

If you say it in the wrong order, it'll just foul up some of the grammar Nazis in here, so. Any comments about verses 17 and 18?

Yes, Nathal. Yeah.

Negative makes news. Positive doesn't. Yeah. Oh, retractions are worthless.

Yeah. I had a situation this weekend where something happened on Facebook and people were freaking out about these people.

And so I chimed in. I said, has anybody called them? Well, what's call?

So I did. And guess what? It was a nothing burger.

But they were taking these people apart on the internet. And what's on the internet, from our perspective, is forever.

You know, think about it, think about it. And all it took, on my part, it took 15 minutes to clear it up.

But, you know, the negative is so much funner, so much funner, is funner a word? More fun? How's that?

All this time, Paul says, you have been thinking that we are defending ourselves to you. Actually, it is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ.

What for? For your upbuilding, beloved. Everything he did was to build others up.

And they were beloved to him. And that little word right there, that form of the word agape, that's no accident.

Nothing the Holy Spirit does is an accident. That is specifically designed for the

Corinthians that know to say, yeah, he loves us. And for the Corinthians that should know to say, maybe

I better think this through again. Again, Paul alludes to the fact that he hates boasting. Some in Corinth may have assumed that the proceeding was for a defense.

More than anything, though, from the heart of Paul, they came as a means to discredit those who are, they came from his heart to discredit those who are leading them astray and restore them to Christ.

He's not concerned about getting money. He's not concerned about necessarily his reputation. He's concerned about turning them back to Christ.

If they're believers, and they're believing false apostles' teaching, they're straying from Christ.

If they're unbelievers and they're hearing false teaching, they're not being directed to Christ. And that's what

Paul was concerned about. His love for them compelled him to work to build them up. They were his beloved.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul told the Corinthians that it was a very small thing for him to be examined by them. He was far more concerned about an examination by the

Lord. Are you more concerned about an examination by the Lord? You need to be.

We need to be cognizant of what our brothers and sisters think of us and correct any mistakes or any inequities or falsehoods.

We can, but we stand or fall before our master, and Paul was gonna communicate that to them. He was far more concerned about an examination from the

Lord. His heart was right in the sight of God, and his desire was to bring healing in Corinth and to call out the false apostles so that the

Corinthians would see how they were being deceived. He wasn't seeking unity at the expense of doctrine.

He was preaching the truth and calling out the false ones so that true unity could be achieved.

True unity is around Christ and around the Scripture. And sometimes that means doing the hard work of saying, you remember that,

Hymenaeus? He did me wrong. Watch out for him. So that can happen.

His desire was for their spiritual sanctification. This was paramount in his view. This should occupy the men that God has tasked with that responsibility in every age.

And Scripture, by the way, is sufficient for this. We don't need

Freud. We don't need fill in the blank. We have the word of God.

Why would we go to somebody else? Note that he finishes this statement with a reminder to them that they are beloved to him.

This Greek word is a compound of the Greek word agape and is especially appropriate being directed at a church that didn't deserve

Paul's love. This was the committed, effective love. This is the committed, effective love that someone has towards someone else that causes them to serve that person no matter what.

The Corinthians were providing the no matter what in spades. A true agape love will cause you, by God's grace, to serve people who hate you, to care for people who would want to do you in, to love and pray for people who think you are vermin.

That's what God's love does. Because, I mean, think about what we are to him. We're a little better than the, you know, worms, antelopes, other than that.

They do make quick work of us at certain times after our life is over. Paul served the

Corinthians in spades and they were not responding, some of them. Now, again, I want to make sure this, some hyperbole may be coming across.

This wasn't the whole Corinthian church. This was a group in the church that was misbelieving and being led astray by the false apostles, whether they were believers or unbelievers.

So, they were thinking he was defending himself, but he was doing all this to build them up.

Well, what does that mean? Does that mean that calling out bad behavior can build someone up? Of course it can.

And I trust my brothers and sisters in Christ that when they see bad behavior, and they do, they do.

I actually had one who gave me three pages of stuff that I had to work on. And the sad thing of it was that even back then, from my perspective, at least two pages of it was accurate.

But that was a, I don't know, I was in a special time of my life. That was in a certain time of my life when I was ready to receive serious criticism.

But we need to be building one another up. And again, sometimes that means calling out bad behavior, and that's what Paul's doing here.

And why, you know what, we're gonna have to, we've got a whole bunch of words to look at, and I would really like to have the overhead for that.

So, we're gonna stop here, gonna stop a little early. Started late, finish early. You're not getting your money's worth,

I know. You can put in for a refund at the end of this session. So, at the end of verse 19, what we're finding out is that Paul is willing to do the hard work of serving at his own expense when necessary.

And it won't always be necessary, but in this particular case, and you can see why, why the

Holy Spirit led him to do that. What are the false apostles accusing him of? Taking money that didn't belong to him.

So, he served at his own expense. He went the extra mile. The Holy Spirit knew what was coming in the future, what was coming down the road.

And cooler heads will prevail. We do notice that the Corinthians, they come around.

We don't see anything to them after 2 Corinthians, and indeed, other than Scripture in the

New Testament era, the only thing we'll see later on is a letter written to them by Clement in about 95

AD. So, for probably 30 years, I'm thinking, I'm so excited to find out when

I get to heaven. There's gonna be so much cool stuff to find out, but this is gonna be one of them. What happened to Corinth after 54

AD, 55 AD, 60 AD? What happened? Did they straighten up? Because it looks like, to me, that the

Holy Spirit worked in this church. They straightened up. I don't know if they kicked the false apostles out or they ran them out of town on a rail or what, but I hope they did.

They needed to remove them from their midst, and that's what Paul's calling them to do. In almost a subtle way, he's told them that these men seek their own gain.

He's told them that these men seek to create division, and he's doing everything he can to provide true union around the

Lord Jesus Christ and around the Scripture. And so, we're going to see when we hit next week or whenever I'm up here again, are you teaching next week,

Jess? Okay, so in a week, couple weeks, maybe, we're going to see some of the other things that some

Corinthians had not repented of, and those were probably the very things that were undergirding the divisiveness in the church, because when we have our own secrets, our own unwillingness to repent, we're not receptive to the

Word of God as believers, especially as unbelievers, but even as believers. And so, there were those in the

Corinthian church who were still struggling with, and I'm just going to throw some of these out, strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, and disturbances, which would result in disturbances.

And so, in two weeks, we'll talk about some of those and some of the things that were going on in that church still that were leading to this unrest or contributing to this unrest.

Again, thank God, praise the Lord Jesus Christ for His mercy to us here.

What a delightful and blessed body this is to belong to, and I am so grateful to be among you.

And you just, you see me going astray, just make sure it's a headshot. I don't want to feel any pain.

Any comments before I close? Let's close in prayer.

Lord, you are never afraid to call out that which is wrong in our lives, and your

Holy Spirit is immediately there crying out to you on behalf of us, but to cause us to receive your grace so that we might change the behaviors that are wrong.

The Corinthians knew this. Many of them were doing it. Some of them were not. That is true in every age.

Lord, I thank you that you never, ever cease to work on us. You gave us salvation, and you are working it out, and you will finish it in the day of Christ Jesus.

It is not up to us to finish it, but it is up to us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling before a holy

God. We see these Corinthians, some of them begin to do it, and we're grateful that you shared this with us through the

Holy Spirit in Paul's pen so that we might have the scripture to know how to deal with these disunifying things to bring back unity in a church around scripture and around Christ.