Verse 14
14. Third time No account in Acts, or elsewhere, exists of more than one visit by Paul to Corinth, during which he founded their Church, as fully and well narrated by Luke, Acts 18:1-18. Moreover, 2 Corinthians 1:15 of this present epistle speaks of a visit to them intended, but not accomplished, as being a second one; which seems clearly to show that at the present writing no real second visit had taken place. St. Paul, then, meant here, in making out his third count, this second intentional visit as a real. Or, rather, it is intentions fulfilled and unfulfilled that he is counting, both here and at 2 Corinthians 12:1. Neither of the last two intentions had been as yet fulfilled.
Ready to come As he was ready to come in 2 Corinthians 1:15, though he did not. In strict grammatical construction the third time qualifies the readiness.
We could easily concede to Alford and others, who maintain a second visit, did the words justify it. We have noted, at 2 Corinthians 11:25-26, that there were many movements of St. Paul which no history has commemorated. But the second visit seems to us really precluded by St. Paul’s words, taking the three passages together.
Will not As I did not during my first sojourn with you; when I partly maintained myself by labour with Aquila, at tent-making, and was partly supplied from Macedonia by Timothy and Silas.
Seek not St. Paul’s real motive in refusing aid from Corinth was to silence cavil from all quarters. In what he here says, however, he overleaps that reason in words, but places himself on his reserved rights, as their spiritual parent, to be benefactor and not beneficiary.
Not yours, but you Not their money for his own benefit, but their souls for their own salvation.
Children… parents Not but that the current should often rightly flow upwards. Children are often obligated by duty to provide for parents. But this is not the usual direction: parents are always expected to provide for their children; vice versa, sometimes.
But Paul claims here the parental right to provide, and not be provided for.
Be the first to react on this!
