Re:Verse reading–2 Corinthians 1:12-24, 2:1-11 (day three)
“It was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth.”
Paul was right about the Corinthian church. He was right, and history would bear him out. It would have been a glorious moment of battle for the sake of purity in the church, with his detractors vanquished and the church cleansed of all the troublemakers. But Paul had learned long ago that the upper hand has no place in the fellowship of love. With one fiery visit he would have saved the idea of church, only to kill its community. The church is not an idea. It is a people. And people learn painstakingly, and minds change incrementally. So love—the most powerful force in the universe—is slow. Waiting means more than winning. Weakness means more than waylaying. And then people learn to live like Jesus.
Boom!