Spent

Monday 19^th June

Read 2 Corinthians 12:11-15

“I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the ‘super-apostles’, even though I am nothing. ¹² I persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a true apostle, including signs, wonders and miracles. ¹³ How were you inferior to the other churches, except that I was never a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong! ¹⁴ Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. ¹⁵ So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?” (NIVUK)

Richard Baxter in his now-classic work on the nature of pastoral ministry described what the heart and service of Christian ministry looks like. Although he is speaking to ministers he captures both Paul’s sentiment in this passage and how we should behave towards one another despite not being ‘ministers’ ourselves.

“The whole of our ministry must be carried on in tender love to our people. We must let them see that nothing pleases us but what profits them; and what does them good does us good; and that nothing troubles us more than their hurt…We ourselves will take all things well from one that we know entirely loves us. We will put up with a blow that is given us in love, sooner than with a foul word that is spoken to us in malice or in anger. Most men judge counsel, as they judge the affection of him that gives it: at least, so far as to give it a fair hearing. Oh, therefore, see that you feel a tender love to your people in your breasts, and let them perceive it in your speeches, and see it in your conduct. Let them see that you spend, and are spent, for their sakes; and that all you do is for them, and not for any private ends of your own.” (The Reformed Pastor).

Wherever I wander in Paul’s letters to his churches, churches he has spent himself on in endurance and perseverance and hardship, I always find myself back in his letter to the Philippian church. It captures perfectly what he hopes for them and what we should hope for each other.

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (Philippians 2:1-4) (NIVUK)