2 Cor 12.6-10. Who is Paul writing to at Corinth?

My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.

a bridge over the Crișul river, and the Jewish synagogue, Oradea, Romania.

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Paul is sending his letter to the church at Corinth, but he is writing to a variety of people and groups:

• the church proper at Corinth: to correct and instruct: the people who normally attend and the leaders brought up from within the church.

• critics of Paul from within the church: to correct and instruct: people who for whatever reason think they have the right to find fault and make it public: to the church body and to visiting apostles/super-apostles/false apostles.

• critics of Paul from the leadership of the church: to correct and instruct.

• the super-apostles: to awaken them to the wrong they are doing and hopefully either have them stay away or join him in building up. Paul is writing to the church, but he is expecting that some of them are still there and all of them will ultimately read the letter.

• the false apostles: to call them out in public for the wrong they are doing so they will either stop or be stopped. Paul is writing to the church, but he is expecting that some of them are still there or will ultimately read the letter.

• Paul's people: not as a response, but so they will know what is being said.

In every case, Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, so they are instructed and so they are aware of the dangerous position they are in. But he is not expecting them to turn away the super-apostles and false apostles on their own. Paul expects that the super-apostles and false-apostles still there will read the letter and take a sober look at what they are doing.

The church at Corinth has problems of its own, but the people coming from outside are a distinguishable problem. They either create a new set of problems for the church or do nothing to solve the problems. If they were truly apostles, they would use their authority to set right the wrong beliefs and actions. The fact that they don't means either they have so little contact with the church that they don't see the problems, or they have no skill in dealing with the problems.

This points to a certain type of super-apostle or false apostle. It would be an understandable thing for a visiting speaker to not see the church's problem. When you invite someone to your house for dinner they see a cleaned-up house and everyone on their best behavior. But, if you are inviting the pastor and his wife over and you have been seeing the pastor for counseling for family problems, then everyone being on their best behavior has a different layer to it.

It is possible that these outsiders did not see many of the difficulties, but Paul had already written to the church, so many of the problems would have been public, and he is writing again, so if they didn't know before, they do know now. They need to take responsibility as apostles, if they truly are, to build up the church. They cannot introduce new problems and they cannot allow other problems to fester.

It is also likely that there was a distance. The visitors are Jews. They would not involve themselves too deeply in the services, social events, or families.

Paul, in contrast, would be deeply involved with the church. He would throw himself into their lives and luxuriate in it. He would not be just a traveling speaking. He would not be a Jew among them.

Paul cannot expect the visitors to act as he does with the believers at Corinth, but he can hope that a couple of them would truly love the people, even if it meant furrowed brows from the others in the group. He writes of his love for the church both for the church and as an explanation of his long-standing, deep, close relationship with them and sees them as brothers and sisters, not "those Gentiles" of the Jerusalem Council declaration.

This, by the way, is an unfortunate, but common, experience in our work in Romania. Missionaries come from America and bring America with them. They rent or buy houses in the city, away from and above the level of the people they minister to in the villages. When they go to the villages they visit. They do not see the difficulties. They sing, pray, preach, shake hands and then go back home.

Being in the village every day exposes you to the problems and means you form relationships. Those relationships determine how you live. If you see people without food, especially children, especially children you see every day and hug and enjoy, going home to a large dinner that requires unbuckling your belt is an impossible thing to do. You can't enjoy food when people you love don't have food. You can't spend $30,000 on a car when that would put roofs on a dozen houses. You can't pay $2000 a month in rent when that would give people you care about electricity and water.

Missionaries who only see people in their Sunday best can make house and car payments without struggling with the difficulties of their people. But when they have a nice house and car, that widens the distance because now they have things they want to keep nice. They will not put a dirty child on the seat of their clean, expensive car to go to the dentist or into the city to buy clothes. They will not invite people from the village into their nice home because (1) it will embarrass them and (2) they have no idea what is on their clothes and in the hair of their guests.

Paul had called it all garbage a long time ago. He didn't care about Jew or Gentile, he didn't care about food or social customs or tradition. He didn't just preach: he lived with them. He had no distance except the distance the people wanted.

The visitors, but not involving themselves in the people, don't see most of these things, and possible don't care even if they do see. The Gentiles are Gentiles because they're not Jews. If they were Jews they would want to clean themselves up. The fact that they are Gentiles presents an unsolvable problem. They will never appreciate or observe the Jewish laws and traditions. Insisting that they not violate the most offensive rules is only enough to allow a Jew to live in the same area. But turning an entire people away from their basic problem (they are Gentiles) is impossible. The visitors don't address problems because such things are exactly what one would expect to find in the Gentile areas.