It is hard to believe that people who had benefitted by Paul’s ministry would be as petty as they were, or, even if they were not the ones who made the slander, that they were petty enough to at least listen to it. But that is sometimes the way it is, even in Christian work. I regret to say that there is a great deal of petty criticism levelled at people while they are trying to faithfully serve the Lord. Sometimes we are forced to change plans, causing people to conclude, “Well, you know, there’s somebody who just can’t be trusted. Why, if they can’t be trusted in little things, how can you trust them in larger ones?” Paul certainly knows what it feels like to deal with this kind of criticism.
In addition to this slander over Paul’s plans, he also dealt with other serious troubles. We have already seen from the first portion of this chapter that something had happened to Paul in Asia that was so dangerous he thought he might be killed. Later on in the letter, in chapter 11, he describes some of the things he went through in the course of his ministry. He mentions that he was imprisoned, flogged, shipwrecked, and other horrible things. And there was also the matter of that second visit Paul had made earlier, which he calls a “painful visit” (2:1), probably referring to some kind of slanderous attack by someone connected with the church. It really was as a result of that that he was not able to come.
It really makes us ask how a person in Paul’s situation and, therefore, how somebody in our own situation, is supposed to deal with a change in plans that God allows to come about. Let me suggest some of the things that Paul obviously did. The first thing Paul did was examine himself in terms of his own personal integrity. When we are criticized by someone, the natural instinct of the human heart is to rise up in self-defense and assert our own innocence. If someone accuses us of failing, our immediate tendency is to counter quite strongly that we have not failed, and then go on to explain why we are right.
Yet Paul, it would seem, did not do that. Beginning with verse 12, it appears that Paul is not being defensive because he carefully examined his own conscience to see whether he really acted in integrity on the basis of the holiness and sincerity that come from God. And upon doing that, Paul maintained that he conducted himself “not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace.” That is important, and that is what we need to do.
