Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Corinthians · About this commentary
I Seek Not Yours but You
2 Corinthians 12:14-18
14 Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you; for I seek not your possessions, but you. For the children ought not to save up for the parents, but the parents for the children. · WEB
Six words settle the money question, and the family logic behind them reverses who owes whom.
Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you.
The policy is not being reconsidered. Two visits and a third pending, and the arrangement stands — which by now he has boasted about, sworn to, and refused to explain 2 Corinthians 11:10.
Then the reason, in six words: I seek not your possessions, but you.
That is the whole financial argument of the letter. The alternative to taking their money is not indifference; it is wanting something else from them, and the something else is themselves. A man who refuses payment and wants nothing is aloof. A man who refuses payment because he is after the people is making a larger claim, not a smaller one.
Verse 14 then supports it with a household rule: the children ought not to save up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
The direction of obligation is fixed by the relation. He has already called himself their father in this letter 2 Corinthians 6:13, and the consequence is that any accumulation should run from him to them. On that reckoning, accepting their support would have inverted the family.
Verse 15 raises the stakes with two verbs of the same root, one active and one passive: I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. He will spend what he has, and then be spent himself — the second is what happens to the money, applied to the man.
And then a question with no defense around it: if I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less?
He does not answer it. The letter has asked one other question this bare — because I don't love you? God knows 2 Corinthians 11:11 — and both concern the same wound.
Verses 16 to 18 turn to the suspicion underneath everything: you might say that being crafty, I caught you with deception. The theory was that refusing wages was a long approach to the collection, with the money arriving later by another hand.
His answer is to name the hands. Did I take advantage of you by anyone of those whom I have sent to you? I exhorted Titus, and I sent the brother with him. Did Titus take any advantage of you?
The questions are checkable, which is why they are asked as questions. Titus was in the room, and the delegation was chosen partly by the churches themselves 2 Corinthians 8:19.
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