Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Corinthians · About this commentary
What I Fear I Will Find
2 Corinthians 12:19-21
19 Again, do you think that we are excusing ourselves to you? In the sight of God we speak in Christ. But all things, beloved, are for your edifying. · WEB
After twelve chapters of defense Paul denies he has been defending himself, and what he dreads about the visit is his own humiliation rather than theirs.
Again, do you think that we are excusing ourselves to you?
It is an extraordinary question to ask at this point. Twelve chapters have answered accusations about his travel plans, his speaking, his finances, his credentials and his sanity, and he now denies that the letter has been a defense.
The denial holds because of where he locates the audience: in the sight of God we speak in Christ. If the accounting is rendered there, then nothing written to Corinth was written to win Corinth's verdict — the same move as deferring judgment to the day of our Lord Jesus 2 Corinthians 1:14.
And the purpose is stated as theirs: but all things, beloved, are for your edifying. The word is the one attached to his authority twice, for building up and not for tearing down 2 Corinthians 10:8.
Then verse 20 gives what he is afraid of, and the fear is mutual: I might find you not the way I want to, and... I might be found by you as you don't desire. Both parties may be disappointed by what they meet. He does not assume the problem will be entirely on their side.
Eight things follow, and none of them is dramatic: strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, whisperings, proud thoughts, or riots.
That is a list of ordinary congregational failure — the ways a group of people injures itself by talking. Whisperings and proud thoughts sit alongside riots, which is the point: the small items and the large one are named in one breath because they are the same disorder at different volumes.
And verse 21 names what he dreads most, which is not their sin: that again when I come my God would humble me before you.
The humiliation he fears is his own, in front of them, administered by God. A congregation in that condition would be evidence about its founder, and he expects to be the one brought low by it.
What follows is grief rather than discipline — I would mourn for many of those who have sinned before now, and not repented — with three sins named that are harder than the eight above: uncleanness, sexual immorality, and lustfulness.
The distinction between the lists is not severity but response. The first eight are things he fears finding; the three are things he would mourn.
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