Biblion Bible Commentary
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Our Heart Is Open Wide
2 Corinthians 6:11-13
11 Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians. Our heart is enlarged. · WEB
Paul breaks off the argument to name them, and then locates the constriction in the relationship on their side rather than his.
Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians. Our heart is enlarged.
He uses the city's name. Paul rarely addresses a congregation that way, and it arrives here after eight verses of paradoxes that had grown almost impersonal — the effect is of a man stopping mid-argument to look directly at the people he is arguing with.
Both images are of opening. The mouth open is plain speech, the boldness claimed earlier 2 Corinthians 3:12 and the refusal of hidden things 2 Corinthians 4:2. The heart enlarged is the same word used of a space being made wider — room made rather than affection felt.
Verse 12 then makes a diagnosis, and it is delivered without accusation: you are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.
The verb is the opposite of the enlargement just described — a narrowing, a cramping of space. And the sentence carefully distributes the fault. Whatever has gone wrong between them, it is not that Paul has closed anything; and the constriction on their side is not called malice or unbelief but affections, meaning the inward capacity itself has tightened.
That is a generous account of a congregation that had been listening to men calling him a fraud. It says they have less room than they used to, not that they have chosen against him.
And verse 13 asks for the one thing a person cannot be compelled to give: now in return — I speak as to my children — you also open your hearts.
The parenthesis is the softest thing in the letter. Having just disclaimed control over their faith 2 Corinthians 1:24, he claims a different relation, and it is the one that carries obligation without authority. A father can ask a grown child for room and cannot take it.
What follows in the next verses is a demand for separation from unbelievers, and it arrives immediately after this — the request for open hearts and the warning about the wrong attachments standing side by side.
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