Xanthe Hancox

We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange – I speak as to my children – open wide your hearts also.  2 Corinthians 6:11-13

Paul loved the people in Corinth, and he showed that love in various ways toward them. He demonstrated it, as he says here, by two special things. The first is by speaking freely to them. That means he communicated with them; he told them what was going on in his own life; he shared with them his feelings, struggles, failures, pressures, and problems, and he let them know how he coped with them. That is always a mark of love. To open up to others is to love them

This is something many of us experience, even in our churches. We often think it’s better to keep how we feel and where we are in our lives to ourselves, to be private, closed-in people. We’re told to fake it til you make it, dress for the job you want, and a hundred other lines that make absolutely sure no one knows what’s really going on inside. Being a Christian means doing the opposite and speaking freely.

The second way Paul showed his love to the people of Corinth was by opening his heart wide. There was no favouritism, he includes the whole congregation. He did not merely open his heart to the nice people among them. He loved them all: the difficult ones, the ones who were struggling, and the hard-to-get-along-with ones as well. There were no preconditions that he demanded before he would love somebody in the congregation either. He accepted them as they were. Though he knew their struggles, their weaknesses, their heartaches, their failures, and their resistance, he loved them.

The problem was that they did not love him in return. This is the problem in churches, in individual lives, in homes, in families, and in marriages today. We fail to understand the reciprocal nature of love. Love is a two-way street. Love requires a response. Paul was loving them, but they were not loving him back. They were closed; they were unresponsive; they were coldly self-contained toward him. They withheld their affections, imprisoned within the narrow boundaries of their own selfish lives.

That is why Paul pleads here with the Corinthians to open their hearts.

Speaking freely stretches us and makes us vulnerable. Are we learning to be open-hearted to all, and thereby loving, for Christ's sake and by his power?

Prayer: Father, help me to respond with open mouth and heart to those who have reached out to me in love. Thank You for the love you have shown me.