Scripture Daily

Context No. 1403 of 4322 · 2 Corinthians

Context · Reflection

2 Corinthians 6:11-18: in context

11Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians. Our heart is enlarged. 12You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections. 13Now in return—I speak as to my children—you also open your hearts. 14Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? 15What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what portion does a believer have with an unbeliever? 16What agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God and they will be my people.” 17Therefore “‘Come out from among them, and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing. I will receive you. 18I will be to you a Father. You will be to me sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.”

Paul speaks to the Corinthians with unusual tenderness and directness. Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians, he says; our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. And he asks, as a father asks his children, that they open their hearts in return. He goes on to warn them against being unequally yoked with unbelievers, against mixing light with darkness, reminding them that they are the temple of the living God, and calling them to come out and be separate, with the promise: I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters.

The tender thing Paul says at the start is worth dwelling on: our heart is wide open to you; you are not restricted by us, but by your own affections. Paul has held nothing back; his heart is thrown open toward them, unguarded and generous. The narrowness in the relationship is not on his side but on theirs; they are the ones whose affections have closed, whose hearts have grown restricted. And so he pleads, open wide your hearts also. It is a searching observation about how relationships close. Often the distance we feel is not because the other person has shut us out, but because our own affections have narrowed, our own heart has grown guarded and small. We blame the coldness on the other side while it is our own heart that has closed. Paul's love was wide open; what constrained the relationship was the Corinthians' own restricted affections. And the remedy is not complicated: open wide your hearts. There is a call here to examine whether the narrowness we feel toward God or toward others is really their doing or our own, whether we have let our affections shrink and then blamed the distance on someone else. God's heart, like Paul's, is wide open toward us; the restriction, when there is one, is usually on our side, and the answer is to open wide our own guarded hearts.

Is the distance I feel toward God or toward others really their doing, or have my own affections narrowed and closed, and will I heed Paul's plea to open wide my heart rather than blaming the coldness on the other side?

Sources