2 Corinthians 10:7-11: a reflection

7Do you look at things only as they appear in front of your face? If anyone trusts in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again with himself, that even as he is Christ’s, so we also are Christ’s. 8For even if I boast somewhat abundantly concerning our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for casting you down, I will not be ashamed, 9that I may not seem as if I desire to terrify you by my letters. 10For, “His letters”, they say, “are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is despised.” 11Let such a person consider this, that what we are in word by letters when we are absent, such are we also in deed when we are present.

Paul addresses a criticism circulating about him in Corinth. His letters, people said, are weighty and strong, but in person he is unimpressive, weak in presence and poor in speech. The implication was that Paul was one thing on paper and another in the flesh, bold from a distance but timid up close. Paul answers this charge by insisting on his consistency: what we are in word by letters when absent, he says, such we are also in deed when present.

The heart of Paul's response is integrity, the refusal to be one person at a distance and another in person. He would not have his words in letters contradicted by his conduct in the flesh; the two matched. This is more than a defense against a specific accusation; it is a commitment to being the same person whether seen or unseen, whether writing or acting, whether up close or far away. What he said, he was; and what he was, he did.

There is a searching question here about your own consistency. Are you the same person in private as in public, in your words as in your actions, when observed as when unseen? It is easy to project one image at a distance, in our messages and reputation, and to be something different up close. Paul calls us to integrity, to being one whole person whose words and deeds match. Ask God to make you that kind of person, the same in word and deed, so that no one who knows you closely would be surprised by who you claim to be.

Lord, Paul refused to be one person in his letters and another in the flesh, insisting that his words and his deeds matched. Give me that same integrity. Make me the same person in private as in public, in my words as in my actions, when observed as when unseen. Let there be no gap between who I claim to be and who I am, so that my life is whole and true before you and others. Amen.