📖WEB · 2 Corinthians 1:15
What does 2 Corinthians 1:15 mean?
"In this confidence, I was determined to come first to you, that you might have a second benefit;"
— 2 Corinthians 1:15 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.
For we write no other things to you, than what you read or even acknowledge, and I hope you will acknowledge to the end;
as also you acknowledged us in part, that we are your boasting, even as you also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.
In this confidence, I was determined to come first to you, that you might have a second benefit;
and by you to pass into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and to be sent forward by you on my journey to Judea.
When I therefore was thus determined, did I show fickleness? Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be the “Yes, yes” and the “No, no?”
But as God is faithful, our word toward you was not “Yes and no.”
Explanation
This verse comes in the middle of Paul’s defense of his integrity to the Corinthian church. He is explaining why he had originally planned to visit them twice — once on his way to Macedonia and again on his way back — so that they could receive a “second benefit,” meaning a second occasion of blessing, encouragement, or spiritual help from his presence with them. In plain language, Paul is saying, “Because I was confident in my sincerity toward you, I planned to visit you not just once but twice, so you could be blessed by my visit a second time as well.”
The background is important. Paul had written 1 Corinthians and made travel promises, but circumstances led him to change his itinerary (he explains more in verses 16-23 and in 2:1). Some of his critics in Corinth seized on this change of plans as evidence that Paul was unreliable, manipulative, or insincere — someone who
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