The Conundrum of Love
When you hear or see the word love, what thought, what picture comes to your mind? Cute puppies or kittens, rainbows and butterflies, flowers and chocolate, candlelight, and soft music? Or is it something else?
When you think about love how does it make you feel? Does it make you happy, sad, contented, frustrated, confident, or confused? Do you have simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings toward someone? Like a husband I once heard say to his wife, “I love you, but you’re a jerk!”
I don’t recommend that statement, but most of us who are married, or in any kind of committed relationship can identify. He was committed to loving her, but he wasn’t loving her actions at the moment. I’ve said to my wife, “I love you, but I don’t like you very much right now.” With that statement, I’m separating my commitment from my feelings. And I’m sure she’s felt that way toward me too many times because of my insensitivity or carelessness.
For the most part, our world has a distorted understanding and practice of love. The message of our culture is that love is irresistible, it’s fun, it’s delightful, it’s fulfilling. I’ll love you and you’ll love me in return, and we’ll live happily ever after. And there’s a sense in which all of that can be true. But it’s also just as true that love is hard work, it’s painful, it’s exhausting, and it can be heartrending.
This is the conundrum of love and it’s what I want us to think about today as we open the Scriptures. In fact, it’s the title of my teaching from Second Corinthians 12:11 to 21, “The Conundrum of Love.” Hopefully, from my opening comments, you know what a conundrum is. It’s a difficult and confusing issue or dilemma to deal with where the answers sometimes seem like contradictions. Love is like that; like a roller coaster that goes from the highest highs to the lowest lows. The apostle Paul knew and experienced the conundrum of love.
This whole letter of Second Corinthians is a record of the ups and downs Paul experienced in his love relationship with the church in Corinth. As I was preparing this teaching, I debated calling it “The Conundrum of Leadership, but I thought that may cause some to tune it out. But the principles Paul teaches here certainly apply to leaders.
So, let’s turn now to the text, Second Corinthians 12:11 to 21, and here is the Word of God to us through the apostle Paul.
Paul uses a mixture of sarcasm and sincerity in this text, and by these, he shows us clearly the ASPECTS that reveal the conundrum of love.
The First ASPECT (that reveals the conundrum of love) is,
It’s Often Misunderstood
You’ve experienced this aspect of love, haven’t you? You’ve tried, to the best of your ability, to look at a relationship or a situation and to show love in a Christ-like way. You wanted others to understand by your words and actions that you really cared. Maybe you even rehearsed what you were going to say to make sure that the person really understood your feelings and your commitment to loving them. But when it was all over, you were accused of being unloving, uncaring, and hurtful.
Those kinds of experiences are hard, but they’re not uncommon. By reading the verses of our text, we learn that the apostle Paul knew what this was like. He had poured his life into the Corinthian Believers. He reminded them of what that looked like in the previous chapter, chapter eleven. And yet, it seems, his sacrifices were forgotten; lost in the passing of time and the constant questioning of his motives by his critics, the Judaizers in Corinth.
As we noted earlier in this letter, Paul had refused to ask for or to accept financial help from this church. His reasons were clear and straightforward. He desired the very best for them and didn’t want anything to interfere with that desire.
But his choice generated two different responses. One group said, “he really doesn’t love us, otherwise, he’d ask for our support.” The other group said, “he’s a coward, he’s afraid to ask us for financial support and he doesn’t have the authority to collect it.” So, Paul writes, sarcastically, “forgive me for this injustice.”
Paul chides them by saying, “you should have commended me. You know me intimately and you know how much I love and care for you. You have received great spiritual blessings from me. You should be speaking in my defense against the false accusations of the Judaizers. But you haven’t done that. Instead, you’ve forced me to boast about myself. I am not one bit inferior to those you hold up as ‘super-apostles’ even though I am nothing.”
Paul further reminds them that during his initial time with them, they had seen the proofs of his apostleship. They had seen the signs, the wonders, and the miraculous deeds. All of these were God’s confirmation of Paul as His servant. And yet, here they were questioning his motives and even questioning his calling.
Imagine the pain this caused Paul. He loved them so deeply that, according to 11:28, his anxious concern about their spiritual well-being was greater than all the things he’d suffered physically. That is an amazing statement and shows us the tender heart of the apostle.
This aspect of love being misunderstood is surely one of its most challenging conundrums.
The Next ASPECT (that reveals the conundrum of love) is,
It’s Often Unappreciated
In spite of the disrespect and unkindness of the Corinthians toward him, Paul states again his desire to visit them. He had stated this desire before but was unable to carry it out. The natural reaction to disrespect and disloyalty is anger or resentment. Pride produces anger, resentment, and retaliation. But Paul doesn’t go there. Because he has set aside his pride, and because he remembers his own path to Christ, he is able to respond to them with humility and forgiveness.
Paul reassures them that when he eventually comes to visit them that he will not be a burden, literally, a dead weight, to them. He wasn’t coming to sponge off of them, as we say. And then, just in case they still don’t understand, he says clearly, “I do not seek what you have, but YOU!” Paul wasn’t interested in their stuff; he was interested in them as his spiritual children.
He said, “it’s not natural for the children to save up for their parents, but rather for the parents to save up for their children.” As their spiritual father, he was choosing to follow that established pattern. He was making provision for their spiritual needs with the same or greater diligence that a godly, earthly father provides for the physical needs of his children. In doing this, he was willing to deny himself what was rightfully his in order to carry out his responsibilities. He was laying up an inheritance for those under his care.
Have you noticed that those who have been given the most are often the least grateful? Parents work hard so their children can have an easier life, but the children just take it for granted. It’s all they’ve ever known so what’s the big deal? One fault of parents is giving their children too much stuff and not teaching them the connection between sacrifice and achievement. This breeds a spirit of entitlement. Why should I be thankful for what is owed to me? It seems this is where the Corinthian church was in their relationship with Paul.
And that leads him to make the most poignant statement in this text. “I will most gladly expend my life for you, even though, the more I love you the less you love me.” It is enlightening to see how the word spend or expend is used in other places. It’s used in Mark 5:26 in reference to the woman with uncontrollable bleeding who had spent all she had on doctors. Luke uses it in the account of the prodigal son who spent everything he had in a foreign country. James uses it to speak about the things we consume relative to our physical appetites.
Paul’s life and example proved his sentiments. He was willing to “put his money where his mouth was.” And yet, in spite of all that, he was accused, in the next several verses, of raising this big collection (which was for the poor in Jerusalem) for himself. Again, Paul resorts to irony and sarcasm and writes, “But be that as it may, I did not burden you; yet being crafty, I took you in by deceit, I tricked you! I said the money was for others, but I really meant to keep it for myself.” It seems obvious that he’s using the words or at least the attitudes of his accusers here.
He asks the Corinthians whether he or any of his helpers, like Titus, had taken advantage of them in the solicitation of this gift for the poor of Jerusalem. The grammar indicates that the answer he expected was “No.” We know that the Corinthians had received Titus with kindness. They treated him with affection and sent him away with every proof of confidence and respect. Were they going to pretend now that he had somehow defrauded them?
Paul said, “I am coming to you in that same spirit.” My actions and the actions of Titus are “cut from the same cloth.” Neither of them tried to take advantage of the church in Corinth. Neither of them could be credibly accused of deceit or impropriety.
This aspect of love being unappreciated is surely one of its most common conundrums.
The Final ASPECT (that reveals the conundrum of love) is,
It’s Often Painful
Pain is not a word or concept that’s naturally associated with love. And yet there is a definite connection. Genuine love, godly love, cares enough about people to confront them for their failures and their sins. This kind of love is foreign to those who don’t know Christ. The popular idea today is, “if you criticize my behavior as wrong or sinful, that’s not loving.” But the Scriptures reject that idea completely. God and His spokespersons never shy away from calling sin what it is. But we are also warned in the Scriptures to speak the truth in love. The truth is offensive enough by itself, we don’t need to make it more offensive by poor behavior.
In the final verses of our text, Paul warns the Corinthians that he is planning to visit them. He assures them that what he has been doing and will do is for their edification, their upbuilding in the faith. But his visit will include some unpleasant and painful accountability. He writes, “I am afraid that perhaps when I come, I may find you not as I would wish…” He hoped to find them walking in the truth and order of the Gospel, but their current behavior argued against that being the case.
Remember, Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians to deal with factions, immorality, and other sins they were engaged in. From this second letter to the Corinthians, we know that some of these sins had been dealt with, but evidently, not all of them. Paul fears that his visit will find them mired in strife, jealousy, flaring anger, selfish ambition, backbiting, gossiping, conceit, and disorder. How disappointing this must’ve been for him.
These are not the identifying characteristics of those who follow Christ. In his letter to the Galatians Paul outlines the fruits of genuine faith: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the exact opposite of the things he expected to face in Corinth.
Further, he acknowledges that they “will not find [him] to be in the condition [they] want…” That is, he will need to administer discipline. He confesses that this will be depressing to him. Here are people who were converted under his teaching and yet they were living like unbelievers, and Paul was ashamed of them and ashamed for them. And when he came to Corinth, he would hold these people accountable before God and the church.
Their sin was a grief to Paul. How we need more men and women today who grieve over the sin of those who profess to be God’s children! And he indicated that he would mourn for those who sinned earlier and still hadn’t repented. There were those in the church who were still living in moral or physical impurity. Others were practicing adultery, incest, and fornication, while still others were living in debauchery, totally given over to the appetites of their bodies. All of these things Paul would address when he visited them. They could expect painful discipline.
In reality, that is what they needed. Genuine love doesn’t withhold discipline because it’s painful. Instead, it sees beyond the present circumstances to the eventual outcome. The writer of Hebrews put it this way; “Now no [discipline] seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
To recap, then, we see these aspects that help us understand the conundrum of love: it’s often misunderstood, it’s often unappreciated, and it’s often painful. By the life he lived and the words he wrote that have been preserved for us, the apostle Paul is a worthy example to follow as we wrestle with and live out the conundrum of love.