2 Corinthians 12:15

15 ¹I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If ²I love you more, am I to be loved less?

2 Corinthians 12:15 Meaning and Commentary

2 Corinthians 12:15

And I will gladly spend
Meaning all his time, talents, and strength, which God had bestowed upon him for their spiritual profit and advantage; yea, all that small pittance of worldly goods that he enjoyed: he not only determined to take nothing from them, but was willing to communicate his little substance to them, or spend it in their service; and not only so, but be spent for them:

and be spent for you,
or "for your souls": for the good of them; his sense is, either that he was willing to have his whole substance expended, if it would be of any use to them; or his whole strength exhausted, in laborious preaching to them; or even his life to be laid down for them, was it necessary; which sense is favoured by the Syriac and Arabic versions; all which expressed his tender affection as a spiritual father for them: adding,

though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved;
though he loved them more than he did other churches, or than the false apostles loved them, and yet were loved by them less than he was by other churches; or by them, than the false apostles were; or rather the meaning is, that though he increased in his love, and in the expressions of it to them, and they grew colder and more indifferent to him, yet this should not hinder his warmest desires and most earnest endeavours after their spiritual and eternal welfare. This way of speaking strongly expresses his love to them, and tacitly implies the lukewarmness of theirs to him; and yet that it should be no discouragement to him to proceed in doing them all the service he was capable of.

2 Corinthians 12:15 In-Context

13 For in what were you less favored than the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not burden you? Forgive me this wrong!

14 Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.

15 I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

16 But granting that I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit.

17 Did I take advantage of you through any of those whom I sent to you?

Cross References

• 1. [2 Corinthians 1:6; Philippians 2:17; Colossians 1:24; 1 Thessalonians 2:8; 2 Timothy 2:10]
• 2. See 2 Corinthians 6:11