For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor would be in vain.Even Paul worried about his ministry. He was afraid that he'd not had enough time to ground their faith before being run out of town. He knew that his success was not guaranteed, and that his work might have been without lasting effect.
I said "without lasting effect" intentionally, because whatever happened, the work would not truly have been in vain. Maybe no one there would have been saved, but Paul was still doing what he was supposed to do: preaching salvation through Christ. I've long said that you can only control how you react to a situation, and not anyone else's reaction; Paul struggled with this as well, and wanted to know if his work was successful. But whatever the outcome had been, Paul would have been blameless, if he was doing what God had instructed him to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment