Now I call upon God as my witness that I am telling the truth. The reason I didn’t return to Corinth was to spare you from a severe rebuke.24 But that does not mean we want to dominate you by telling you how to put your faith into practice. We want to work together with you so you will be full of joy, for it is by your own faith that you stand firm. (NLT).

We are about to get into the reason for Paul’s change of plan, and we will focus on this next time. But before we arrive there, we pause to note that spiritual leadership is not dictatorial (24). There is a gentleness, even a freedom about it. It is not controlling. People living under an autocratic power don’t tend to be a ‘joyful’. It’s not normally the happiest context in which to live. With Biblical leadership there is a working ‘’together’’ so that the person being cared for gets to work out their own salvation (Phil.2:12).

Notice also that the end of verse 24 must be taken together with verse 21:  ”It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ.” These are truths to be ‘held in tension’. Ultimately, we can only ‘’stand firm’’ because of God.

Someone used to sign off his letters: ‘Yours in the grip of grace’