Are we beginning to praise ourselves again? Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not! 2 The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. 3 Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts. NLT.

I find this deeply moving.

It seems that Paul’s troublesome critics carried ”letters of recommendation” and questioned his credentials. What ”letter” could he produce and pass round for inspection? Paul replies, ‘YOU Corinthians are our letter!’

”The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves.”

At one level we could say that Paul wrote this letter. But the deeper truth is they were Christ’s letter: Christ at work by His Spirit. Paul laboured at Corinth, but it was God’s work. This is a self-evident reality, and it is a commendation of Paul.

Paul was deeply conscious of this paradoxical reality that in the Christian life we have to work, but it is God who works in us and through us. Give some consideration to the following passages: 1 Cor.3:6,7; 1 Cor.15:10; Phil.2:12; Col.1:29.

God will vindicate the ministries of His authentic servants while He rightly gets the glory.