For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. ESVUK

The ‘dyings’ (sufferings) of Christian leadership, are for the sake of the church (see also 12). Ministry is other-person centred.

There is a simple equation in this verse: ”more and more people” experiencing ”grace” (being converted), means more and more worship for God/more and more glory to God. The ultimate purpose of ministry, with all its costs, is that God should have more and more worshippers.

I remember reading a book about evangelism, written by John Stott. I believe he said that the ultimate purpose of evangelism is not the salvation of lost sinners, as glorious as that is. It is rather the glory of God.

‘…Paul is keen that the end result would be more praise arising to the living God. The more people are praising God, the more the world is taking the shape it was meant to have…’ Tom Wright

In his biography of John Calvin, John Piper writes about Calvin’s God-centredness, and he bemoans the evident man-centredness in much of modern evangelicalism. He quotes Leslie Newbiggin:

‘I suddenly saw that someone could use all the language of of evangelical Christianity, and yet the centre was fundamentally the self, my need of salvation. And God is auxiliary to that…I also saw that quite a lot of evangelical Christianity can easily slip, can become centred in me and my need of salvation, and not in the glory of God.’