Sure, we have good reason to be skeptical of all those TV preachers with their expensive suits and private jets trying to wring just a few more dollars out of their viewers. But for most pastors, it’s not about the money. For let’s face it: if you’re interested in how much you can make and you’re good with language you go to law school, not seminary. If you want to prosper because of your good people skills and persuasive speaking abilities, you go into sales, not into the ministry. No, preaching has never been a wise choice for someone who wants to make a fortune.

And that means that when congregations want to bless their pastor by giving him material things, well, they’re nice, and they are certainly appreciated, but they’re not really what most pastors are focused on. It’d be like giving an avid golfer a tennis racket for Christmas.

So, what did Paul really want? If the Corinthians really wanted to bless their pastor, what should they have given him? He gives us part of the answer in verse 14 – “I seek not what is yours, but you.” In other words, Paul’s real desire was not to have more of the Corinthians’ things, but to have a closer relationship with the Corinthians themselves.

And that’s because Paul’s main goal was the one shared by all good pastors: to build up the people to whom they preach (v. 19). Like a cook is gratified when people sit down to eat, a pastor is most blessed when his people are learning the Scriptures. But just as food is intended to fuel physical activity, Paul wanted his people’s knowledge to be expressed in their daily lives. He especially wanted them to repent, to turn away from all of their selfish focus on personal pleasure, and to live instead according to God’s perfect law of love (v. 21).

So, let’s move beyond the hope that our daily Bible reading would change our minds today. Instead, may what we learn challenge us to move away from our sin and toward God, to move away from ourselves and toward other people in everything we say and think and feel and do.

II Corinthians 12:11-21 (ESV)

11 I have been a fool! You forced me to it, for I ought to have been commended by you. For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing.
12 The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.
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?
18 I urged Titus to go, and sent the brother with him. Did Titus take advantage of you? Did we not act in the same spirit? Did we not take the same steps?
19 Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved.
20 For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish– that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.
21 I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.