In this third chapter, Paul expresses the concern he felt for the church in his absence. He was concerned enough to send his trusted colleague Timothy to check up on them. When Paul received the positive report, he "felt alive again".
This is true care. And it is valuable, I think, to see what drove the care. He was concerned far more about their spiritual well being than anything else. In fact, nothing else really gets mentioned. This is, I believe, because their spiritual well being is what Paul thought was most important.
In the past few years I've been more involved with what I'll call the "Evangelical social justice movement". The participants in this are quite varied, but what they share is a belief that Evangelical Christians in the US have, over the past few decades, ignored the importance of social justice as part of holistic Christian ministry. I wholeheartedly agree with this. My concern is that in focusing so much on social justice, the more important things have fallen to the wayside--namely spiritual health. So, in the emphasis on creating a more holistic ministry, too many of these leaders ended up replacing on gap for another. In their zeal to return to practicing social justice, they ignored spiritual health. If one of the two has to be chosen (and I don't believe that to be the case), then Paul would focus on spiritual health.
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