If we read the verses above carefully again and again, we can see what kind of spirit this man, the Apostle Paul, had. Paul wrote fourteen Epistles in the New Testament, but not one of these Epistles gives us a picture of Paul’s spirit in the way that 2 Corinthians does. As we have pointed out already, 2 Corinthians can be considered as an autobiography of the Apostle Paul. In this chapter I want to point out what kind of spirit the Apostle Paul had when he was serving the church. I am not referring to Paul’s attitude, thinking, knowledge, or emotions but to his spirit. Our spirit is the deepest part of our being. It may also be considered as the genuine, real part of our being. A genuine man is a man in the spirit. We may be kind to others, but we are kind falsely because we are kind in the soul, not in the spirit. Sometimes we love others but we love them falsely because we love them in our soul, not in the spirit. When we do things in our spirit, we are real and genuine because our real man, our real being, is in the spirit. Sometimes we talk with people in the soul, not in the spirit. When we speak in this way, we are merely saying something to fit the situation and our talk is worldly. When we speak to others in the spirit, we are real and genuine. In this chapter we want to see nine aspects of the wonderful spirit of Paul. I am not referring to the Holy Spirit but to the human spirit of Paul (Acts 17:16; 19:21; Rom. 1:9; 2 Cor. 2:13).
Based on the Scripture reading, the first characteristic, the first virtue, of the spirit of this writer is its openness. This man Paul has an open spirit. It is not easy to have an open spirit. On the contrary, it is easy for us to close our spirit, to shut our spirit up. It could be that most of the time we are closed in our spirit. The more we are fallen, the more we are closed in our spirit; the more we are delivered, the more we are saved, the more we are open in the spirit. For the church life we need an open spirit.
You may open your mind, open your emotion, and even open your entire heart, yet you would still not open your spirit to others. When you open your spirit, you are fully, thoroughly open to others. In today’s society, hardly any person is open to another person. They are open to one another at most in the soul, not in the spirit. Among the Christians it may be the same. For the church building, for the church life, we have to be open to one another in the spirit. I have to open to you in the spirit, but this needs the Lord’s grace and this needs the working of the cross. Our natural man has to be broken; then we will be open in the spirit one to another.
Are you really open in your spirit and from your spirit to the brothers? Although this is not easy, there is the need of such an openness in our spirit toward others. It was not so easy for the Apostle Paul to be open in his spirit to the Corinthian believers. When you are welcomed by a group of people, it is easy for you to be open in the spirit to them. When you are criticized, opposed, and looked down on by others, however, you will become as closed as “a snail.” You will withdraw your whole being into a “hard shell” and hide yourself there. When others criticize you, you remain in the shell. When others welcome you, you will come out to greet them. The shell into which we withdraw when others despise and criticize us is the shell of the self. When we withdraw into this shell, no one can touch us. If the members in a local church are all “snails,” how can the church building be prevailing? For the Lord’s sake and for the building up of the church, we all have to be open one with another. We have to open ourselves to the other members. I have never seen two snails working together. Every snail is individualistic. There is the need of the divine breaking to break the shell of the self so that we all may have open spirits.
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