Widening Your Heart

The apostle Paul was continually trying to get the Corinthian ecclesia to mature spiritually. In his second epistle to them, he lists several of the ways he had been an example to them, including by showing them “genuine love” (2 Cor. 6:6) and concluding by saying “we have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open” (v.11). When John wrote about love, he said it’s absent when one “closes his heart” (1 John 3:17), so what Paul says to the Corinthians is the opposite of that. He wants to encourage them to turn their affection into love when he sums up the exhortation by saying, “you are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also” (v.11-12). While they had affection for one another, it was restricted by their spiritual immaturity, and Paul wants them to widen their hearts, to expand their love beyond brotherly affection.

In the chapter about faith and works, James says a similar thing when he commends his readers for fulfilling the “royal law” (James 2:8) to “love your neighbor as yourself.” He says they were “doing well” in this but then goes on to tell them to widen their hearts. He says in the next verse, “but if you show partiality, you are committing sin” (v.9). It seems those James wrote to were claiming to love their neighbor but choosing who their neighbors were. It’s easy to love those you are close to, but when we fail to turn brotherly affection into loving our enemies, we are showing partiality, and that’s not God’s way. He sends sunshine and rain on the just and the unjust.

In second Corinthians, Paul continues the encouragement for them to widen their hearts concerning the collection Paul was putting together for the poor saints in Jerusalem. In the world of the Corinthians, Jerusalem was a million miles away. But that didn’t bother the Macedonians, who Paul commends at the beginning of chapter 8 telling the Corinthians that “in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part” (2 Cor. 8:2). That’s love in action, and Paul wants the Corinthians to follow suit “to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine” (v.8).