"For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity" (2 Cor. 1:12).
Paul was confident that the Corinthians would pray for him and even rejoice in his being their teacher because of the simplicity and sincerity of his ministry among them. Hodge comments that “unless we are conscious of integrity towards others, we cannot be assured of their confidence in us.” Paul knew the Corinthians trusted him and would pray for him because he had given them no reason to do otherwise. Whenever we deal with people in a dishonest way, when we say what we do not mean, when we are insincere, we constantly second guess the actions of others and their responses to us. If we have no integrity in dealing with others, we will question their loyalty to us, and whenever they say something, we ask, “What did they really mean by that?” But Paul was not plagued by such doubts because he had served faithfully and with a single mind. He said and wrote what he meant, and the Corinthians didn’t have to search for double meanings in his writings because he had written with a single-minded purpose.
The sincerity and simplicity of Paul were not mere moral virtues that any person had, but they had been given to him by God, just as God endows all believers with spiritual graces. “There is a specific difference between moral virtues and spiritual graces, although they are called by the same names,” Hodge wrote. “Simplicity, sincerity, meekness, long-suffering, when the fruits of the Spirit differ from the moral virtues designated by those terms, as many external things, though similar in appearance, often differ in their inward nature. A religious man and a moral man may be very much alike in the eyes of men, though the inward life of the latter is human, and that of the former is divine. What Paul means here to say is that the virtues which distinguished his deportment in Corinth were not merely forms of his own excellence, but forms of the divine life; modes in which the Spirit of God which dwelt in him manifested itself.”
While worldly teachers can be morally virtuous and awe us with their profundities, it is the simple proclamation of the Gospel, the sincerity that comes from above that draws us to Christ and to one another. When our motivations remain pure and sincere, we possess a confidence that eludes the world’s greatest moral teachers.
Being sincere and single-minded is a goal every Christian should possess. But sarcasm, insincerity, and dishonesty hinder us in this development. Throughout the week, make a conscious effort to say what you mean, to put away sarcasm, and to be sincere to all people. Observe how this affects your confidence before others.
