12:14 The third time I am ready to come to you. Then he had been there twice before; once when he founded the church; once while preaching at Ephesus, of which visit Acts gives no account. See PNT 2Co 2:1.
And I will not be burdensome to you. As before, he will maintain himself this third time.
For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, etc. As parents do with children, so will he, their spiritual father, do. He does not ask them to provide for him, while he feeds them the bread of life.
12:14 The third time - Having been disappointed twice. I seek not yours - Your goods. But you - Your souls.
12:11-21 We owe it to good men, to stand up in the defence of their reputation; and we are under special obligations to those from whom we have received benefit, especially spiritual benefit, to own them as instruments in God's hand of good to us. Here is an account of the apostle's behaviour and kind intentions; in which see the character of a faithful minister of the gospel. This was his great aim and design, to do good. Here are noticed several sins commonly found among professors of religion. Falls and misdeeds are humbling to a minister; and God sometimes takes this way to humble those who might be tempted to be lifted up. These vast verses show to what excesses the false teachers had drawn aside their deluded followers. How grievous it is that such evils should be found among professors of the gospel! Yet thus it is, and has been too often, and it was so even in the days of the apostles.
