Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 2 Corinthians 12:16

"But be it so, I did not myself burden you; but, being crafty, I caught you with guile." — 2 Corinthians 12:16 (ASV)

Whether or not the Corinthians loved Paul the less for his intense love for them, all had to agree that he himself had not proved a financial strain on the church. Yet the rumor had circulated at Corinth that because Paul was unscrupulous by nature, he was exploiting the church’s generosity and trying to gain surreptitiously through his agents what he had declined to accept personally. What Paul almost certainly has in mind here is the collection for the poor at Jerusalem, which some charged was a convenient way to fulfill his covert wish to live at the church’s expense.

Since Paul knew the charge had been maliciously made and was couched in general terms, he refutes it first by indirectly appealing to the Corinthians to adduce specific evidence (v.17) and then by referring to a particular occasion on which his chief agent had been sent to Corinth on a mission involving finance (v.18a). If Titus was guiltless, so too was Paul, for all their conduct had been governed by the same principles (v.18b). Which visit of Titus does Paul refer to? Either the visit alluded to in 8:6a, when he commenced the collection, or the visit mentioned in 8:16–24 when he completed the collection.