Deeper Reflection
SOME BIBLE SCHOLARS CALLED PAUL’S WORDS IN VERSES 15 to 16 “the Pauline polemic against the Jews”³⁵. Paul wasn’t anti-Jew. When he went to Corinth, where he wrote to the Thessalonians, he first preached the Gospel to Jews (Acts 18:1, 5); and likewise, when he went to Ephesus from Corinth (Acts 19:1, 8). Paul himself was a patriotic Jew (Rom 11:1; 2 Cor 11:22). He longed and prayed for his fellow Jews’ salvation (Rom 10:1) with such “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” as to declare that he was willing to forfeit his salvation if only thereby they might be saved (Rom 9:1-3). And yet, quite ironically, he seemed to conclude that God’s “wrath has come upon them at last” because they have “fill[ed] up the measure of their sins” (v.16), as if they were a gone case. What kind of missionary mindset was that?We must be wary of the danger of filling up the measure of our sins that leads to divine judgment. God’s disciplinary judgment came upon “many” of the Corinthians in the form of weakness, illness and premature death (1 Cor 11:29-32). God’s judgment came upon the Canaanites only “after four generations” from Abraham, because their sins “do not yet warrant their destruction” (Gen 15:16, NLT). God in “the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience” gives people sufficient time to repent of their sins (Rom 2:4). We can never know when we cross the line in sinning that results in divine judgment. God determines that line. Let us carefully keep short accounts of our sins with God (1 Jn 1:9).

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³⁵ John R. W. Stott, 55