Hence, as I hold this ministry by God's mercy to me, I never lose heart in it;

Hence I never lose heart; though my outward man decays, my inner man is renewed day after day.

the pain God is allowed to guide ends in a saving repentance never to be regretted, whereas the world's pain ends in death.

and so my boasting never goes beyond the limit ??it is determined by the limits of the sphere marked out for me by God. That sphere stretches to include yourselves;

I am no speaker, perhaps, but knowledge I do possess; I never failed to make myself intelligible to you.

For I am afraid I may perhaps come and find you are not what I could wish, while you may find I am not what you could wish; I am afraid of finding quarrels, jealousy, temper, rivalry, slanders, gossiping, arrogance, and disorder ??21 afraid that when I come back to you, my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn for many who sinned some time ago and yet have never repented of the impurity, the sexual vice, and the sensuality which they have practised.