4:17
“Our light and momentary troubles are achieving an eternal glory”. This shows that in the previous verse Paul is thinking primarily of the troubles they were enduring. Paul is not saying that the troubles do not matter, nor that they are just accepted but regarded as less important than the positives. Rather, God is using the trouble to renew their inner beings. So Paul is saying two things. One is that compared to the future glory the present suffering are “light and momentary”, they are nothing in comparison to the future glory. The second is that the sufferings are used as part of the process of achieving that future glory, so there is a positive aspect to them. As Paul says in Romans 8:28, God works through all things for the good of those who love Him. The Hebrew word for glory can also mean weight, hence Paul’s use of weight (outweighs in NIV, “weight of glory” in NKJV) here.
4:18
Paul is trying to get the Corinthians to have a right perspective, and to stop focusing just on outward appearances. The tendency of fallen mankind is to focus on the outer, on what is seen. We see it in our being captivated by the impression that people make, on our being taken in by beauty. The latter is not to say that beauty is of no value, on the contrary it is a gift from God, but in our day there is a literally unhealthy obsession with outward appearance. The character of a person is of primary importance, and we are to focus on what God is doing to who we really are. Our outward appearance will fade away and decay, any worldly glory will eventually become nothing at all. But the work that God is doing in us is of eternal significance.
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