6:7
Having gone through what they experience, he now delineates how they fight. They do so with “truthful speech”, in the “power of God”, and with “weapons if righteousness” in both hands. So they eschew the weapons of the world (see 2 Cor 10:4,5), speaking only truth. They rely on the power of God. In all that we do we ultimately rely on God to bring about change. Our goal is to see men and women to repent and turn to God, to have a change of heart, and it is only God who can do that. If we think it is our responsibility to change people’s hearts we will fall into error. We may become manipulative, or we may start going soft on the word of God, seeking to please people. We do have a part to play, and that is to present the gospel clearly and faithfully, both in word and in deed. We do the “deed” part with weapons of righteousness.
6:8
There will be “glory and dishonour”, “bad reports and good reports”. Some will see the truth and will praise us for speaking and living the truth, but others will abuse us, heaping opprobrium upon us. We must live with integrity, but even so there will be some who will accuse us of hypocrisy.
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