‘Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.'
He begins his plea by stressing his total honesty and strong affection for them. Naming them by name, always a sign of his strong feelings (compare Galatians 3:1), he stresses that his mouth is open to them, and his heart is enlarged. In what he says he is hiding nothing from them, and is speaking freely because of his love for them, and for their good, because his genuine longing and desire is only for their good.