PAUL DEFENDS HIS APOSTLESHIP AND COMPARES HIMSELF WITH HIS OPPONENTS (2 CORINTHIANS 11:1). An exact determination of who the visiting preachers were who constituted the new grave threat to Paul's ministry, is not possible, but we may certainly discover many of their characteristics. ‘Are they Hebre... [ Continue Reading ]
PAUL CONTINUES HIS DEFENCE. HE EXPRESSES HIS CONCERN FOR THEM AND HIS FEAR LEST THEY BE LED ASTRAY. HE DEFENDS HIS POLICY OF NOT LETTING THEM MAINTAIN HIM AND SUMS UP HIS OPPONENTS AS FALSE APOSTLES. (2 CORINTHIANS 11:1). ‘Would that you could bear with me in a little foolishness. Yes, indeed, do b... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.' He stresses that he is concerned for them like a father for his virgin daughter. Just as Yahweh was jealous over Israel (Hosea 1-3; Ezekiel 16; Isaiah 50:1; Isai... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ.' But he admits that he is afraid, that just as the serpent beguiled Eve by his devilish cleverness and subtlety, so their minds mig... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different gospel, which you did not accept, do you do well to bear with it (or ‘him')?' The ‘if' is with the indicative suggesting something that has actually h... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For I reckon that I am not a whit behind the very highest ranking apostles.' In view of this he feels it necessary as their ‘father' to establish his position and authority. He wants them to know that he is in no way an inferior Apostle, a second class one. His teaching and authority is equal to t... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But if it be that I am rude in speech, yet am I not in knowledge; no, in every way have we made this openly clear to you in all things.' His opponents are accusing him of not preaching like a trained orator. Well, he will not agree with their verdict, but even if it were true it is his deliberate p... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Or did I commit a sin in abasing myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you the gospel of God for nought?' Or are they blaming him for not accepting payment from them for what they have taught them, and saying thereby he did wrong? It was the Greek view that an orator should be pai... [ Continue Reading ]
‘I robbed other churches, taking wages of them that I might minister to you.' Indeed he had done more. He had accepted money from other churches so as not to have to rely on them. ‘Robbed.' Perhaps there is a sarcastic suggestion in the use of this word that his opponents were ‘robbing' the Corinth... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And when I was present with you and was in want, I was not a burden on any man, for the brethren, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my want, and in everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so will I keep myself.' In fact the truth was that when times of need... [ Continue Reading ]
‘As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this glorying in the regions of Achaia. And why? Because I love you not? God knows.' And ‘as the truth of Christ is in him'. That is what matters to him. It is because he is full of the truth of Christ that he will glory in making the Gospel... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity that in that in which they glory, they may be found even as we.' And he intends to continue doing what he has been doing, so that he may cut off from his opponents the opportunity of making thems... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for even Satan fashions himself into an angel of light. It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be accordi... [ Continue Reading ]
HE ‘FOOLISHLY' COMPARES HIMSELF WITH HIS OPPONENTS (2 CORINTHIANS 11:16 TO 2 CORINTHIANS 12:13). ‘I say again, let no man think me foolish; but if you do, yet as foolish receive me, that I also may glory a little.' He does not want to be thought ‘foolish' for what he is about to say (compare 2 Cor... [ Continue Reading ]
‘That which I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of glorying.' He wants them understand the nature of his boasting, to recognise that he is not speaking in the normal way for those who follow the Lord. The approach he is taking is not the normal one... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.' His opponents are boasting like human beings because of their unspiritual nature, boasting in their human status and behaviour, glorying after the flesh. So he, in order to combat them, intends to do the same. But this is not what one wou... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For you bear with the foolish gladly, being wise yourselves. For you bear with a man, if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, if he smites you on the face.' It has become necessary because, in their supposed wisdom, it appears that they liste... [ Continue Reading ]
‘I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet in whatever any is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also.' By saying this he is disparaging them for bearing with fools who are characterised by brashness, in contrast with whom he had been thought of as weak. (Or the dispara... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I.' His roots are every bit as good as theirs. They boast of their antecedents as ‘true Hebrew speaking Jews' connected with Jerusalem - For this use of ‘Hebrews' see Acts 6:1. Well, so is he. For he grew u... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Are they servants (ministers - diakonoi) - of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in labours more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.' Do they claim to be servants of Christ? (They may well have been able to claim that they had actually be... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Of the Jews five times I received forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Genti... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Besides those things that are without (or ‘that I have left out'), there is that which presses on me daily, anxiety for all the churches.' And there were other difficulties too, but he could not include them all. And as hard as all these troubles put together was the burden of care he bore for all... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I burn not?' For as a true servant of Christ he takes the burden of the weak Christians on himself (1 Corinthians 9:22), as he well can because he recognises his own weakness. He gets alongside them as one weak person to another. And wh... [ Continue Reading ]
‘If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness.' So if he is to boast he will boast about the things which show he is weak, He does not glory in his splendour like his opponents do, he glories in his weaknesses which show him to be a sharer in the sufferings of Christ ... [ Continue Reading ]
‘The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for evermore, knows that I lie not.' And in order to ensure that they recognise his genuineness he calls on God to be his witness. The One Who is the God and the Father of the Lord Jesus (compare 2 Corinthians 1:3). The One Who is blessed for... [ Continue Reading ]
‘In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes in order to take me, and through a window was I let down in a basket by the wall, and escaped his hands.' He finishes this aspect of his glorying with a personal example, which went back to his earliest days as a Chri... [ Continue Reading ]