Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Corinthians 11:23

διάκονοι Χρ. κ. τ. λ.: are they Christ's ministers? (as they specially claimed to be; cf. 2 Corinthians 10:7) I speak as one beside himself (sc., as if he would say “this is mad boasting indeed; for what office can be higher than this?”); I am more, i.e., I am that in a higher degree than they (ὑπέρ being used adverbially), as is proved by my trials in the service of the Gospel. The summary which follows is of deep interest for the student of St. Paul's life; he goes into more definite detail than elsewhere (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:11-13, chap. 2 Corinthians 4:7-10; 2 Corinthians 6:4-10), and gives us a more vivid picture of his extraordinary labours than would be possible to form from the narrative in the Acts alone. It will be remembered that his missionary career lasted for ten or eleven years after this Epistle was written, and that therefore we cannot regard these verses as giving us a complete list of his trials. ἐν κόποις κ. τ. λ.: in labours more abundantly, sc., than they (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:10), in prisons more abundantly (up to this point in his life we only know of one imprisonment, viz., at Philippi, Acts 16:23, but there must have been others; cf. Romans 16:7, where he speaks of Andronicus and Junias as having been his “fellow-prisoners” on some occasion to which no other allusion had been preserved. Afterwards we read of his being imprisoned at Jerusalem (Acts 21:33), at Cæsarea (Acts 23:35) and at Rome (Acts 28:30), besides which the evidence of the Pastoral Epistles gives another Roman imprisonment. Clement of Rome (§ 5) speaks of St. Paul as seven times in bonds; cf. 2 Corinthians 6:5 above), in stripes above measure, details of which are given in the following verses (cf. Acts 21:32), in deaths oft, i.e., in frequent perils of death (cf. Acts 9:23; Acts 14:19, etc., and chaps. 2 Corinthians 1:10; 2 Corinthians 6:9).

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Corinthians 11:23

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