Paul sets forth his apostleship
10
📚Now I myself, Paul, plead with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ 📖, I who in person am lowly among you, but being absent am bold 📖 toward you.10:1 See 2 Cor 11:10. In chapters 10–13 Paul turns his attention to the false teachers in Corinth and to those who were listening to them. These false teachers taught a perverted gospel (2 Cor 11:4). They were servants of Satan whom Satan had sent to Corinth to lead believers astray (2 Cor 11:13-14). They boasted that they were true apostles (2 Cor 11:5, 12), and attacked Paul and the gospel he preached. So Paul defends the truth that he was an apostle. This was not for his sake but for the sake of the church in Corinth (2 Cor 12:19). He was worried about their spiritual condition (2 Cor 11:3; 2 Cor 12:20-21), and he realized that it would become far worse if they rejected him and refused to believe that God spoke through him as a chosen apostle.⚜
2 📚But I plead with you that when I am present I may not have to be bold with that confidence with which I intend to be bold against some people, who regard us as if we live according to the flesh 📖.
10:2 Paul was able to be bold and use severe methods in Corinth, but hoped they would not force him to do so.⚜
Spiritual warfare
3 📚For though we live in the body, we do not fight according to the body. 4 📚For the weapons of our warfare are not of the body, but mighty through God to the destruction of strongholds, 5 📚demolishing reasonings and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and leading away captive every thought to be obedient to Christ;
10:3-5 Paul now refers to the war between truth and error, that is, between the truth God has revealed and the errors of men. The world’s purpose is to destroy the truth of Christ. The purpose of God’s true servants is to destroy error and bring men’s thoughts into obedience to Christ.
The weapons of Christ’s servants are different from the weapons of the world. Believers are in the world, but they are not to use the world’s weapons in their fight for truth. The world’s weapons are violence, force, trickery, charm, propaganda, human reasoning and any method that comes out of man’s fallen nature. Believers also have weapons (2 Cor 6:7; Eph 6:17), but they are spiritual weapons. Paul relied on the power of God working with truth and righteousness. The fullness of God’s Spirit, honesty, sincerity, speaking the truth in love were the weapons of that great soldier of God.
And such weapons have divine power. By them he was able to demolish “strongholds” – forts of Satan, of evil, of unbelief, forts of false religion and philosophy, of arguments against God’s truth, of pretended wisdom and power. That soldier for God took “captives” also.
The great battle going on in the world is between truth and error. Paul took hold of every philosophy of man, every religious idea, everything which passes for wisdom, every thought, and brought it to the feet of Christ for His judgment on it. Paul wanted not only his own mind and thinking to be subject to the Son of God and in accordance with the truth He taught, but the minds and the thinking of all men.
We may be sure that only minds willing to obey Christ, and only thoughts which He can approve, are what they should be. By nature, the minds of men, like their desires and actions, are fallen and sinful (Rom 8:6-7; Eph 4:18). People need new minds which think as God originally intended them to think – Rom 12:2; Eph 4:23; Phil 2:5. See also Paul’s comparison of man’s wisdom with God’s wisdom in 1 Cor 1:17—2:16; 1 Cor 3:18-20; Col 2:8.⚜
6 📚 and we are ready to punish all disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
10:6 Paul wanted to give them every opportunity to respond to the truth and be obedient. Eventually they would find that he had authority to punish disobedience. Compare 2 Cor 13:10; 1 Cor 4:21; 5:3-5.⚜
Paul’s “boasting”
7 📚Do you look on things according to their outward appearance? If anyone has persuaded himself that he belongs to Christ, let him again take into account that, just as he belongs to Christ, even so we belong to Christ.
10:7 Verse 12; 2 Cor 5:12.⚜
8 📚For even if I were to boast 📖 somewhat more about our authority, which the Lord has given us for building you up, rather than pulling you down, I should not be ashamed of it. 9 📚I do not want to seem as if I would frighten you by letters. 10 📚“For his letters”, they say, “are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is of no account”.
10:10 Verse 1. Evidently some thought Paul, in his preaching, lacked eloquence and human wisdom (2 Cor 11:6) and was too gentle and meek in presenting the truth. At least they spoke the truth when they said his letters were “weighty and powerful”.⚜
11 📚Let such a person realize that just as we are in word by letters when we are absent, so we will be in deed also when we are present.
12 📚For we dare not count ourselves among those who commend themselves, or compare ourselves with them. But they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves with themselves, are not wise.
10:12 If men compare themselves only with some of their fellow men (such comparisons will no doubt be prejudiced in their own favor), they might find something to praise themselves. But Paul refused to play this game. He knew there was a much higher standard for comparison than other men. Christ is the great example, and no one in his senses can think highly of himself if he compare himself with Him.⚜
13 📚But we will not boast 📖 beyond measure, but according to the boundaries of the sphere which God has appointed to us, a sphere 📖 which reaches even to you. 14 📚For we are not extending ourselves beyond our boundaries, as though they did not reach to you. For in preaching the gospel of Christ we came as far as you also. 15 📚We will not boast of things beyond our boundaries, that is, of other men’s labours, but have hope, as your faith increases, that the boundaries of our sphere will be enlarged by you,
10:15 The false apostles (v 13) who came to Corinth were trying to take over the church and claim the work as their own. This is the usual way with false teachers. Paul was not doing that in “boasting” about his work in Corinth.⚜
16 📚so we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man’s area of accomplishment.
10:16 Paul hoped the church there would become more firmly established in the truth so that he could use his time and strength to go to other places. Compare Rom 15:20-22.⚜
17 📚But he who boasts, let him boast in the Lord. 18 📚For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
10:18 Verse 12. The false teachers commended themselves and sought the commendation of men (2 Cor 3:1). Compare John 5:44. Paul wanted the approval that comes from God only (1 Cor 4:3-5; Gal 1:10; 1 Thess 2:4).⚜