Paul’s desire and fear for believers there
11
📚Would to God you would bear with me a little in my folly. And indeed you are bearing with me. 2 📚For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy 📖, for I have betrothed you to one husband 📖, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 📚But I am afraid that by some means, as the serpent deceived Eve through his cunning, so your minds might be corrupted from the integrity that is in Christ.11:3 Gen 3:1-7. It is fitting for Paul to speak of Eve rather than Adam because Eve was the bride of the first Adam and the Church is the bride of the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45), and because Eve was deceived, not Adam (1 Tim 2:14). And what believers were facing in Corinth was Satanic deception (vs 13-15).⚜
False apostles
4 📚For if the one coming to you preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you put up with that well enough! 5 📚But I do not think that I am at all inferior to those “super” apostles.
11:4-5 Paul gives the reason why he was afraid for some Christians there – they seemed to be lacking in love for the truth and an ability to recognize error. At least they were unwilling to take a stand against false teachers. They were so tolerant that Paul was alarmed. He well knew that tolerance of false teaching reveals a lack of love for the truth. Observe that not every religious teacher who has some spirit or other, or some power or other, has God’s Spirit and His power. And not everyone who seems to be preaching the gospel is preaching the true gospel of Christ (see Gal 1:6-9; 1 John 4:1). He calls those so-called apostles “super” apostles in sarcasm, because of the great claims they made for themselves.⚜
6 📚Even though I am untrained in speech 📖, I am not untrained in knowledge 📖. What we are has been made completely evident to you in all matters.
Paul’s behavior toward the Corinthians
7 📚Did I commit a sin in lowering myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you the gospel of God freely? 8 📚I robbed 📖 other churches by receiving support from them to do you service. 9 📚And when I was present with you, and in need, I was a burden to no one. For what I lacked the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied. And in everything I have kept myself from being a burden to you, and I will continue to keep myself so.
11:9 Paul sometimes did accept material help from believers. But it seems he did not do so from a church during the time he was present and ministering to it.⚜
10 📚As the truth of Christ is in me, no one in the regions of Achaia will stop me from this boasting. 11 📚Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do. 12 📚But I will continue to do what I am doing, so that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire opportunity to be regarded as we are in the things they boast about.
11:7-12 See 1 Cor 9:4-15. Perhaps his enemies said that Paul did not take any support from the church there because he knew he was not a real apostle and was not worthy of it, and that his working with his own hands to earn his living (Acts 18:3) was beneath the dignity of a true apostle. But, Paul says, his motive was his love for them (v 11), his desire to “elevate” them, to have them rise spiritually (v 7).⚜
11:12 Doubtless the false apostles at Corinth took money from the Christians there for their preaching (2 Cor 2:17). They liked to think they were Paul’s equal, but Paul shows they were not his equal in preaching the gospel free of charge. And he determined to continue showing this.⚜
False teachers are Satan’s servants
13 📚For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, outwardly changing themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14 📚And no wonder, for even Satan outwardly changes himself into an angel of light.
11:14 Satan does not come revealing himself as Satan, and he does not make sin and evil seem sinful and evil. He can make himself shining, brilliant, attractive. He comes as a god. He can make denial of God’s Word seem sweetly reasonable. He can make sin seem like righteousness. He tries to turn the whole world upside down, and make truth seem like error and error seem like truth, and darkness seem like light and light seem like darkness. And among men he has many willing helpers. God pronounces judgment on such in Isa 5:20. Notes on Satan at 1 Chron 21:1; Matt 4:1; John 8:44.⚜
Paul’s further “boasting”
15 📚So it is no big thing if his servants also outwardly change themselves into servants of righteousness. Their end will be according to their works.
11:13-15 Now Paul by the inspiration of God’s Spirit fully exposes the character of the false religious teachers at Corinth, and of all such teachers who come in the name of Christ, in all generations and in all places. He says six things about them.
They are “deceitful workers” – both their methods and their message are deceitful and their purpose is to deceive others (Matt 24:11, 24; Rom 16:18; 2 Thess 2:9-10).
They outwardly change themselves, masquerade, put on a disguise so that others will think that Christ has sent them, but their evil hearts have not been changed.
They pretend to be servants of righteousness – they speak of righteousness but they are really servants of sin (2 Pet 2:18-19. The whole of 2 Peter chapter 2 and the letter of Jude reveal what many false religious teachers are like).
Some of the Corinthian Christians were listening to such men, were giving them money, were being tolerant of their teaching. Can we not understand Paul’s alarm? Can people welcome Satan’s servants and not be harmed in their lives? Won’t there be reason for doubting the spiritual condition of those who do so?⚜
16 📚 I say again, Let no one think me a fool; if otherwise, then receive me as you would a fool, so that I may boast of myself a little. 17 📚What I am saying in this confident boasting, I am not saying according to the Lord, but as if in foolishness. 18 📚Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also. 19 📚For you gladly bear with fools, since you yourselves are wise! 20 📚For you bear it, if someone brings you into bondage 📖, if a man devours you, if a man takes from you, if a man exalts himself, if a man hits you in the face. 21 📚To my shame, I say we were too weak for that! But in whatever matter anyone else dares to boast 📖 (I speak foolishly), I too dare.
11:16-21 Paul nowhere praises himself. He well knew what he was apart from God’s grace and power – 2 Cor 12:11; 2 Cor 7:1-8; Eph 3:8; 1 Tim 1:15. He even hated to appear to be praising himself. It made him feel somewhat foolish. But for the sake of the Christians in Corinth he felt compelled to defend his apostleship (2 Cor 12:19). And the only way he could do that was by speaking of these things God had enabled him to do and to suffer for Christ.⚜
11:19-21 In order to shame them he speaks sarcastically. They had put up with the boasting of false teachers so they should be able to endure a few boasts from Christ’s true apostle. Verse 20 describes what the false teachers there had been doing.⚜
22 📚Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the offspring of Abraham? So am I.
11:22 This, too, is evidence that the false teachers there were Jews who professed to follow Christ yet who insisted that keeping the law of Moses was necessary for salvation. They boasted about their descent from Abraham, and the fact that they were of the conservative community, able to read the Scriptures in the original Hebrew (see note at Acts 6:1). But Paul points that he, too, was all of these things (Rom 11:1; Phil 3:5).⚜
Faithfully serving in troubles and dangers
23 📚Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more, in more abundant labours 📖, in beatings above measure, in prisons 📖 more frequent, in deaths 📖 often. 24 📚From the Jews five times I received forty lashes with a whip, minus one.
11:24 Forty lashes with a whip was the maximum number of strokes the law permitted – Deut 25:1-3. Usually the Jews gave only 39 – they were afraid that if they gave 40 they might miscount and actually give 41 and thus be guilty of breaking the law. These beatings were very severe and sometimes people died under them. A person’s love for Christ is measured also by what he is willing to suffer for Him.⚜
25 📚Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones 📖, three times I was shipwrecked 📖, a night and a day I have been in the sea, 26 📚in frequent travels, in perils 📖 from waters, in perils from robbers, in perils from my own countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, 27 📚in weariness and hardship, in frequent sleepless 📖 vigils, in hunger and thirst, in frequent fastings, in cold and nakedness 📖. 28 📚Beside those outward things, there is that which presses on me daily: concern for all the churches 📖. 29 📚Who is weak, and I am not weak 📖? Who is offended, and I do not burn 📖 with indignation?
11:23-29 They said they were servants of Christ (v 23). Paul has already denied they were (vs 13-15) and so does not repeat what he had said before. Instead he shows there was far more evidence that he was a servant of Christ than those teachers could bring forth. The evidence was of three kinds – his great labour for Christ (vs 23,26,27), his great sufferings for Christ (vs 23-27), and his great care for Christ’s people (vs 28,29).⚜
11:29 It was not merely churches in general that weighed on him, it was individuals in the churches.⚜
30 📚If I must boast, I will boast of the things which relate to my weaknesses 📖. 31 📚The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.
11:31 The list of Paul’s troubles, hardships and sufferings might have seemed unbelievable to some people in Corinth. So he solemnly assures them in God’s name that he was telling the truth.⚜
32 📚In Damascus the governor under King Aretas kept the city of the Damascenes under a military guard, wanting to capture me. 33 📚But I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.
11:32-33 Acts 9:22-25. This humiliating experience is but one example of the “weaknesses” about which he boasted. He wanted them to understand that all along he has been boasting not in his strength to endure sufferings and dangers, but in God who enabled him to endure in spite of his weaknesses (2 Cor 3:5; 4:7).⚜