Deeper Commentary
CHAPTER 11
11:1 I wish you would bear
with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me- Paul is
asking them to bear with, or stick with, his reasoning as an unwise fool.
He laments that they 'bear with' the false teachers, who demanded their
loyalty and rejection of Paul; three times he uses the same word of how
they 'bear with' these men who abuse them (:4,19,20). So the emphasis
should be on the me
in "[Please] bear with me",
and not with these pretenders. This reading is confirmed by the way that
:2 goes on to say that this is because Paul is as their father, who has
betrothed them to Christ.
11:2- see on Mt. 3:7; Acts 13:9; 1 Cor. 15:10.
For I am jealous over you with
a Godly jealousy. For I betrothed you to one husband, that is, that I
might present you a pure virgin to Christ- The betrothal
period lasted a year; the father of the bride was expected to keep her
sexually pure. This period of a year may refer to the year he has already
waited for them to produce the collection money (9:2). But during that
betrothal period, he feared they had not been faithful to Christ because
of their alliances with the false teachers. Paul considered himself their
father and them to be his children (1 Cor. 4:15; 2 Cor. 6:13; 12:13-15).
This analogy demonstrates that preaching is not all about getting a
response which leads to conversion; the end point in view is not baptism,
but a person remaining faithful for Christ until the end. The image of
betrothal suggests that some guarantee had been given, and the guarantee
in our relationship with the Lord Jesus is the Spirit given as the
guarantee in our hearts; only here in 2 Corinthians is it spoken of in
precisely that way (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5).
Paul speaks in 2 Cor. 11:2 of ‘presenting you’ at the last day- he uses
the same Greek work in a context of ‘standing before’ the judgment seat
(Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 4:14). Christ will present us to Himself at judgment
day, as an unspotted bride / church (Eph. 5:27)- but Paul perceived that
Christ will achieve this by working through people and pastors like
himself. Paul aimed to “present” [s.w.] every man perfect in Christ by
warning and exhorting them (Col. 1:28). We will present ourselves (2 Tim.
2:15 s.w.) to Him at the judgment; but He presents us, and others who have
laboured for us will present us, because Christ will have worked through
them to present us to Himself unspotted. The cross results in the
suffering Lord being able to “present
us holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight” at the day of
judgment (Col. 1:22; Eph. 5:27). Having said that, Paul goes right on to
say that his goal is to “present
every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:22,28; 2 Cor. 11:2). The
sufferings of Jesus were not lost on Paul. He understood that he likewise
must share in them, in order to “present” his brethren acceptable at the
last day. For Paul, the events of Calvary were not far away in time and
place, a necessary piece of theology... They compelled him to act, to stay
up late at night preparing something, to pray, to live the life of true
concern for others, to warn, encourage, write, endlessly review his draft
letters to get them right, search through Scripture for relevant guidance
for his friends… this was the life begotten in him by the cross. As the
Lord died to present us “perfect”, so Paul laboured to present us perfect.
And neither the Lord Jesus nor Paul are mere history for us. This is all
our pattern… In one sense, we present ourselves before the judgment seat
(Rom. 14:10 s.w.; AV “stand before”). In other ways, we are presented
there by our elders, e.g. Paul; and yet above all, we are presented there
spotless by the Lord’s matchless advocacy for us. And of course the
essence of judgment is being worked out right now, as we daily present
ourselves to the Lord, as the bodies of the animals were presented to the
priest for inspection before being offered (Rom. 12:1). We are presenting
ourselves to the judge right now.
11:3 But I fear, lest by any
means, as the serpent beguiled Eve with his craftiness, your minds should
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ- Note the
focus upon their minds. Throughout Corinthians, Paul has taught that the
role of the Spirit in the heart / mind is crucial to spirituality. The
mind was and is the battleground for temptation, and the arena in which we
develop spirituality. Paul did not want their minds to be led astray [NEV
"corrupted"] from Christ. NEV "the simplicity that is in Christ" could as
well be rendered as NIV "to
Christ". The idea is that the Christian is mentally focused
upon a man, the Lord Jesus. The problem with false theologies and other
gospels is that they remove that focus, they are a corruption of the mind,
and hence a different spirit (:4) from that which is to be Christ's. The
corruption of the mind from this focus is described in :4 as receiving "a
different spirit". The focus is intensely upon the human mind or heart,
and whether or not the spirit of Jesus is there. This, in summary, is what
Christianity is all about and how a Christian is defined- whether the
spirit of Christ is in the heart or not. All the
angst about doctrinal
correctness and the struggle for correct interpretation must be seen in
that light. If we have not the spirit of Christ, we are none of His; and
if we do, then we are His.
Paul's imputation of righteousness to the Corinthians is reflected in
the way he likens them here to the innocent Eve in Eden, when previous
correspondence has revealed the depth of their moral (especially sexual)
depravity. Clearly Paul read the Genesis account of the serpent as
literal, seeing the literal serpent as now representative of the Judaizers
who were preying upon the minds of the believers.
11:4 For if he that comes-
"He that comes" could be a generic reference to the false teachers
who came to them, presumably sent from Jerusalem to destabilize Paul's
work; their 'coming' suggests they were not local Corinthians. There could
however be a specific individual in view, whom Paul is careful not to name
because he was well known and perhaps for fear of difficulties which would
be created by specifically naming him. This may be the reference of 12:7,
which speaks of a particular messenger or envoy of 'Satan', the Jewish
opposition, sent to be a pain in the side for his ministry. The coming
one, “he that comes”, was understood in Judaism as the Messiah, “he that
comes in the name of the Lord”. The false teachers in view are therefore
presented as anti-Christs, fake Messiahs, teaching and embodying “another
Jesus”.
Preaches another Jesus, whom
we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit, which you did not
receive, or a different gospel, which you did not accept-
Receiving the spirit and accepting the Gospel of Jesus are paralleled. The
situation in 1 Cor. 14 [see notes there] was that the Corinthians claimed
to have Holy Spirit gifts, but actually the manifestations of ecstatic
utterances they were claiming to experience were not at all Holy Spirit
gifts, but rather an imitation of the idol cults. The aorists here would
seem to imply that they accepted a gospel, another Jesus and another
spirit at one specific moment. As if an individual had come and preached a
fake imitation of Christianity- replete with a Jesus, a gospel and a
spirit to be received. We note that the true Gospel features a receipt of
the Spirit when the real Christ is accepted. This is not a reference to
the miraculous gifts, but to the guarantee of salvation received in the
heart, which must be responded to (1:22; 5:5; Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15).
Perhaps the 'other Jesus' being taught was a Jesus who did not rise from
the dead and was therefore currently inactive (recall the arguments of 1
Cor. 15) and who ministers no Spirit, therefore, to believers. This is
worryingly similar, in practice, to the approach to Jesus taken by some
conservative forms of Christianity today.
It seems you think you do well
to go along with him- See on :3. They 'bore with' ["go along
with"] these false teachers instead of bearing with Paul (:1).
11:5- see on 1 Tim. 1:16; Acts 23:6.
But I reckon that I am not in
the least inferior to these so called super apostles- This
group declared themselves to be "the number" (see on 10:12), the true
apostles. But they had declared themselves as this, without any signs from
the Lord affirming them as such. Paul “supposed”, the same word translated
“impute” as in ‘imputed righteousness’, that he was not inferior to these
apostles, because he was a true apostle. He knew this was how his Lord
counted him. But he felt himself as less than the least of all saints
(Eph. 3:8) and quite unworthy of the title apostle: “For I am the least of
the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I
persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1
Cor. 15:9-10). He felt the status and acceptance imputed to him, as we
should.
11:6 Although rude in speech,
I am not in knowledge. No, in every way have we made this manifest to you
in all things- Paul was falsely accused of being an
idiotes ["rude"], an
uneducated and simple person who pretended to the intelligentsia. This was
patently untrue. But Paul doesn't attack the lies, he argues that even if
that is true, and he doesn't bother justifying himself, then it could not
be said that he was lacking in true knowledge. Again he is appealing to
them to stop judging after the outward appearance (see on 10:7), but to
look to the essence, the Spirit within. Paul can say that they surely know
what “knowledge” he has, because he has been thoroughly manifested [Gk.
phaneroo] to them in absolutely every way; there was nothing he
knew which he hadn’t shared with them. He is so open with them that he
doesn’t just write in a political, guarded way to them, watching every
word.
11:7- see on Phil. 4:16; Lk. 3:5.
Or did I commit a sin-
This kind of sarcasm is hardly in line with Paul's claim to now be
appealing to them in the spirit of the Lord's gentleness and meekness
(10:1). His bitterness reveals that his previous positivity about them in
chapter 7 was uttered on the cusp of emotion, hoping against hope because
of the love he had for them.
In abasing myself so you might
be exalted, because I preached to you the gospel of God for nothing?-
Paul told Corinth that he had abased himself so that
they might be exalted.
This is one of Paul's many allusions to the Gospels; this time to Lk.
14:11; 18:14, which teach that he who abases himself will
himself be exalted. But Paul was abasing himself so that Corinth
could be exalted, so that they could share the exaltation he would receive
on account of his humility. In all this, of course, he reflected to his
brethren the very essence of the attitude of the Lord Jesus for toward us.
It was through refusing funding for his work from the Corinthians that he
abased himself that
they might be exalted-
all language of the crucifixion (cp. Phil. 2:8,9). Thus his refusing of
legitimate help to make his way easier was an enactment in himself of the
cross. We live in a world which has made the fulfilment of personal aims
of paramount importance. It has affected the fabric of every society, and
become embedded in every mind. To
live to serve, to put
oneself down that others may rise… this is strange indeed. John the
Baptist had this spirit, for he rejoiced that he decreased whilst the
Lord’s cause increased. Paul likewise abased himself that others might be
exalted, after the pattern of the cross. God’s gentleness, His humility /
bowing down (Heb.) has made us great, lifted us up (Ps. 18:35). And we
respond to it by humbling ourselves.
11:8 I robbed other churches
by accepting support from them in order to serve you-
Accepting support from other churches was hardly robbing them, and the
idea of robbing holy places / churches was particularly viewed as the
language of sacrilege (Rom. 2:22). Paul uses this particularly arresting
term to grab attention, but it is also true to say that he was
exaggerating his case, as so often in his very emotionally charged
relationship with the Corinthians. His refusal to take money from the
Corinthians is presented as a self-abasement; but his decision must be
tempered against the fact that he did in fact take support from others,
just not Corinth.
Took wages- See on
Acts 20:24 The ministry that I
received.
2 Cor. 11:8-15, when properly translated, perhaps reflects Paul at his
angriest and most abrasive: “I robbed other churches [an exaggeration!],
getting money from them to be a minister to you!...as the truth of Christ
is in me- I swear that this reason to be proud will not be stopped as long
as I work in the area of Achaia! You ask me why do I do this? Do you think
it’s because I don’t love you? God knows I do! It’s because what I do- and
I am going to go on doing it- shuts up some people who are trying to
pretend they are as good as we are, those fakes! Such apostles are
treacherous workmen. They deck themselves out as apostles of Christ and
it’s no wonder people are fooled… but they’ll get what’s coming to them!”.
Even through the barrier of words, time, culture and distance, the
abrasion of Paul in full-flow comes down through the centuries. This was
hardly the promised approach in the meekness and gentleness of Christ
(10:1), which all goes to show that 2 Corinthians is written as a flow of
consciousness letter- which explains many of the apparent contradictions
and tensions within it.
11:9- see on 2 Cor. 13:4.
And when I was present with
you and was in want- His time of "want" in Corinth was part of
being "abased" whilst there amongst them (:7). The same word is translated
"destitute" in Heb. 11:37. If he had asked for support or accepted it from
the local Corinthians, the implication is that this abasement and want
would have been avoided. Perhaps he was indeed destitute, until the
Macedonians got assistance to him. "In want" is the Greek word translated
"inferior" in :5. Paul was not at all lacking behind the so called
"apostles"; but he had been lacking in material things. And that was his
qualification as a true apostle. The fact Paul clearly at times had money,
and came from a wealthy background, makes all the more impressive his
being destitute and "abased" for the Gospel.
I was not a burden on anyone.
For the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, supplied all my needs;
indeed in everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so
will I remain- Paul had the same policy in Thessalonica where
he also resisted being burdensome (1 Thess. 2:6 s.w.). Acts 18:3 says that
Paul worked in Corinth as a tentmaker when he first arrived there. The
fact his needs had to be supplied by the Macedonians would indicate that
he was unable to continue being self-supporting in this way, presumably
because of an economic blockade against him organized by the Jews.
11:10 As the truth of Christ
is in me, no one shall stop me boasting about this throughout the regions
of Achaia- Paul's boasting about his independence from the
Corinthians seems rather strange and somewhat human rather than spiritual.
Seeing that he had been supported by wages paid by the Macedonians (:8,9),
his financial independence from the Corinthians was not a great thing to
boast about.
11:11 And why? Because I do
not love you? God knows, I do!- "God knows", along with his
appeal to the truth of Christ within him (:10), all suggests that Paul's
claims here would be received cynically by the Corinthians, and so Paul
feels the need to swear in some way to his truthfulness. But he might have
perhaps taken more comfort from his own observation earlier, that his
authenticity as an elder having authority over them was in fact known by
them within their own consciences (see on 5:11). Yet in this section
(chapters 10-13) Paul often seems to stray from his own principles as he
is overly caught up with his personal investment in the situation at
Corinth. He should have left it at that, but instead, he makes all kinds
of oaths ["God knows!"] and human self-justification. We too can clearly
understand and espouse a principle yet allow the humanity of a situation
to allow us to indulge in personal self-justification when we have claimed
to understand that this is not the way to go.
11:12 But what I do, that I
will continue to do, so I may not provide an opportunity to those that
desire such an opportunity, and so that their boasting will be shown to be
not the same as ours- Clearly there were some at Corinth
seeking opportunity to bring Paul down. He was up against consciously
organized opposition, which he understandably sums up as "the satan" /
adversary. Paul's boasting is made, he claims, so that he can as it were
out boast the opposition. He has made up his mind to go down the path of
human boasting, and says he will continue to do so, because he will
deprive his critics of any opportunity to boast. But as observed many
times in this letter, we are here reading flow of consciousness writing.
Paul is writing down his thoughts as they come into his mind, and all
emotions are at first blush contradictory. For it is obvious that my
justifying himself, he will not by any amount of autobiographical truth
somehow shut down his opponents by outboasting them. Nor will be rid them
of opportunity to attack him. And such a path of action is in
contradiction to his correct principle of not comparing ourselves amongst
ourselves as men (10:12).
11:13 For such men are false
apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ-
Paul claimed Divine qualification and authentication of his apostleship,
whereas these men had merely declared themselves ["fashioning themselves"]
apostles. They branded themselves as "super apostles" (:5); Paul calls
them false apostles.
The transformation of these men into something they were not is the basis
for :14; as these men 'fashioned themselves' so "Satan fashions himself".
But the connection is not historical, to some supposed even in Eden when
Satan turned into an Angel. For Genesis and the Bible are silent about
this; it is an import from paganism. The present tenses here must be given
their due weight. As the false apostles were fashioning themselves into
apostles of Christ, so 'Satan' was fashioning himself into an angel of
light. I take this as meaning that these men were part of a much larger
system of adversarial opposition to Paul's work, which he sums as 'Satan',
the adversary. And the context here and elsewhere points unmistakeably to
a Jewish satan. I have written about this at length in
The Real Devil 2-4.
There is indeed allusion to the deceit of the serpent in Eden, who was
of course adversarial ['satan' = adversary], but this is not to say that
Paul read the serpent as anything more than a literal "beast of the field"
as indeed the serpent is presented in Genesis. As the serpent deceived Eve
by his subtilty, so these false apostles worked deceitfully. These false
apostles accused Paul of having the characteristics of the serpent- crafty
and taking people in with guile (12:16). It is these very words and
allusion to the serpent which Paul now uses about the false apostles here
and in :3 and this explains the usage of serpent imagery. It all seems a
rather tit for tat situation- he was trying to outboast them, and calls
them the names they call him. This is all in contradiction of Paul's
earlier arguments that he will not commend himself as others do nor
compare himself with others. But he is carried away in a desire by all
means and by every kind of argument to try to win the Corinthians to
Christ and to himself.
11:14 And no marvel. For even
Satan fashions himself into an angel of light- See on :13. For
reasons why this is not supporting any idea of a cosmic satan, see my
The Real Devil 5-21
. It needs to be recognized that Paul’s writings very often
allude to extant Jewish and Gentile literature, sometimes quoting verbatim
from them, in order to correct popular ideas. Thus Paul quotes Aratus
(Acts 17:28), Menander (1 Corinthians 15:33) and Epimenides (Titus 1:12) –
he uses odd phrases out of these uninspired writings by way of
illustration. I’ve shown in The Real Devil that much of the
Biblical literature does this kind of thing, e.g. the entire Pentateuch is
alluding to the various myths and legends of creation and origins, showing
what the truth is. The fact Paul’s 21st century readers are largely
ignorant of that literature, coupled with Paul’s rabbinic writing style
not using specific quotation rubric or quotation marks, means that this
point is often missed. It’s rather like our reading of any historical
literature – parts of it remain hard to understand because we simply don’t
appreciate the historical and immediate context in which it was written.
When Paul speaks of Satan being transformed as a bright Angel, he’s
actually quoting from the first century AD
Life of Adam and Eve
(12–16) which speculated that ‘Satan’ refused to worship the image of God
in Adam and therefore he came to earth as a bright Angel and deceived Eve:
“Satan was wroth and transformed himself into the brightness of angels,
and went away to the river” (For references, see Susan Garrett,
The Temptations of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1998) p. 45. The
Life of Adam and Eve
was apparently widely quoted and alluded to in the first century – see
throughout M. Stone, A History of
the Literature of Adam and Eve (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press,
1992)). Paul’s quoting from that document; although in a preceding verse
(2 Cor. 11:3) he has stressed that “the
serpent beguiled Eve by
his subtilty”. He’s reaffirming the Genesis account, which doesn’t speak
of a personal Satan, but rather simply of a serpent, created as one of the
“beasts of the field”. So we could paraphrase Paul here: ‘I know that the
Jewish writings say that the serpent wasn’t really a serpent, it was
‘Satan’, and was actually in the form of a bright Angel. Now that’s not
the case – let’s stick with Genesis, which speaks of a literal serpent.
But OK, in the same way as in the Jewish myth Satan became a bright,
persuasive Angel, well, these false teachers from the Jews appear as
wonderful, spiritual people – but following them will lead you to the same
catastrophe as fell upon Eve as a result of being deceived’.
The way Paul uses the word
metaschematizo [“transform”] three times is interesting – “the
stress is so heavy here because Paul is turning their own word against his
opponents” (Neil Forsyth, Satan
and the Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1989) p. 269). If this is the case, then we would yet another example [of
which there are so many in Corinthians] of Paul using a term used by his
enemies in order to answer them – which would mean that he is not
necessarily agreeing with it. Indeed the apocryphal Jewish
Apocalypse of Moses
claims that because Satan appeared as such a dazzling, shining Angel, Eve
was inevitably deceived by him. Paul here would thus be alluding to this
idea – not that his allusion means that he supported the idea.
11:15 It is no great thing
therefore if his servants also fashion themselves as servants of
righteousness- Servants or ministers of righteousness is a
Jewish term, allusive to the priests. The Jewish satan or opposition to
Paul's work had servants / ministers who appeared to be righteous
people. Judaism presented the faithful as "the righteous" and the servants
of righteousness were those who ministered to Judaist congregations. But
they were in fact servants of what Paul terms 'the satan', his term [as
previously referenced] for the Jewish opposition. And his later
self-justification in this chapter implies that they presented themselves
as true Jews of the seed of Abraham.
Whose end shall be according
to their work- The lazy servant was punished out of his own
mouth (Lk. 19:22); and even in Job's time, this principle of Divine
condemnation was known (Job 9:20; 15:6). The Judaizers too were to have an
"end [that] will correspond to their deeds" (2 Cor. 11:14,15 RSV). Jewish
theories of the time accept that God punished the Satan figure, but the
demons got around the punishment and tempt men to sin– as if God somehow
was outwitted in the supposed struggle. But here Paul says that these men
will indeed be punished and will not get out of it. The
Apocalypse of Adam
likewise minimizes human sin by claiming that ‘Satan’ in fact raped Eve,
thus leading to the fall; the Apocalypse of Moses claims that because Satan appeared as such a
dazzling, shining Angel, Eve was inevitably deceived by him. Paul here
alludes to this idea– not that his allusion means that he supported the
idea.
11:16 I say again, let no one
think me foolish; but if you do, accept me as a fool so that I may also
boast a little- The accusation was that Paul was "foolish",
lacking the wisdom which the false teachers claimed to have. Paul is
breaking his own principles now, acting as a fool, comparing himself with
others, boasting in the flesh rather than the Spirit, and not as earlier
leaving the Corinthians to realize his sincerity in their own spirit /
conscience. He is driven by a desire as he puts it elsewhere to "speak in
human terms" to by all means persuade them to remain with him and not go
after the false teachers. Again we note that he (like the Lord Jesus)
faces false statements and beliefs by going along with them and reasoning
from their wrong perspective. If they thought him a fool, he will reason
with them from the starting point that he is a fool- rather than
protesting multiple times that he is being slandered and is no fool.
11:17- see on 1 Cor. 7:11.
What I will now speak in this
confidence of boasting, I speak not after the Lord but as in foolishness-
"After the Lord" is a reference to his opening statement in this section
that he is now going to reason with them according to the gentle humility
of Christ (10:1). He is not saying that this record of his words is not
Divinely inspired. This is yet further evidence that 2 Corinthians is an
inspired record of a flow of consciousness, whereby Paul wrote down what
he thought and felt at the time. This explains the apparent tensions- in
this case, between approaching them "after the Lord" Jesus, and yet now
departing from His meekness and gentleness in order by all means to
persuade them on the terms of comparison which they had set up.
11:18 Seeing that many boast
after the flesh, I will boast also- He is seeking to outboast
his boastful competitors, despite having earlier stated that he dare not
ever compare himself with others, for that was "not wise" (10:12). As
noted on :16 and :17, this was a departure from his own principles.
11:19 For being wise, you bear
with the foolish gladly- This kind of sarcasm is not really
much of an argument, and seems more reflective of Paul's anger, the anger
of love unrequited, than any serious attempt to persuade the Corinthians.
He is calling the competitors "foolish", and clearly thinks the
Corinthians are not really "wise" because they are following such fools.
But in terms of winning their hearts and minds for Christ and himself,
such language and quips were surely hardly effective, indeed quite the
opposite.
11:20 For it seems you follow
a man if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you
captive, if he exalts himself, if he hits you on the face- The
"bondage" and "captivity" was to the Mosaic law, and Paul often uses this
imagery in writing of the Law in Romans and Galatians. The 'devouring'
probably referred to the financial demands made upon them by the false
teachers. Why would immoral Gentile Christians be at all attracted by such
Judaists? As noted on Titus, such false teachers were attractive to the
weak Gentile Christians because their conscience about their misbehaviour
was salved, on the basis of paying some money and doing a few symbolic
acts of obedience. Many religions have swept to mass popularity on the
same basis. These false teachers exalted themselves over their flock and
were aggressive to them ("hits you on the face"). And still they returned
for more. One wonders why aggressive priests in popular churches have any
loyalty from their flocks when they behave likewise. But they do- because
they are all about guilt tripping a spiritually weak flock and then
demanding money and symbolic obedience. Smiting on the face was a
punishment for heresy or blasphemy within the synagogue system (Mt. 5:39;
Acts 23:2), although it was often administered gently and more as a
symbolic gesture. They who were so immoral, replete with church
prostitutes according to 1 Corinthians, were willing to be beaten for
their supposed apostasy from Jewish ritual law. And doubtless after
receiving it, they felt clean in their conscience and were willing to
support and pay those who had punished them.
11:21 To my shame, I can say,
we were too weak to do that- Such leadership as discussed on
:20 was seen as "strong". Paul sarcastically says that he was too weak to
have treated his flock like that.
Yet wherein any is bold (I
speak in foolishness), I am bold also- What follows is some
sort of encomium, a list of a person's biographical achievements. But it
is presented as a sarcasm about Paul’s encomium [see on Gal. 1:10]. Here
in 2 Cor. 11:21-12:10, all the classic elements of the encomium are to be
found- his origin and birth, training, accomplishments, comparison with
others etc. But he has written that those who compare themselves with
others (synkrinontes)
are fools (2 Cor. 10:12), and that he himself has been speaking as a fool,
a raving madman. That was what he thought of an encomium after the flesh.
This is all a needful lesson for our generation, surrounded as we are by
pressure to trust in education, achievements, being humanly cool and
impressive. Paul goes on to say that actually, he prefers as a Christian
to "boast of things that show my weakness" (2 Cor. 11:30). Instead of
speaking of glorious "deeds of the body", he speaks of his labours,
imprisonments, beatings etc. And thus he draws out the paradox, incredible
for the first century mind- his real strength and power is in his
weakness, for it was this that made him trust in God and in the grace of
the Lord Jesus (2 Cor. 12:10). Instead of impressing those around him,
Paul sought to impress the Father and Son above. His strength was not, as
society then thought, in what he had inherited and developed from the
communities into which he was born- it was rather in the grace of God
transforming his character. His patron, his teacher and elder, was the
Lord Jesus, and the God who raised Jesus from the dead (Gal. 1:1; Rom.
8:11), rather than any visible 'elder' of his natural communities.
11:22 Are they Hebrews? So am
I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I-
Clearly the false teachers were Jews, confirming that the 'Satan' referred
to in :14 is some kind of personification of the entire Jewish resistance
to Paul's work. Paul could have argued on a more spiritual level, as he
does in Romans and Galatians, that ethnic descent is irrelevant. But here
he takes a more human approach, arguing with them on the same terms of
reference which they use.
11:23 Are they servants of
Christ? (I speak as like a madman) I more, with far greater labours, far
more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death-
We note that only a fraction of Paul's sufferings are recorded in Acts,
which is a reminder that Biblical history is highly condensed. We see a
fraction of the biography of the people we encounter in the pages of the
Bible. Many of the imprisonments and beatings would have been at the hand
of the synagogue system, which had the authority to discipline their
members with temporary arrests and beatings. As we will also note on :24,
Paul could have avoided these by making a clean break with Judaism,
leaving the ministry to the Jew to Peter as the Lord intended, and going
solely to the Gentiles. But he chose not to follow completely the Lord's
intention for his ministry- and suffered for it. I have given multiple
examples in commentary on Acts. This doesn't mean the Lord didn't work
with him; but as in our own lives, going His way is easier than insisting
upon our own ways. Some of the beatings may have been from the Romans; but
in this case, we wonder why they beat him, seeing that they did not beat
Roman citizens like Paul (Acts 22:25,26; 23:27). Perhaps he had been
unable to prove his citizenship in some cases; or perhaps he preferred to
identify as a Jew and downplayed his Roman citizenship, suffering for it,
because he so wished to identify with Israel in order to bring Israel to
the Lord Jesus. In Philippi he seems to have kept quiet about his
citizenship until after he had been scourged. But again, so much of this
could have been avoided if Paul had followed the path of ministry
envisaged by the Lord, to go to the Gentiles and leave the Jews to Peter.
Paul was ever aware of his own proneness to failure. He saw himself as
tempted to be like the man in the parable who thought he should have more,
because he had laboured more abundantly than the others (Mt. 20:12 Gk. = 2
Cor. 11:23).
11:24 Of the Jews five times I
received thirty nines lashes- When the world reviled him, Paul
saw himself as the beaten prophets Jesus had spoken about (2 Cor. 11:24,25
= Mt. 21:35). But such punishments from the synagogue system could have
been avoided if Paul had not gone to the Jews and left them to Peter; see
on :23. Forty lashes were thought enough to kill a man, and the thirty
nine lash punishment was only to be given to a man once in his lifetime,
according to synagogue law. The repeated experience of such major beating
would have left Paul's back a real mess. In Acts 22:25 we get the
impression Paul was willing to be scourged yet again, but at the last
minute played the card of his Roman citizenship to avoid it. Perhaps this
was because the previous lashings had left him so deformed and infected
that he realized that if he were to be lashed again he would probably die.
The pattern of preaching which we see in the Father and in the Lord Jesus
must be our model. He identified with us in order to 'get through' to us;
the power of His personality and work rests in the fact that He was
genuinely human. God Himself chose this method, of manifestation in a Son
of our nature, in order to redeem us. We can do likewise, in identifying
with our audience; living as they do when in a mission field; learning
their language, both literally and metaphorically; patient bearing with
those suffering from depression, Aspergers, alcoholism, various
neuroses... to win them. Thus to the Gentiles Paul became as a Gentile;
and as a Jew in order that he might win them who were under the law (1
Cor. 9:20). This is exemplified by the fact that he underwent synagogue
floggings (2 Cor. 11:24)- which were only administered to Jews who
willingly submitted to the punishment because they were orthodox Jews.
This was the extent to which Paul became as a Jew in the hope of winning
the Jews. Fly by preachers, seeking to establish a colony of their home
base, will never achieve much lasting success. Paul would pay any price in
order to identify with his audience, in order to win them to Christ. He
was living out the spirit of Jesus, who likewise identified Himself with
us to the maximum extent in order to save us. “Forty lashes minus one” was
a synagogue punishment, based on Dt. 25:2,3, which could only be
administered to members of the synagogue community- and apparently, the
members had the right under local Roman law to resign from the synagogue
and escape the punishment. It would’ve been far easier for Paul to disown
Judaism and insist he was not a member of any synagogue. But he didn’t.
Why? Surely because this was the extent to which he was willing to be all
things to all men, to truly be a Jew in order to save the Jews. And we too
can choose daily the extent to which we identify ourselves with those whom
we seek to save. It’s not simply the case of a Western missionary
suffering privations along with the impoverished local population to whom
he or she seeks to preach. It’s about us each getting involved in the mess
of others’ lives, at great personal cost, in order to show true solidarity
with them, on which basis we can more effectively witness to them. This is
surely the way in which we are to ‘love the world’; this inhuman world,
this enormous collection of desperate, lonely people, into whose mundane
experiences we can enter simply through genuine, caring, person-to-person
encounter. And by doing this we will find ourselves. For it seems to me
that the truly creative and original personalities, the Lord Jesus being
the supremest, are those who give of themselves in order to enter into the
lives and sufferings of others. And that, by the way, may explain why
there are so few truly freethinking minds. Paul didn’t just love the
Jewish people in theory, he didn’t draw a distinction between the Jews as
persons, and their role or status before God. He loved them as persons,
and so he suffered for them in order to save them.
11:25 Three times I was beaten
with rods, once was I stoned, three times I suffered shipwreck, a night
and a day have I been adrift at sea- Only one beating with
rods is recorded (Acts 16:22 s.w.), but Acts records only a fraction of
Paul's sufferings. Beating with rods was forbidden to Roman citizens by
the Lex Porcia, but
Paul kept quiet about his Roman citizenship in order to receive it (Acts
16:37). He so wished to identify as a Jew in order to save the Jews; all
he had to do was utter the words
Civis Romanus sum and he could have avoided these beatings
with rods, which often caused the death of the victim. We must ask to what
extent we are willing to suffer in order to achieve identity with those we
seek to save by our witness. The shipwrecks were prior to that on the
journey to Rome; the Acts record of Paul's travels says nothing of them
and we wonder how many other dramas were not recorded.
Paul endured one of the most traumatic lives ever lived- beaten with
rods, shipwrecked, sleepless, cold, naked, betrayed, robbed, beaten, and
so much of this isn’t recorded (e.g. the three shipwrecks and two of the
beatings with rods he speaks of in 2 Cor. 11 aren’t mentioned in Acts).
And yet he implies that even more than all that, he felt the pressure of
care for his brethren in the churches. His heart so bled for them… Paul
lived a traumatic life, lived with weakness, fear, trembling, tears,
distress, dying daily, burdened beyond measure, despairing of life, having
the sentence of death, sleeplessness… and all this would have had quite
some effect upon him nervously. Almost certainly it would have lead him to
be depressive, and this may explain some of these flashes of anger. Yet
these flecks of pride and anger reflect something of Paul's former self.
He is described as fuming out hatred against the Christians like an
animal; he was driven by hate and anger. Stephen's death sentence was
against Pharisaic principles; and it was a studied rejection of the more
gentle, tolerant attitude taught by Gamaliel, Paul's early mentor ("though
I distribute all my belonging to feed the poor..." is Paul virtually
quoting Gamaliel- he clearly was aware of his stance). People like Paul
who come from strict, authoritarian backgrounds can have a tendency to
anger, and yet in Paul there seems also to have operated an inferiority
complex, a longing for power, and a repressed inner guilt. Although Paul
changed from an angry man to one dominated by love, to the extent that he
could write hymns of love such as 1 Cor. 13, there were times when under
provocation the old bitterness and anger flashed back. We too have these
moments, and yet in the fact that Paul too experienced them even in
spiritual maturity, we have some measure of comfort.
11:26 On frequent journeys, in
danger from rivers, in danger from robbers, in danger from my own people,
in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the
wilderness, in danger at sea, in danger from false brothers-
Travel in the first century was a risky business; flash floods ["rivers"]
in Asia Minor claimed many lives. And Paul additionally had to cope with
the opposition of both Jews and Gentiles. To obey the great commission to
take the Gospel out into the world was therefore a call to face danger and
hardship. In spiritual terms, that same calling has not been made any less
radical for we who face so many distractions and issues which would
likewise discourage us from obeying it.
The "false brothers" were surely those of Gal. 2:4, the Jews bent on
derailing Paul's missionary work by entering the churches he founded under
the guise of being converts. Paul is here hinting that he knows exactly
who the false teachers of Corinth are; or as he puts it in 2:11, he was
not ignorant of the devices of the [Jewish] satan. Paul mentions this
problem last in this list because he wanted to highlight how aware he was
of it.
11:27 In toil and hardship-
Literally, weariness and pain. Perhaps Paul's traumatic life resulted in
some form of M.E. or similar disease, causing pain and sucking his energy,
resulting in insomnia.
In many a sleepless night, in
hunger and thirst, in frequent fastings, in cold and nakedness-
Paul loved Israel with the love of Christ: he describes his hunger,
thirst, nakedness, insomnia and loss of all things in the very language
used about Israel's condemnation (2 Cor. 11:27 alludes Dt. 28:48). In
other words, he saw himself as somehow bearing their punishment for
apostasy in his own life, as if he was some kind of suffering
representative for them. His sufferings were the very opposite of what the
Judaists believed should accompany an accredited spiritual teacher, for
they practiced a form of the prosperity Gospel, having a proverb that "a
goodly house, a fair wife, and a soft couch” were the prerogatives of the
“disciples of the wise”. Paul is in a way confirming their secular view
that he was 'unwise'. But as he has stated in 1 Cor. 1, there is a total
inversion of secular wisdom and blessing for those who are of the Spirit.
11:28 Besides those things
that are without, there is the daily pressure of my anxiety for all the
churches- Paul identified his biggest pressure as "the care of
all the churches" which he said 'came upon (Gk. to throng / mob / rush at)
(him) daily' (2 Cor. 11:28)- as if he woke up each morning and had these
anxieties thronging his mind.
11:29- see on 1 Cor. 8:9.
Who is weak, without me being
weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?- The word
he uses for “weak" is one which features frequently in his writings, and
it nearly always refers to the spiritually weak (Rom. 4:19; 14:1,2,21; 1
Cor. 8:9,11,12). He was so sensitive to his brethren that when he
considered their spiritual weakness, he felt the same. He identified with
them, he could put his arm around someone who was all slipping way and say
“I’m with you" and so evidently mean it. He had a genuine and obvious
sense of solidarity with them. He wasn’t critical of them to the extent
that he made a barrier between him and them. They knew his disapproval of
their ways, but yet it was so evident that his heart bled for them. And
when Paul saw a brother being offended, he burnt. His heart burnt and bled
as he saw someone drifting away with a chip on their shoulder. He didn’t
just shrug and think 'Well that’s up to them, their choice'. He cared for
them. That brother, that sister, and their future meant so much to him. If
Paul had lived in the 21st century, he would have telephoned them, written
to them, visited them, met with them regularly. To be weak and to be
offended are bracketed in Rom. 14:21: "Your brother is offended, or is
made weak". And here in 2 Cor. 11:29 we have the same idea: "Who is weak,
and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?". The parallels imply
that if the weak brother was offended, Paul himself was as it were
offended, even though he himself didn’t stumble. He could identify with
the spiritual weakness of others to the point of feeling that he himself
had committed it or was in the shoes of the sinner- even though he himself
was innocent. Paul could share with the Corinthians that he ‘burnt’ every
time a brother stumbled from the way, feeling weak with the weak. The
'burning' could be a reference to the figurative usage of fire as the end
destruction of the condemned at the last day. Paul felt their condemnation
as if it were happening to him. He did not shrug and turn away but rather
felt their spiritual situation as being his, such was his identity with
them. He was no mere platform speaker, or a church member only
theoretically connected with their brethren by common ascent to a
statement of faith.
11:30 If it is necessary for
me to boast, I will boast of the things that concern my weakness-
The supreme qualification was in his weakness. We noted on :21 that Paul
has been presenting a kind of inverted form of the biographical list of
achievements which was commonly known as an 'encomium'. And now he sums up
his humiliations with an incident which for him epitomized the humiliation
which characterized his entire ministry. His glorying in his infirmities
in 12:5 is similar.
11:31 The God and Father of
the Lord Jesus, He who is blessed for always, knows that I do not lie to
you- The Corinthians considered Paul to be a liar, hence his
frequent protestations that he is speaking the truth before God. Judaism
spoke of God as the ever blessed One, but Paul here makes it clear that
this title is true through His being the Father of the Lord Jesus, through
whom His blessings are now articulated to men.
11:32 In Damascus, the
governor, under Aretas the king, guarded the city of the Damascenes in
order to capture me- Paul has his historical facts correct,
for Aretas was an Arabian king from Petra who briefly ruled over Damascus.
If the Bible is a forgery or uninspired, there would be major blunders in
historical fact; but there are not. The Jews clearly had influence with
him, far more than the Acts record indicates, and had his whole garrison
(AV- an appropriate term, seeing Aretas of Petra had only recently taken
control in Damascus) trying to catch Paul. There was therefore a
mobilization of a large number of soldiers in order to stop Paul escaping
Damascus. Hence the impression it left upon Paul.
11:33 And only through a
window I was let down in a basket by the wall- Paul sees this escape through a window in a basket as so humiliating
because it associates him with David's escape from Saul's persecution. And
Paul- the former Saul- saw himself as having persecuted David-Jesus and
was ashamed of it. Paul seems to take a certain pleasure in this inversion
of values. He boasts of how his greatest moment was when he was let
down a wall in a basket,
in fear for his life (2 Cor. 11:30-33). "In antiquity a Roman soldier who
was first up a wall and into a conquered city would win a special award
called a wall crown. Paul says he will boast of being first
down the wall"- running from the enemy (Ben Witherington,
The Paul Quest p. 124).
He was the very reverse of the classical ancient warrior. This inversion
of values is just as hard and counter-cultural to live by in our world.
It's quite possible that garbage was lowered over the wall into a rubbish
tip at the foot of the wall, which would have added to the humiliation.
Outside the city, with wild dogs howling amongst the stinking garbage...
this was the Biblical picture of condemnation. And Paul experienced it and
through that humiliation was saved. In essence, we pass through the same
experience.
A
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter 
