<p>10:10 <i>For they say: His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech of no account</i>- But was his physical presence indeed &quot;of no account&quot;? The Roman Governor Felix <i>trembled</i> at Paul's incisive logic- even in his prison uniform (Acts 24:25). Hardened Agrippa was almost persuaded by Paul, on his own public admission, to become a Christian (Acts 26:28). The Galatian converts would have pulled out their eyes from their sockets and given them to partially sighted Paul (Gal. 4:15). The aggressive crowd, baying for Paul's blood, were held in one of history's most uncanny silences by the sheer personality of that preacher. He beckoned with his hand, and &quot; there was made a great silence...and when they heard how (Gk.) he spake... they kept the more silence&quot; (Acts 21:39-22:2). Pagans at Lystra were so overcome by his oratory that they were convinced he was the god Mercury come down to earth; it took Paul quite some effort to persuade them that he was an ordinary man (Acts 14:12). This was the man Paul. He had undoubted ability as a preacher. Yet apparently the Corinthians mocked his weak physical presence; although Paul had undoubted charisma and power of personality, right up to the end. Was it not that he consciously suppressed the power of his personality when he visited Corinth? This was humility and self-knowledge indeed. Indeed, his reasoning in 2 Cor. 10,11 is that he could present himself to Corinth as quite a different brother Paul than what he did. Although Paul did have a significant physical presence, he doesn't dispute with the Corinthians about it. Instead he more humbly makes the point that presence or absence is insignificant in spiritual terms.&nbsp;</p><p>So I suggest that Paul made himself a weak person in his dealings with Corinth, just as the Lord also humbled himself, made Himself lowly as an act of the will. He could truly be all things to all people, he wasn&rsquo;t constrained by his natural personality type as so many of us allow ourselves to be. This is why Paul could go on in :11 to warn Corinth that the next time he visits them, he won&rsquo;t be weak. He will &lsquo;be&rsquo; as he is in his letters. In all this we see the full import of the sacrifice and crucifixion of self of which the Lord repeatedly speaks. Putting meaning into words, this means that we will genuinely &lsquo;be&rsquo; the person we need to be in order to help others.</p><p>&quot;His letters, say they (Paul's detractors in the new Israel) are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible... though I be rude in speech... Christ sent me... to preach the Gospel: not with wisdom of words (mg. speech)&quot; (2 Cor. 10:10; 11:6; 1 Cor. 1:17).&nbsp;This is all the language of Moses, Paul&rsquo;s hero. Paul would have remembered Stephen saying how Moses was formerly full of worldly <i>wisdom</i> and &quot;mighty in words&quot; (Acts 7:22), even though Moses felt &quot; I am not eloquent (mg. a man of words)... I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue&quot; (Ex. 4:10). Maybe Paul likewise was mighty in words and wisdom, but felt like Moses that he wasn&rsquo;t. He allowed Moses&rsquo; legendary humility to personally inspire him, rather than just admire it from afar, ticking the box, saying yes, Moses was humble&hellip;</p><p>It was believed that nature and destiny had decreed your place, and there was to be no questioning of it. Thus according to the first century principle of 'physiognomics', a slave was born with a muscular, servile body, an upper class female Roman was born beautiful, etc. The idea of education was to train them up to be as they were intended to be by nature. The ancient world believed that all that was decreed and predestined by nature would have some sort of physical reality in the appearance of a person. Hence the challenging nature of Paul's command not to judge by the outward appearance; and again, Divine providence overturned all this by choosing Paul as such a &quot;chosen vessel&quot;, when his outward appearance and manner of speaking were so weak and unimpressive, literally 'lacking strength' (2 Cor. 10:10).</p>