Bible Commentaries
2 Corinthians 11

Verses 1-19

11 Even forbearance and gentleness have their limits. The apostle makes it clear that. when he came to them again he would act quite as severely as he wrote in dealing with those who still opposed him. He does not wish to be judged by their standard for it is of no use at all to measure man by men. Anyone can be great in a community of dwarfs. If the standard is false, so is the greatness.

13 These opponents of his were overstretching themselves. They never came as far as Corinth in proclaiming the evangel, but after Paul had toiled, then they came along and boasted as if they, not he, had outstripped others in bringing it to them. Paul was planning to carry the evangel beyond them into regions where it had never been proclaimed. Were they intending to outstrip him in reaching out to virgin fields, that they might have a real cause for boasting? It is evident that it suited them better to boast in what was already accomplished by another, rather than endure the toil and privation of a missionary journey with all its difficulties and dangers. Paul had a right to boast, if anyone had. He ought to have been so high in their esteem that no one could displace him in their regard, least of all those who had no real claim on them and who chose to defame the one who had toiled and suffered for them in their very midst.

1 Paul did not wish the Corinthians to divide their allegiance among a number of men, nor indeed, to yield it to anyone but Christ. When a virgin is engaged, she is no longer free to follow other men, but should keep herself for her affianced. So with us. Let us not follow men,

but be single toward Christ. The point in this figure is confined to the singleness and purity of the espoused virgin. It must not be overstretched into an allusion to the marriage state. The faithful in Israel are the bride of the Lambkin. Israel was Jehovah's wife, but was divorced for her unfaithfulness. John the Baptist introduced the bride to the Bridegroom. His disciples left him for his Lord. The new Jerusalem will be on earth, the home of the twelve tribes of Israel. Ours is a heavenly allotment.

4 The newcomers in Corinth did not have anything to proclaim more than Paul had already made known to them. Paul’s speech may have been plain, but his knowledge was not deficient by any means. In this, more than in anything else, he was far beyond any other apostle. He knew all that the Circumcision had to proclaim. They could tell him nothing that he did not fully apprehend already. They, on the other hand, had to learn of his commission and the truth he taught, from him. Peter, the greatest of them, found some things in his epistles hard to understand ( 2Pe_3:16 ). We may well go further than his own words, and ackowledge that he towers far above all the rest, especially in those later revelations which, at the time this epistle was penned, had not yet been made kown.

7 The only charge they could sustain against him was that he had proclaimed the evangel to them without receiving anything from them, not even enough to pay for his scanty wants. Poor Macedonia helped to supply his necessities in rich Corinth. Here is an excellent example for our modern evangelism. Where are the evangelists today who can say, I have preached the evangel gratuitously? Did these opponents of Paul in Corinth follow in his footsteps in this regard? Their mercenary motives would doubtless lead them in quite an opposite extreme.

13 Satan changes his tactics to conform to God's administrations. At times he deceives, and again he destroys. Peter speaks of him as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour ( 1Pe_5:8 ). Such will be his course in the judgment era following the present administration of grace, when the epistles of Peter will have their application. Now Satan is transfigured into an angel of light. He is not hideous, but beautiful. His servants stand for righteousness and pose as apostles of Christ. His world is not found in the sinks of iniquity, but in the efforts to educate and reform mankind apart from the blood of Christ. He deceives by assuming the very role which he is popularly supposed to oppose.

Verses 20-33

20 Paul's patient and forbearing behavior among them was in striking contrast to the course of his detractors. They treated the Corinthians like slaves, while Paul served them like a slave. They devoured their substance. Paul provided for himself by his own labor or the gifts of other ecclesias. They took what they could obtain. Paul refused to take anything from them. They set themselves high above the Corinthians. Paul humbled himself among them. They even treated them to personal indignities. Paul confesses ironically that he was too weak to intimidate them in this fashion. And yet they not only tolerated but actually relished such treatment!

22 "Hebrews" denotes not merely Israelites, but that party in the nation which was zealous for the law and the traditions, in contrast to the Hellenists, who were tainted with Greek culture.

(See Act_6:1 ).

22 Paul now, in his assumed imprudence, compares himself with them. As to physical descent he can match them on every point. But when it comes to his service, he stands unparalleled and unapproachable. Here was a man by no means strong, often suffering from some form of physical infirmity, leading a life of incessant peril, enduring and daring all for the sake of the evangel. The record in Acts seems full of his sufferings, but it is evident that the account in Acts is by no means complete. There is no record of the five Jewish scourges. Only one of theRoman beatings, the one at Philippi, is elsewhere mentioned. The stoning was at Lystra ( Act_14:19 ). Not one of the shipwrecks is found in the account in Acts, for the one there recorded was long after this.

26 Travel was attended with much hazard in Paul's time, especially as he probably went unattended and unarmed. But more dangerous than the robbers who infested the highways was the constant plotting of the Jews to kill him, and the opposition on all sides to his evangel,

which often clashed with the prejudice and material interests of the nations.

32 When Paul returned from Arabia to Damascus and preached boldly in the name of Jesus, he confounded the Jews who lived at Damascus, proving that he was proclaiming the Messiah. Here was something for him to boast about! But no. He boasts only in his weakness. He had no strength to withstand the Jews who sought to kill him. They had the whole garrison of the city on the alert to arrest him. So he boasts in his humiliating escape, being lowered through the wall, probably at some overhanging window, in a wicker basket!

1 Now, however, Paul comes to that which is doubtless, his greatest ground for glorying. Fourteen years before finds him on his first missionary journey after his severance at Antioch.

At Lystra he is stoned and left for dead ( Act_14:26 ). It is more than likely that this, the time when his battered body was supposed to be finished with this life, is when he is transported in spirit to the third heaven. There are three heavens in Scripture. The first was of old ( 2Pe_3:5 ) and perished, but was followed by "the heavens which are now" ( 2Pe_3:7 ). But these, too, are transient. The third heaven is viewed by the apostle John in the Unveiling ( Rev_21:1 ). John, however, does not enter the new heaven, but confines himself to a description of the new earth. Paul entered the third heaven and there saw (what he afterward revealed in his Perfection Epistles) the universal supremacy of Christ and the supernal dignity and bliss conferred on the ecclesia which is Christ's body. He also enters the new earth and its park, which John describes ( Rev_22:2 ) . All of this he had seen, but he was not allowed to disclose it until the time was ripe. This came when Israel's apostasy was full blown, as recorded at the close of the book of Acts. Till then he does not even claim to be the man who had seen and heard such transcendent revelations.

7 Who would not be elated beyond measure at such revelations as had been confided to him? But Paul had good reason to refrain from boasting. A painful physical infirmity was given him to keep him humble. A thorn in the flesh is hardly adequate, a splinter is nearer, but still too weak an expression, for Paul would not entreat thrice for the removal of some minor distress. But it was not removed. Instead, he received grace and the assurance that God's power finds infirmity its fittest tool. He needs none of man's strength. It hinders the manifestation of His power. O, that we could learn this lesson! We repine and are dejected when infirmity and persecution and necessity press upon us, when we should rejoice. Paul delighted in them, not for their own sake, but that the power of Christ may be manifested through them. May His grace be our sole sufficiency!