Bible Commentaries
2 Corinthians 10

Verses 1-21

XXXI

EXPOSITION PAUL’S REPLY TO HIS ENEMIES

2 Corinthians 10:1-12:21.

This discussion, commencing at 2 Corinthians 10, closes up the second letter to the Corinthians. This closing section of the book is so utterly unlike the preceding part, that a great many people try to make it a part of a different letter, but they are very much mistaken. The difference arises from the fact that the first nine chapters were addressed to the working majority of the church, and these last chapters refer to the incorrigible minority. The object of the last section is to defend the apostleship and gospel of Paul from the charges made by certain Jewish emissaries who came from Jerusalem to that place, as at other places where he had been, and endeavored to wreck his Work. We have considered this matter somewhat in our exposition of the former letter. We will consider it much more in the next two letters – Galatians and Romans. In these four letters the great controversy is discussed.

The charges of these Jewish brethren with their letters of recommendation were about these: First, he was not coming to them; he kept saying he would come, and even if he should come, he would be very humble when present, though bold in his absence. Second, that he boasted too much of his apostolic authority, trying to overawe the people with his letters, though when present his person was insignificant and his speech contemptible. Third, that he was not in his proper sphere – not a true apostle, not even a true Jew; that he virtually confessed he was not an apostle by not asserting his apostolic authority, as Peter in killing Ananias and Sapphira; that he confessed it in not exacting support from the people to’ whom he preached, but that while he did not exact any money while he was there, he was arranging for a very large collection. Why should those poor people at Corinth be taking up a collection for some interest away off yonder, unless Paul wanted to scoop the money into his own hands? Of course, his not taking money when he was there was that be might send Titus, his henchman, and take a big collection for himself. In other words, being crafty, he caught them with guile to make gain of them.

Of course, these charges are inferred from his defense. We see into his very heart, so sensitive and so deeply wounded, that he is forced to the seeming folly of boasting. We, in our day, rejoice that their assault led to so many rich disclosures of his life and heart that otherwise his modesty would have concealed. It is never a pleasant thing to expose rascality. But we have this pleasure – if these men had not preferred these charges, we never would have had the statement in these chapters which are of imperishable value to the world.

He commences by making his reply to the charges that be was a very humble, modest man when he is present, but when he is absent he is bold: "Now I, Paul, myself entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am of good courage toward you; yea, I beseech you, that I may not when present show courage with the confidence wherewith I could be bold against some, who count of us as if we walked according to the flesh." In other words, he did not want to assume this boldness, because God did not give him this power except for the purpose of building up. Only with great reluctance did Paul ever use his apostolic power to vindicate himself, and never unless the gospel was jeopardized and needed vindication. He had this power, which was not carnal, but was of God. In the exercise of this power he could reach any wicked imagination of their hearts; he would pull down any strong- hold of opposition. He had but to speak the word and God would attest the truth of the word. But for himself, in his love for them, he deprecated such use of the power. They had judged according to the external appearance when they concluded that because he was a modest and humble man, therefore he did not have the apostolic power. Some people parade their authority and want to show it off. Paul preferred to reach men by persuasion, to govern by gentleness, always to win and not to drive.

With reference to his personal appearance and his speech, he uses this language: "That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by my letters. ’For, his letters,’ they say, ’are weighty and strong; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is of no account.’ Let such a one reckon this, that, what we are in word by letters when we are absent, such are we also in deed when we are present." They made the mistake of using the wrong standard of measurement, and this gives us a fine text to preach from. In the King James Version it reads: "They, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." Whenever any fallible test is made a standard of measurement we are certain to bring about a wrong result.

When I was a young preacher I preached on that text. I stated that I decided to put up a picket fence around my place, and as I needed exercise, I thought I would saw the pickets for myself. I sawed off one just long enough to measure by, then the next one by that, and the third by the second, and so on. When I put up my pickets I found there was an inch and a half difference in the height. Every variation that you make repeats and magnifies itself. We must have one fixed standard of measurement and use that standard every time we saw a picket. God has given one standard.

We don’t say that everybody must come up to the measure of Sam Houston or Daniel Webster. When we hear religious experiences we do not say that they must all be alike. We may not have had the same length of despondency as someone else. All we have to do is to tell our experience and let it be measured by God’s Word. No human standard can be good. Some people imitate others. Some preachers select an ideal preacher, and try to imitate him. There used to be a Negro preacher that tried to imitate Dr. Burleson. He would enter the house carrying his big silk hat, bow, and sit down like Dr. Burleson, and strange to say, measuring by human standards, people more often imitate the follies than the excellencies. Paul says, "These men have come here on the field of my labor and set up an arbitrary standard of measurement, and they want to make me fit it. I will only be measured by God’s standard, not man’s."

Continuing his argument, he says with reference to the sphere, "But we will not glory beyond our measure, but according to the measure of the province which God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even unto you. For we stretch not ourselves overmuch, as though we reached not unto you; for we came even as far as unto you in the gospel of Christ."

I think the greatest missionary sermon I ever preached was from that text: "We came even as far as you in the gospel of Christ, having hope that, as your faith groweth, we shall preach the gospel in the regions beyond you." I drew an histopical picture of the progress of the gospel, commencing at Jerusalem, until at this time it had reached Corinth in Europe. It represented many long journeys and varied experiences of Paul. Paul’s rule was when he reached a place not to conduct all of his campaign from the original base, but to make the new church a new base: "I have this hope, that I shall establish a missionary church at Corinth, and that through that missionary church, I shall reach out to the region beyond, and establish other missionary churches beyond you, and use them as a base to reach others yet beyond." That discloses Paul’s method of work. That province had been assigned to him by the Lord Jeans Christ. They claimed that he was out of his sphere. Peter and James recognized that God had sent Paul to the Gentiles. They gave him the right hand of fellowship on that. God’s providence had met him there. God’s Spirit had blessed him there, and he was not building on any other man’s foundation.

The next chapter commences this way: "Would that ye could bear with me in a little foolishness." They claimed that he was foolish. "Well, hear a little foolishness. You bear with people who are more foolish." Notice what he says about what they had borne. If one should even slap them in the face they would bear it. "Now bear with me. I am indeed jealous over you, but it is a godly jealousy. I haven’t that envy and jealousy that one preacher has for another preacher lest the one beat me preaching. My jealousy is one that God approves. There come preachers to you who do not preach the true gospel, who come in another spirit and preach another Jesus, and as the serpent beguiled Eve with subtlety, so will they seduce you. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if ye receive a different spirit, which ye did not receive, or a different gospel, which ye did not accept, ye do well to bear with him. For I reckon that I am not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." Their next objection was that Paul was not a trained orator: "But though I be rude in speech, yet I am not in knowledge."

As to that question of support, he says, "Did I commit a sin . . . because I preached to you the gospel of God for nought? I did receive wages from other churches. Part of the time I supported myself and part of the time the Macedonian churches supplied my necessities while I preached to you. Instead of being led to refrain from claiming support because I distrusted my apostolic right to do that, my object was an entirely different one. I had a number of lessons I wanted to teach you. One reason was that I might take away from anybody who sought occasion to object to my ministry on that account. I wanted to teach you lessons as I taught the Thessalonians, that men ought to work; that industry is a good thing." He says, "It was wrong I did you and I ask you to forgive the wrong."

It is a sin for the gospel to be preached contrary to the declaration of Christ that "they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel."

Every enterprise should pay its own expenses and yield its fruits to the laborer. "I made you inferior in this, that I took away from you the dignity of paying for the gospel preached to you."

I discussed that question before the Southern Baptist Convention once when there was such a hue and cry against agents. I told this anecdote: An Irishman had only one load of powder and shot, and he had to have something to eat. He saw a coon up a tree and fired at it. The coon fell out and hit the ground so hard that it burst open. The Irishman said, "Faith, and what a fool I was to waste that load of ammunition; the fall would have killed him." There are people who talk about a waste of ammunition, but coons don’t fall out of the tops of trees unless someone wastes a load of shot on them.

Let us look at 2 Corinthians 11:20: "For ye bear with a man, if he bringeth you into bondage, if he devoureth you, if he taketh you captive, if he exalteth himself, if he smiteth you on the face." Those fellows with those letters of recommendation were very exalted beings, and demanded high recognition; there was no humility about them. They claimed money, and they got money, and they brought the people from gospel freedom into bondage, and they would even insult them by slapping them in the face. There are some people who are never influenced by gentle means. The old Webster spelling book tells us that a man may talk softly to a boy up an apple tree and he won’t come down. He may throw turf at him and he won’t come down. He has to rock him to get him down. There are some people who want a leader that will knock them down and drag them out, and they have no respect for a leader that can- not fight and call somebody a liar. The one who shot down the most men in western towns used to be a hero. Paul says that these people were like those who cringe before their masters like dogs. That reminds me of Aesop’s fable of King Log.

As to the charge that he was not a Jew, here is his reply: "Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I am more." Now follows a passage of Scripture that ought to be written in letters of gold and carried with every preacher. It shows what Paul had suffered for the gospel up to this time: "In labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my 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; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily – anxiety for all the churches." I suppose if we put together the labors and sufferings of all the other apostles, they would not equal the sufferings of this one man. When we read the book of Acts, we do not read about any of these shipwrecks, and only one on the scourgings, the one at Philippi by the Roman lictors. Scarcely any of the other perils are mentioned.

No wonder John Mark got scared when they left the Isle of Cyprus and went on to the mainland. Up those mountains, and swimming those river torrents, and meeting those robbers, Paul’s every step was into the jaws of death, always the Spirit of God bearing witness with his spirit that bonds and imprisonments awaited him. He counted it the same as breathing, and more certain than food, for often he did not know he would get any food. How many times do we preachers suffer real hunger in doing our duty as preachers? Do we ever swim creeks? How many times have we been in jail and whipped by the magistrates?

They used to whip Baptist preachers in Virginia, and in ungodly New England it was a devout exercise to banish Quakers and whip Baptists. I have the history of the old Philadelphia Association. Within four years of the time that the battle of Lexington was fought, and almost within sight of the battleground, a large community of Baptists were taxed to build a meeting house for the Congregationalists in a community where there were no Congregationalists. Whenever they did not pay the tax readily, law officers came and attached the center acre of their farms or gardens, and then under forced auction sales, their enemies would bid in their property for a song.

We are living in a good, easy time. But our fathers have been tested. It is certainly true that throughout the dark ages whoever was true to the gospel of Jesus Christ walked at least somewhat in the steps of Paul. There are historians who are unable to see any connection between the Baptists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the preceding sufferings for Christ, but they are very dim-eyed. The gospel is always transmitted by men. Paul says, "What I commit to you, do you commit to faithful men who shall come after you." Somebody carries the gospel, and it always broke out in the places where these faithful preachers went. They could not publish books and preach in houses. They had to preach in the caverns of the earth, and even in pious Switzerland where John Calvin laid the foundation of Presbyterianism, the men who insisted on immersion as baptism were condemned to be drowned: I you will dip, we will dip you."

In 2 Corinthians 12 he comes to another proof of his authority – the revelations made to him. We have read nothing of this in the preceding history. It occurred during his Cilician ministry, to which there are only two New Testament references: "I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not; or whether out of the body, I know not; God knoweth) ; such a one caught up even to the third heaven. And I know such a man (whether in the body, or apart from the body, I know not; God knoweth) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter." In other words, "You say I am not an apostle. This is only one of the many experiences that I have had with my Lord." This man was selected as a special medium of divine revelation, and God honored him by catching him up to the third heaven – the paradise of God. The word "paradise" occurs here, and where the Saviour spoke it on the cross: "This day shalt thou be with me m paradise," and in the third chapter of Revelation: "To him that overcometh to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." These are the only three places where the word occurs in the New Testament, and from these passages it is easy to see where Paul was carried. The tree of life was in the midst of the paradise of God, and the last of Revelation locates that tree of life: "And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." That is paradise regained – the paradise that the original paradise typified. The first Adam lost the type, and the Second Adam gained the antitype. Paul says, "I do not know whether it was just my spirit taken out of my body and carried up there – cannot answer that psychological question – but I know that God caught me up into the paradise of heaven. I heard things not proper to tell now." Notice that Lazarus told nothing as to his experiences the other side of the grave. Our revelation must come from God.

Now Paul says, "By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me." Of course, everybody wants to know what that thorn in the flesh was, but we can only conjecture. I infer from some statements in the letter to the Galatians that it was his weak eyes. He had to be led around, and have his letters written. He wrote the letter to the Galatians with his own hand, and calls attention to the "sprawling letters." He says the Galatians were so much in love with the gospel he preached that they would have plucked out their own eyes and given him. So I infer that the devil was permitted to afflict him. He prayed three times that the affliction might be taken away. There are two other cases where three prayers were made to God like this case, and where those praying did not get the request in the form they asked for it. God did not take away the thorn in the flesh, but he answered Paul’s prayer by giving him grace to bear it.

In regard to that money business he says, "I did not myself burden you, but, being crafty, I caught you with guile." We must understand these words as quoted by him. It was the charge of his enemies to which he replies: "Did I take advantage of you by any one of them whom I have sent unto you? I exhorted Titus, and I sent the other brother with him. Did Titus take any advantage of you? Walked we not in the came spirit? Walked we not in the same steps?" I don’t suppose any man ever acted more prudently than Paul did in the management of money.

QUESTIONS

1. What can you say of the closing section (2 Corinthians 10-13) and from what does the difference arise?

2. What is the object of this last section, and where may we find the discussion extended?

3. What are the charges of the Judaizers, and how did they say that he acknowledged that he was not an apostle?

4. What is Paul’s reply to the charge that he was humble and modest when present, but bold when absent?

5. What is his reply to the charge that his letters were weighty and strong, but his bodily presence was weak, etc.?

6. What the mistake of the accusers on this point, what illustration from the experience of the author, and what the application to the Christian experience?

7. What is Paul’s reply to the accusation that he was out of his sphere, what great missionary text in this connection, what was Paul’s method of work as revealed in this reply, and what recognition was given Paul in this sphere?

8. What his reply to the charge that he was foolish?

9. What his answer to the objection that he was not a trained orator?

10. What his reply to the charge that he did not demand a support?

11. What is the teaching here on ministerial support? Illustrate.

12. What is the character and methods of Paul’s Judaizing accusers, and how does this method seem to fit some people? Illustrate.

13. What is his reply to the charge that he was not a. Jew, and, briefly, what were Paul’s sufferings for the gospel up to this time?

14. How does this paragraph from the life of Paul fit our case, and what, briefly, some of the sufferings of our forefathers?

15. What proof of his authority does Paul present in 2 Corinthians 12, and how does it prove it?

16. What three passages in the Bible contain the word "paradise," and where is paradise?

17. What was Paul’s "thorn in the flesh," and why was it given him?

18. What God’s answer to his prayer respecting it, and what other similar cases in the Bible?

19. How did Paul reply to their charge respecting the money matter?

NOTE: For the first part of the discussion of the revolt against apostolic authority, see 1 Corinthians 16:1.