2 Corinthians 10--Paul Defends His Ministry

2 Corinthians 10
English Standard Version

Paul Defends His Ministry
10 I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!-- 2 I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

7 Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ's, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ's, so also are we. 8 For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed. 9 I do not want to appear to be frightening you with my letters. 10 For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account.” 11 Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present. 12 Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.

13 But we will not boast beyond limits, but will boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us, to reach even to you. 14 For we are not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach you. For we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ. 15 We do not boast beyond limit in the labors of others. But our hope is that as your faith increases, our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged, 16 so that we may preach the gospel in lands beyond you, without boasting of work already done in another's area of influence. 17 “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 18 For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.

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Now Paul switches to something more personal.  We've recently been talking about the raising of a collection for the Jewish Christians still living in Jerusalem.  Paul intends to visit the Corinthians again soon and he hopes for a pleasant visit that will not involve any need for correction like what was discussed in 1 Corinthians where he hinted that he might have to come and literally whip them into shape or beat them into submission.  He wants the tone of his visit to be more in line with the tone of this letter, that is encouragement, rather than the tone of 1 Corinthians, that is rebuke and correction.  There was still some issue with the reputation of the Corinthian church that their members were still controlled by the flesh instead of being controlled by the Spirit, and Paul said that's an issue they needed to tackle head-on.  There should be no question of our loyalty and no divided allegiance for those who are in Christ.  We cannot be citizens of both the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.

God has given us divine weapons to fight this battle against the flesh that have the power to "destroy strongholds, strongholds and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God."  These divine weapons also allow us to "take every thought captive to obey Christ" and allow us to be obedient to the commands of God and then to correctly discipline disobedience in others, but we must not by hypocrites that are trying to pick the speck out of someone else's eye when there is a log or plank in our own eye (see Matthew 7:1-5).

Before moving onto the next part of the passage, what are these "divine weapons" that Paul is talking about?  The only offensive weapons that we see in the Armor of God are the Sword of the Sprit, which is the Word of God, and prayer.  I think these are probably the very "divine weapons" that Paul is talking about that we are to fight with, but we also have the Spirit of God living in us to fight for us and we have the angels of God that defend the people of God as God commands.

Paul then addressed the issue that all of us who are in Christ have the same Holy Spirit within us and the same access to these spiritual weapons as any other Christian, including an apostle like Paul.  Paul might have been proud of the fact that he was chosen to be an apostle and the special authority that had been granted to him in this role, and he again expresses his concern that he wants to use that apostolic authority to encourage and edify (that is "strengthen" and "build up") the Corinthians rather than to use his gift to tear them down and frighten them.  Paul's opponents seemed to accuse Paul of talking a big game and that his body was too weak to cray out any of the threats that he made and that Paul's words were nothing to be feared.  Paul said that anyone who thinks that doesn't know him because he's exactly the same in person as he is in writing--both a fiery passion for dealing with those that would disgrace God and the Church by how they live (maybe as evidence that they were not ever really saved) and an encourager of those who are in Christ to continue doing the good works they have been called to, even though there be pressure from everywhere and on all sides to give in, retreat, or recant.

Apparently there were people then like there are today that compared themselves to one another probably using the same kinds of metrics that we use today---"bodies, bucks, and baptisms"  That is the size of the congregation that meets together on a regular basis (attendance), the size of the collection of both tithes and offerings (you'll notice in all that we talked about the collection recently, Paul never stated any numbers because the issue was faithfulness and obedience and not the amount of coins collected), and decisions and professions of faith that many churches are quick to count in some official way--for Baptists this is often baptizing the person upon their profession of faith, giving them a certificate of baptism, and adding them to the church membership rolls.  Paul doesn't appear in any of his epistles to be about any of that.  Seriously!  While he may mention a few church members by name who he wants to thank for their encouragement and help to him, he doesn't seem to boast to others about the size of the churches that he helped plant or shepherd.  He has said in other places that he's glad that he never got into baptizing people himself with a few exceptions as this is never a metric he could or would brag about, and we already mentioned that he didn't brag about the actual amount of the offerings that he and his team helped collect.  Paul warns the pastors and evangelists that engage in such one-upping each other that they are without understanding that we are not to be in competition with each other or comparing ourselves to each other.  The only comparison we are to make is to compare ourselves with Christ and see if we are becoming more and more like Him and more and more obedient to Him.  In this way if we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, we will remember to give all glory and honor and praise to Him and we will not seek to gain any glory or honor or praise for ourselves or our local assemblies be it for "bodies, bucks or baptisms."

Paul does say that he boasts in God for what God has accomplished through the gifts God has given and the opportunities that Paul has been given, including the opportunity to minister to the church in Corinth.  They were the fist to travel that far with the gospel as apparently there were no Proselytes (Gentiles who had converted to Judaism) from this region who would have been present at Pentecost.  When that was the case, you'll see that Paul would start by preaching and teaching in the local synagogues, but it seems that there was no local synagogue here meaning that there wasn't even a group of ten Jewish men (13 years or older) to form what we would call a quorum (they call it a "Minyan") that would be required for certain religious obligations, most notably public prayer.  That's why you'll see Paul take a different tact with the Corinthians and he did with say the churches in Galatia which seemed to be well aware of Judaism and its practices and had an issue with understanding if the Gentiles needed to first become Jewish before becoming Christian or if Christians were somehow still bound to the Mosaic Law--specifically the dietary and ceremonial laws and the celebrations of their fast and feast days.  This was a new group of Christians that skipped over Judaism completely and perhaps this is why Paul was so proud of them and wanted to brag about them when it came time to take up the offering for their Jewish brothers and sisters and to select representatives to escort the offering and tell of the work that was going on throughout Asia Minor and now Europe.

Paul desired, with the support of the rest of the apostles and the entire Church, to take the gospel to even more lands into places where Judaism had never gone before.  We know that Paul desired to visit Spain at one point, though we're not sure if he made it there or when he did if he did.  There's also talk of Paul and his team making it as far as the British Isles (essentially that Paul took the gospel as far as the end of the Roman Empire throughout all of Europe).  Again, there's no biblical record of these trips, and it would seem such journeys would have been included in the book of Acts by Luke since he seemed to accompany Paul on many of his journeys as co-worker, historian, and doctor. No matter whether Paul himself made it to the far reaches of Europe, we know that he was not a one-man team and he trained up many others to continue the work.  God used many people to take the gospel to many parts of the world and we have no idea who those people are.  While we may want some connection to one of the great apostles to trace our "spiritual lineage" back to Peter, or Paul, or even Thomas or Philip, there is no advantage to such comparisons, for we all are partakers in the same Spirit, are part of the same Body, and we all have access to the same gifts and blessings in Christ.  We need not make such divisions and factions (as we saw among the Galtian churches who said "I am of Paul," or "I am of Apollos" or "I am of Cephas" or "I am of Christ.")  It matters not who preached the gospel to you, because all of us are saved the same way--by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone!  There is therefore no reason to brag and cause division, but we do thank God for sending us the ones He did, and we also thank God for the opportunities that He's given to us to go into all the world and make disciples of all people groups--to "reverse the curse" that happened at the Tower of Babel and we also look forward to even more opportunities to "go" to more places and meet more people so that all may hear and believe and give glory to God and worship God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.