Now I Paul, myself, entreat you by the humility and gentleness of Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you.
Parallel Translations
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Now I Paul, myself, entreat you by the humility and gentleness of Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you.
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I Paule my silfe beseche you by the mekenes and softnes of Christ which when I am present amonge you am of no reputacion but am bolde towarde you beinge absent.
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Nowe I Paul my selfe beseech you by the meekenes, and gentlenes of Christ, which when I am present among you am base, but am bolde toward you being absent:
Cross-references (33)
Passages linked to 2 Corinthians 10:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Matthew 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.
- 2 Corinthians 10:10 For, “His letters”, they say, “are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is despised.”
- Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
- Galatians 5:2 Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing.
- Isaiah 42:3-4 He won’t break a bruised reed. He won’t quench a dimly burning wick. He will faithfully bring justice. He will not fail nor be discouraged, until he has set justice in the earth, and the islands wait for his law.”
- 2 Corinthians 12:7-9 By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, a thorn in the flesh was given to me: a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively. Concerning this thing, I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.
- 1 Corinthians 2:3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.
- 2 Corinthians 11:30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that concern my weakness.
- Psalms 45:4 In your majesty ride on victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness. Let your right hand display awesome deeds.
- Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation; lowly, and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
- Matthew 21:5 “Tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
- Acts 8:32 Now the passage of the Scripture which he was reading was this, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. As a lamb before his shearer is silent, so he doesn’t open his mouth.
- Romans 10:20 Isaiah is very bold and says, “I was found by those who didn’t seek me. I was revealed to those who didn’t ask for me.”
- Romans 15:15 But I write the more boldly to you in part, as reminding you, because of the grace that was given to me by God,
- 1 Corinthians 4:10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor.
- 1 Corinthians 16:21-22 This greeting is by me, Paul, with my own hand. If any man doesn’t love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cursed. Come, Lord!
- 2 Corinthians 3:12 Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness of speech,
- 2 Corinthians 5:20 We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
- 2 Corinthians 6:1 Working together, we entreat also that you do not receive the grace of God in vain,
- 2 Corinthians 7:4 Great is my boldness of speech toward you. Great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort. I overflow with joy in all our affliction.
- 2 Corinthians 10:2 Yes, I beg you that I may not, when present, show courage with the confidence with which I intend to be bold against some, who consider us to be walking according to the flesh.
- 2 Corinthians 10:7 Do you look at things only as they appear in front of your face? If anyone trusts in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again with himself, that even as he is Christ’s, so we also are Christ’s.
- 2 Corinthians 11:21 I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet in whatever way anyone is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also.
- 2 Corinthians 13:2-4 I have said beforehand, and I do say beforehand, as when I was present the second time, so now, being absent, I write to those who have sinned before now, and to all the rest, that, if I come again, I will not spare; seeing that you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me; who toward you is not weak, but is powerful in you. For he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we will live with him through the power of God toward you.
- Galatians 4:13 but you know that because of weakness in the flesh I preached the Good News to you the first time.
- Ephesians 4:1 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called,
- 2 Thessalonians 3:17 The greeting of me, Paul, with my own hand, which is the sign in every letter: this is how I write.
- Philemon 1:9 yet for love’s sake I rather beg, being such a one as Paul, the aged, but also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
- 1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
- 1 Peter 2:22-23 who didn’t sin, “neither was deceit found in his mouth.” When he was cursed, he didn’t curse back. When he suffered, he didn’t threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously.
- Revelation 1:9 I John, your brother and partner with you in the oppression, Kingdom, and perseverance in Christ Jesus, was on the isle that is called Patmos because of God’s Word and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
- Matthew 12:19-20 He will not strive, nor shout; neither will anyone hear his voice in the streets. He won’t break a bruised reed. He won’t quench a smoking flax, until he leads justice to victory.
- 2 Corinthians 12:5 On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in my weaknesses.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Having finished his exhortation, he now proceeds partly to…
Having finished his exhortation, he now proceeds partly to refute the calumnies with which he had been defamed by the false apostles, and partly to repress the insolence of certain wicked persons, who could not bear to be under restraint. Both parties, with the view of destroying Paul’s authority, construed the vehemence with which he thundered in his Epistles to be θρασοδειλίαν — (mere bravado,) because when present he was not equally prepared to show himself off in respect of appearance, and address, but was mean and contemptible. “See,” said they, “here is a man, that, under a consciousness of his inferiority, is so very modest and timid, but now, when at a distance, makes a fierce attack! Why is he less bold in speech than in letters? Will he terrify us, when he is at a distance, who, when present, is the object of contempt? How comes he to have such confidence as to imagine, that he is at liberty to do anything with us?” They put speeches of this kind into circulation, with the view of disparaging his strictness, and even rendering it odious. Paul replies, that he is not bold except in so far as he is constrained by necessity, and that the meanness of his bodily presence, for which he was held in contempt, detracted nothing from his authority, inasmuch as he was distinguished by spiritual excellence, not by carnal show. Hence those would not pass with impunity, who derided either his exhortations, or his reproaches, or his threatenings. The words I myself are emphatic; as though he had said, that however the malevolent might blame him for inconstancy, he was in reality not changeable, but remained uniformly the same.
1. I exhort you. The speech is abrupt, as is frequently the case with speeches uttered under the influence of strong feeling. The meaning is this: “I beseech you, nay more, I earnestly entreat you by the gentleness of Christ, not to compel me, through your obstinacy, to be more severe than I would desire to be, and than I will be, towards those who despise me, on the ground of my having nothing excellent in external appearance, and do not recognize that spiritual excellence, with which the Lord has distinguished me, and by which I ought rather to be judged of.”
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The form of entreaty, which he makes use of, is taken from the subject in hand, when he says — by the meekness and gentleness of Christ Calumniators took occasion to find fault with him, because his bodily presence was deficient in dignity, and because, on the other hand, when at a distance, he thundered forth in his Epistles. Both calumnies he befittingly refutes, as has been said, but he declares here, that nothing delights him more than gentleness, which becomes a minister of Christ, and of which the Master himself furnished an example.
Learn of me, says he, for I am meek and lowly. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:29, 30.)
The Prophet also says of him,
His voice will not be heard in the streets: a bruised reed he shall not break, etc. (Isaiah 42:2, 3.)
That gentleness, therefore, which Christ showed, he requires also from his servants. Paul, in making mention of it, intimates that he is no stranger to it. “I earnestly beseech you not to despise that gentleness, which Christ showed us in his own person, and shows us every day in his servants, nay more, which ye see in me.”
Who in presence He repeats this, as if in the person of his adversaries, by way of imitating them. Now he confesses, so far as words go, what they upbraided him with, yet, as we shall see, in such a way as to concede nothing to them in reality.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain That nature which is inclined to mercy, rather than…
That nature which is inclined to mercy, rather than to rigor of justice.
He returneth to the defense of his Apostleship, but so that he useth this authority therein: for he warneth them earnestly and gravely, using also terrible threatenings to show themselves such as are apt to be instructed. And he refelleth certain proud men which made no better accompt of him, than of a bragging Thraso, in that he used to be sharp against them when he was absent, because they saw no great majesty in him after the manner of men, and besides, had proved his lenity, notwithstanding that in his absence, he had written to them sharply. Therefore first of all he professeth that he was gentle and moderate, but after the example of Christ: but if they continue, still to despise his gentleness, he protesteth unto them that he will show indeed how far they are deceived, which make that accompt of the office of an Apostle, that they do of worldly offices, that is, according to the outward appearance.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 1 Now I Paul myself beseech you by the…
1 Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:
Ver. 1. By the meekness and gentleness] Whom in those sweet virtues I desire to imitate. The praise of Christ’s meekness recorded by the prophet, and explained by Philip, converted the eunuch, Act 8:27-39.
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Who in presence am base] i.e. Despicable, because I take not upon me, and bear a port, as the false apostles do. Meekness of spirit commonly draws on injuries. A crow will stand upon a sheep’s back pulling off wool from her sides.
Am bold toward you] So mine adversaries report me, as if I were over bold and busy by my letters.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Chapter Introduction Hitherto the apostle, who in his former…
Chapter Introduction Hitherto the apostle, who in his former Epistle had blamed this church for so many things, and dealt sharply with them, in this Epistle hath treated them as if they had been a people that had had no faults, or none but what, in obedience to his former Epistle they had reformed, and become a new lump: which argueth, that the major part of the members of it were a good and an obedient people, by whose prevalent vote they had reformed much that was amiss. But in these four last chapters, to let us know that there was yet some of the old leaven amongst them, he useth another style; taking notice, that he understood there was amongst them another (though possibly the lesser) party who had much vilified him; and justifying himself against their whisperings and calumnies, not witlmut some sharp reflections upon them.
Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ: meekness respecteth the spirit or inward man, being a virtue that moderateth inward anger and rash passions.
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Gentleness more respecteth the outward conversation. The apostle mentioneth both these virtues, as eminent in Christ, who is our great example, and to whom all Christians are bound to be conformable.
Who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you: he here repeateth the words of those who, in this church, reproached him; they reported him a man, who, when he was there in presence with them, was lowly and humble enough; but when he was absent from them, then he wrote imperiously and confidently enough. The sense of the words is plainly this: I Paul, (of whom some amongst you say, that when I am there with you I am low and humble enough, even to some degrees of baseness; but when I am absent, then I write like a lord, boldly and confidently), I beseech you to consider the temper of our common Lord and Saviour, to remember how free he was from rash anger and passion, how gentle he was in his conversation; and by the obligation that is upon you, to love and practise those virtues which you saw, or have heard of, in him.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Observe here, 1. The charge brought in unjustly against…
Observe here, 1. The charge brought in unjustly against St. Paul by the false apostles, namely, that when he was present with the Corinthians, he was low and humble enough to some degree of baseness; but when absent, that then he writes like a lord to them, and exercises an authority with pride and imperiousness over them. The greatest apostle, no more than the meanest minister of Jesus Christ, cannot expect protection from slander and false accusation.
Observe, 2. The pious and prudent course which the apostle takes for his own necessary and just vindication; he beseeches them, by all that meekness and gentleness, which, according to the command and example of Christ, he desired to express towards them, firmly to believe that he desired nothing more, than not to be forced to use his power with that boldness towards them, which he feared he must use against the false apostles, who accused him of too much servility and meanness in his behaviour amongst them, and reproached his ministry as carnal and self-seeking.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here we may observe,
Here we may observe,
I. The mild and humble manner in which the blessed apostle addresses the Corinthians, and how desirous he is that no occasion may be given him to use severity. 1. He addresses them in a very mild and humble manner: I Paul myself beseech you, Co2 10:1. We find, in the introduction to this epistle, he joined Timothy with himself; but now he speaks only for himself, against whom the false apostles had particularly levelled their reproaches; yet in the midst of the greatest provocations he shows humility and mildness, from the consideration of the meekness and gentleness of Christ, and desires this great example may have the same influence on the Corinthians. Note, When we find ourselves tempted or inclined to be rough and severe towards any body, we should think of the meekness and gentleness of Christ, that appeared in him in the days of his flesh, in the design of his undertaking, and in all the acts of his grace towards poor souls. How humbly also does this great apostle speak of himself, as one in presence base among them! So his enemies spoke of him with contempt, and he seems to acknowledge it; while others thought meanly, and spoke scornfully of him, he had low thoughts of himself, and spoke humbly of himself. Note, We should be sensible of our own infirmities, and think humbly of ourselves, even when men reproach us for them.
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2. He is desirous that no occasion may be given to use severity, Co2 10:2. He beseeches them to give no occasion for him to be bold, or to exercise his authority against them in general, as he had resolved to do against some who unjustly charged him as walking according to the flesh, that is, regulating his conduct, even in his ministerial actions, according to carnal policy or with worldly views. This was what the apostle had renounced, and this is contrary to the spirit and design of the gospel, and was far from being the aim and design of the apostle. Hereupon,
II. He asserts the power of his preaching and his power to punish offenders.
1. The power of his preaching, Co2 10:3, Co2 10:5. Here observe, (1.) The work of the ministry is a warfare, not after the flesh indeed, for it is a spiritual warfare, with spiritual enemies and for spiritual purposes. And though ministers walk in the flesh, or live in the body, and in the common affairs of life act as other men, yet in their work and warfare they must not go by the maxims of the flesh, nor should they design to please the flesh: this must be crucified with its affections and lusts; it must be mortified and kept under. (2.) The doctrines of the gospel and discipline of the church are the weapons of this warfare; and these are not carnal: outward force, therefore, is not the method of the gospel, but strong persuasions, by the power of truth and the meekness of wisdom. A good argument this is against persecution for conscience' sake: conscience is accountable to God only; and people must be persuaded to God and their duty, not driven by force of arms. And so the weapons of our warfare are mighty, or very powerful; the evidence of truth is convincing and cogent. This indeed is through God, or owing to him, because they are his institutions, and accompanied with his blessing, which makes all opposition to fall before his victorious gospel. We may here observe, [1.] What opposition is made against the gospel by the powers of sin and Satan in the hearts of men. Ignorance, prejudices, beloved lusts, are Satan's strong-holds in the souls of some; vain imaginations, carnal reasonings, and high thoughts, or proud conceits, in others, exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, that is, by these ways the devil endeavours to keep men from faith and obedience to the gospel, and secures his possession of the hearts of men, as his own house or property. But then observe, [2.] The conquest which the word of God gains. These strong-holds are pulled down by the gospel as the means, through the grace and power of God accompanying it as the principal efficient cause. Note, The conversion of the soul is the conquest of Satan in that soul.
2. The apostle's power to punish offenders (and that in an extraordinary manner) is asserted in Co2 10:6. The apostle was a prime-minister in the kingdom of Christ, and chief officer in his army, and had in readiness (that is, he had power and authority at hand) to revenge all disobedience, or to punish offenders in a most exemplary and extraordinary manner. The apostle speaks not of personal revenge, but of punishing disobedience to the gospel, and disorderly walking among church-members, by inflicting church-censures. Note, Though the apostle showed meekness and gentleness, yet he would not betray his authority; and therefore intimates that when he would commend those whose obedience was fulfilled or manifested others would fall under severe censures.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Now I Paul myself beseech you,.... The apostle having…
Now I Paul myself beseech you,.... The apostle having said what was necessary and proper to stir up the Corinthians to a liberal contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem, returns to the vindication of himself against the false apostles; and earnestly entreats the members of this church,
by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, not to regard their reproaches, and join with them in them; for did they but consider the meek and gentle deportment of Christ, so worthy of his and their imitation, they would see there was no reason to reflect on him for that part of his conduct, in which he followed his Lord and master; whose meekness was to be seen in the assumption of human nature, in the whole of his life and conversation, and in his sufferings and death; and his "gentleness" of Spirit to be observed in his coming into this world, not to judge and condemn it, but that the world might be saved; in bearing all indignities and insults, without being provoked to wrath and revenge; in rebuking his disciples for the severity of their spirits, declaring he came to save, and not take away the lives of men; in praying for his enemies, and in his silence under all the ill treatment he met with from the worst of men. As the apostle had this excellent example before him, which served both to regulate his conduct, and support him under the hard measures he met with, so he was desirous to direct others to the observance of it, which might be a check upon the ill usage of him. He here speaks of himself in the language of his adversaries, who meant by these characters to expose him to scorn and contempt: "I Paul myself"; whose name the false teachers played upon, it signifying "little"; and he being of little stature, they reproached him for it, and would insinuate, that as his name was "little", and his person mean, his bodily presence weak, and his speech contemptible, that he had a little soul, was a man of small knowledge, mean parts, and a very insignificant minister. Now it is as if the apostle should say, I am not ashamed of my name, nor of my person, and I am willing to own myself the least of the apostles, yea, less than the least of all saints; but I beg of you by the mild and gentle Spirit of my Lord and master, whom I am not ashamed to imitate, that you would not join in those sneers. I am Paul, the "same" in my principles and practice, in my doctrine and life, when present and absent; though my enemies say the contrary, as that I am such an one,
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who in presence am base, or "humble among you": they suggested, that when he was at Corinth he was humble and modest in his conversation, mild and gentle in all his expressions and deportment; and which they interpreted of a meanness and baseness of spirit, as though he crept and cringed to curry favour with men, to avoid offence, and gain and keep an interest among them:
but being absent, am bold toward you; wrote blustering, hectoring, terrifying letters, threatening to come with his apostolic rod and deliver them up to Satan, to fright them into a compliance with him.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Now I Paul myself - - A strongly emphatical…
Now I Paul myself - - A strongly emphatical expression. Who when present am base among you - So, probably, some of the false teachers affirmed. Copying after the meekness and gentleness of Christ, entreat - Though I might command you.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The apostle vindicates himself against the aspersions cast on
CHAPTER X.
The apostle vindicates himself against the aspersions cast on
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his person by the false apostle; and takes occasion to mention
his spiritual might and authority, 1-6.
He shows them the impropriety of judging after the outward
appearance, 7.
Again refers to his apostolical authority, and informs them
that when he again comes among them he will show himself in
his deeds as powerful as his letters intimated, 8-11.
He shows that these false teachers sat down in other men's
labours, having neither authority nor influence from God to
break up new ground, while he and the apostles in general had
the regions assigned to them through which they were to sow
the seed of life; and that he never entered into any place
where the work was made ready to his hand by others, 12-16.
He concludes with intimating that the glorying of those false
apostles was bad; that they had nothing but self-commendation;
and that they who glory should glory in the Lord, 17, 18.
NOTES ON CHAP. X.
Verse 1. I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness] Having now finished his directions and advices relative to the collection for the poor, he resumes his argument relative to the false apostle, who had gained considerable influence by representing St. Paul as despicable in his person, his ministry, and his influence. Under this obloquy the apostle was supported by the meekness and gentleness of Christ; and through the same heavenly disposition he delayed inflicting that punishment which, in virtue of his apostolical authority, he might have inflicted on him who had disturbed and laboured to corrupt the Christian Church.
Who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you] He seems to quote these as the words of his calumniator, as if he had said; "This apostle of yours is a mere braggadocio; when he is among you, you know how base and contemptible he is; when absent, see how he brags and boasts." The word ταπεινος, which we render base, signifies lowly, and, as some think, short of stature. The insinuation is, that when there was danger or opposition at hand, St. Paul acted with great obsequiousness, fearing for his person and authority, lest he should lose his secular influence. See the following verse.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 2Co 10:1-3. Now, &c. — Hitherto St. Paul’s discourse,…
2Co 10:1-3. Now, &c. — Hitherto St. Paul’s discourse, in this epistle, was chiefly directed to those at Corinth who acknowledged his apostleship, and who had obeyed his orders, signified to them in his former letter. But in this and the remaining chapters he addresses the false teachers, and such of the faction as adhered to them, speaking to them with great authority, and threatening to punish them by his miraculous power, if they did not immediately repent. The different characters therefore of the two sorts of persons who composed the Corinthian Church, must be carefully attended to, otherwise this part of the epistle will appear a direct contradiction to what goes before. I Paul myself — A strongly emphatical expression; beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ — Our lowly and condescending Saviour; that meekness and gentleness which I have learned from his example, and desire to exercise toward the most unreasonable of my enemies; who in presence am base among you — According to the representation of some, and despised for the meanness of my appearance; but being absent am bold toward you — Using great freedom and authority in my letters. The false teachers, it seems, and their party, ridiculing the apostle’s threatenings in his former letter, had said that he was all meekness and humility when present among them; but very assuming and bold by letters, when absent, which they represented as wise carnal policy. To this the apostle here refers, and beseeches them that they would not compel him to be bold, and to exert his apostolical authority against some, who, on account of his meekness when present with them, had calumniated him as a person who walked after the flesh, or acted in a cowardly and crafty manner. For (he says) though he walked in the flesh — Inhabited a mortal body, and consequently was not free from human weakness, yet he assured them he did not war against idolaters and unbelievers, against the world and the devil; after the flesh — By any carnal weapons or worldly methods; but by such as were far more powerful. Though the apostle here, and in several other parts of this epistle, speaks in the plural number, for the sake of modesty and decency, and because he had associated Timothy with himself in this address to the Corinthians, yet he principally means himself. On him were these reflections cast, and it is his own authority which he is vindicating.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Now I Paul myself beseech you - I entreat…
Now I Paul myself beseech you - I entreat you who are members of the church not to give me occasion for the exercise of severity in discipline. I have just expressed my confidence in the church in general, and my belief that you will act in accordance with the rules of the gospel. But I cannot thus speak of all. There are some among you who have spoken with contempt of my authority and my claims as an apostle. Of them I cannot speak in this manner; but instead of commanding them I entreat them not to give me occasion for the exercise of discipline.
By the meekness and gentleness of Christ - In view of the meekness and mildness of the Redeemer; or desiring to imitate his gentleness and kindness. Paul wished to imitate that. He did not wish to have occasion for severity. He desired at all times to imitate, and to exhibit the gentle feelings of the Saviour. He had no pleasure in severity; and he did not desire to exhibit it.
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Who in presence - Margin, In outward appearance. It may either mean that when present among them he appeared, according to their representation, to be humble, mild, gentle 2Co 10:10; or that in his external appearance he had this aspect; see on 2Co 10:10. Most probably it means that they had represented him, as timid when among them, and afraid to exercise discipline, however much he had threatened it.
Am base among you - The word used here (ταπεινὸς tapeinos) usually means low, humble, poor. Here it means timid, modest, the opposite of boldness. Such was formerly the meaning of the English word base. It was applied to those of low degree or rank; of humble birth; and stood opposed to those of elevated rank or dignity. Now it is commonly used to denote that which is degraded or worthless; of mean spirit; vile; and stands opposed to that which is manly and noble. But Paul did not mean to use it here in that sense. He meant to say that they regarded him as timid and afraid to execute the punishment which he had threatened, and as manifesting a spirit which was the opposite of boldness. This was doubtless a charge which they brought against him; but we are not necessarily to infer that it was true. All that it proves is, that he was modest and unobtrusive, and that they interpreted this as timidity and lack of spirit.
But being absent am bold toward you - That is, in my letters; see on 2Co 10:10. This they charged him with, that he was bold enough when away from them, but that he would be tame enough when he should meet them face to face, and that they had nothing to fear from him.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Humilis sum, Greek: tapeinos.
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
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Humilis sum, Greek: tapeinos.
Who in presence indeed am lowly.[1] Literally, humble, (see Luke i. ver. 48.) that is, of a mean aspect, as to exterior appearances, and my speech contemptible, without the ornaments of human eloquence, but am said to be bold when absent, reprehending and threatening by my letters, which are owned to be weighty and strong, let such persons think, and be convinced, that such as I am by my letters, they shall find me by deeds, when I come, and shall be present with them. I desire and beseech you, that I may not be bold when I come, to make use of my authority, nor of those spiritual arms and weapons, of censures and excommunications, nor perhaps of exemplary punishments, which God sometimes in a miraculous manner shewed by his apostle. See the examples of Ananias and Saphira struck dead at St. Peter’s words, (Acts v.) of Elymas struck with blindness for opposing St. Paul’s preaching. (Acts xiii.) He puts them in mind, that the power, which God has given to his apostles, is so great and prevalent, that no force upon earth has been able to resist or hinder the designs of God, as to the spreading of the gospel, and the faith of Christ, and as he expresseth it, to the destruction of fortifications, we subverting counsels, and every thing that opposed the knowledge of God, who reduceth whom he pleaseth to the obedience of Christ. He admonishes them all to return to the obedience due to him, and the true ministers of the gospel, lest he be obliged to revenge, that is, punish such as remain disobedient. He acknowledges that his apostolical power was given him for the good and edification of the faithful, not for their destruction, which he will take care not to abuse. In fine, he tells them here in short, and more at large in the following chapter, that they may, if they please, consider outward appearances, his apostolical functions, the miracles God has wrought in his favour, what he has done, and suffered, by which will appear the advantages he has above his adversaries, who spoke with contempt of him. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain 2 Corinthians Chapter 10
2 Corinthians Chapter 10
The apostle returns to the subject which pre-occupied him-his connections with the Corinthians, and the truth of his apostleship, which was questioned by those who seduced them, throwing contempt on his person. He was weak, they said, when present, and his speech contemptible, though bold when absent (his letters being boastful, but his bodily presence contemptible). “I beseech you,” says the apostle, “by the meekness and gentleness of Christ [shewing thus the true character of his own meekness and humility when among them], not to compel me to be bold among you, as I think of being with regard to some who pretend that I walk after the flesh.” The strength of the war that he waged against evil was founded on spiritual weapons, with which he brought down all that exalted itself against the knowledge of God. This is the principle on which he acted, to seek to bring to obedience all who hearkened to God, and then severity to all disobedience, when once obedience should be fully established, and those who would hearken were restored to order. Precious principle! the power and the guidance of the Spirit acting in full, and with all patience, to restore to order, and to a walk worthy of God; carrying the remonstrances of grace to the utmost, until all those who would hearken to them and willingly obey God were restored; and then to assert divine authority in judgment and discipline, with the weight which was added to the apostolic action by the conscience and common action of all those who had been brought back to obedience.
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Observe, that the apostle refers to his personal authority as an apostle; but that he uses it in patience (for he possessed it for the purpose of edification and not for destruction) in order to bring back to obedience and uprightness all those who would hearken; and thus, preserving Christian unity in holiness, he clothes the apostolic authority with the power of the universal conscience of the assembly, guided by the Spirit, so far as there was a conscience at work.
He then declares that such as he is in his letters, such shall they find him when he is present; and he contrasts the conduct of those who took advantage of his labours, beguiling a people who had already become Christians, in order to stir them up against him, with his own conduct in going where Christ had not yet been known, seeking to bring souls to the knowledge of a Saviour of whom they were ignorant. Also he hoped that, when he visited the Corinthians, his ministry would be enlarged among them by their increase of faith, in order that he might go on beyond them to evangelise regions that still lay in darkness. But he who gloried, let him glory in the Lord.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 1Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness…
XV.—DEFENCE OF HIS APOSTOLIC ENERGY, POWERS AND ACTS AGAINST THE ASSAULTS OF HIS ARROGANT OPPONENTS
2Co_10:1-18
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1Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence [indeed] am base [lowly] among you, but being absent am bold toward you:2But I beseech [entreat] you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if wewalked according to the flesh. 3For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war afterthe flesh: 4(For the weapons of our warfare1 are not carnal, but mighty through Godto the pulling down of strong holds:) 5Casting down imaginations, [reasonings, λογισμοὺς] and every high thing that exalteth itself [is raised, ἐπαιρόμενον] against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought [every thought intocaptivity] to the obedience of Christ; 6And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, [every failure in obedience, παραχοήν] when your obedience is fulfilled.7Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to [in] himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think [conclude,λογιζέσθω] this again, that,8as he is Christ’s, even so are we Christ’s [om. Christ’s].2 For though [even if, ἐἁν τε]3 I should boast somewhat more [abundantly, περισσότερόν] of our authority,4 which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction, Ishould not be ashamed: 9That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters:10For his letters, say they,5 are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak,11and his speech contemptible. Let such a one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be [are we] also in deed when we arepresent. 12For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they, measuring themselves by [among, ἐν] themselves, 13 and comparing themselves among [with] themselves, are not wise. But we6 will not boast7 of things without our measure, [boast without measure, εἰς τὰ ά̓μετρα] but according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed [apportioned] tous, a measure to reach even unto you. 14For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure, as though8 we reached not unto you: for we are come [came foremost, ἐφθάσαμεν] as far as to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ. 15Not boasting of things without our measure [boasting without measure], that is, of other men’s labors; but having hope, when your faith is increased, [that as your faith increases, αὐξανομέης] having hope, when your faith is increased, that [as your faith increases, αὐξανομένης that] we shall be enlarged by you [among you, ἐν ὑμῖν] according to our rule abundantly antly, 16To preach the gospel in the regions [as far as the parts, εὶς τὰ ὑπερὲχινα beyond17you, and not to boast in another man’s line of things made ready to our hand. Buthe that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 18For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
In passing to a new section (δέ), the tone of the Apostle’s discourse becomes much altered. [“The conciliatory and affectionate strain of entreaty which pervaded the first part, is exchanged for that of stern command, and almost menace: there is still the same expression of devotion to the Corinthian Church; but it is mixed with a language of sarcasm and irony which has parallels in the First Epistle, but none up to this point in the Second. With this change in the general tone agrees also the change in details. Instead of the almost constant use of the first person plural, he here almost invariably (and in some instances with unusual emphasis) employs the first person singular; the digressions no longer go off to general topics, but revolve more closely round himself; the Corinthians are no longer commended for their penitent zeal, but rebuked for their want both of love and penitence. The confident hopes which he had expressed for the future are exchanged for the most gloomy forebodings. This change is not to be accounted for by supposing this section to be a distinct fragment between his First and Second Epistles; for, after all, the differences between the different parts are no greater than those between other portions of his writings: nor by supposing that he is addressing a different portion of the Corinthian congregation, for no intimation of this is given; but it is possible that some considerable pause, either of time or thought, now took place, during which additional news or recollections of an unfavorable character came before him, and gave a new turn to his discourse. As the time drew near also in which he was to visit and test his apostolic power among them, he was perhaps haunted by the fear that he should have to visit them in anger and not in love. Such a feeling is the basis of this, as that of gratitude was the basis of the first portion of the Epistle. It is from this that he starts (2Co_10:1-7), from this the digressions fly off (2Co_10:12; 2Co_12:10), and to this his conclusion returns (2Co_12:11; 2Co_13:13).” Stanley (abridged)]. His object now is to vindicate his Apostolic character and authority against those hill-disposed and arrogant opponents who had made light of them. The tendency of what he says is still to draw off the Church, with which he was anxious to deal tenderly, from those antagonists on whom he had determined to exert the Apostolic powers they had depreciated.
2Co_10:1-6. Now I Paul myself, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence, indeed, am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you (2Co_10:1).—[In no other part of his Epistles has he made his individuality so prominent. He usually says, “I Paul,” (Gal_5:2; Eph_3:1; Phm_1:19), or uses simply the first person (singular or plural) of some verb]. Here αυ̇τός is added, and by way of emphasis is placed at the head of the sentence. It should be construed neither in the sense of ultro (of my own accord), nor in that of idem (always the same) in opposition to those who reproached him that he had been fickle or inconsistent in his conduct, nor in contrast with those who had charge of the collection, with the poor saints who were to be relieved, with his calumniators, or with him who hitherto had been associated with him in the composition of the Epistle (2Co_1:1). With respect to this last suggestion, we have nothing in the remainder of the Epistle which indicates that the Apostle wished to make prominent that he was sustaining any new relation to them, or that he was now more than before addressing the Corinthians with his own hand or especially authenticating what he was about to write. The word has reference rather to the prayer in 2Co_10:2, which is brought out in a somewhat gentler form by the exhortation in 2Co_10:1, and it relates to what is said in the relative sentence in 2Co_10:1, as if he would say: I myself admonish and pray you; even I, who in personal appearance am so mean among you, but when absent am so bold toward you; i.e., even I who, according to the disparaging insinuations of my opponents, (for these are evidently aimed at), am bold only when at a distance, and so submissive (cringing, fainthearted) when personally present with you, now exhort and pray you, to save me by your conduct the necessity of being bold and overbearing when I shall be present with you. With the words e̓γὼ Παῦλος, on which the main emphasis should be placed, he meets them in that Apostolic and personal character which was so familiar to them, to which they owed so much, and on which his admonition now depended for all its power. He strengthens this, however, by the addition: by the meekness and gentleness (πραότης κὰι ἐπιεικεία) of Christ. This gentleness and benignity, or mildness (Act_24:4) of Christ (comp. Mat_11:29 f.; Isa_47:2 f.), ought move them to comply with his exhortation. As this was the ordinary spirit and manner of Christ, they ought to see that Christ’s Apostles might also be gentle, and they should not make it necessary for him to proceed against them with severity. Ewald takes it as an admonition to the Corinthians, that they should not, like his opponents mistake for weakness that meekness and humility which he carefully copied in all his conduct from the example of Christ. Neither does the scope of the passage nor analogy require that we should construe διά in the sense of a solemn protestation (Osiander). Διά with a genit. often indicates the means or accompaniments; as if the action were passing through them, and receiving a peculiar coloring from the medium. Paul’s entreaty is here supposed to acquire a special tenderness by being διὰ τῆς πραιότκ. ἐπιεικ [Jelf, & 905. 3 B. 1]. The distinction between πραότης and ἐπιείκεια, according to Melancthon, consists in this: the former means non temere irasci, and the latter facile placari. Bengel makes the former virtus magis absoluta, (willingness to suffer and to forgive), and the latter magis refertur ad alios. According to Meyer the contrast is between what was actually experienced and what was strictly just. Heubner: Meekness endures the pain, but gentleness corrects the faults of others with forbearance. [Webster and Wilkinson say that “πραότ is natural mildness of disposition; ἐπεεικ. a habit arising from considerateness, exemplified by our Lord in Luk_9:56, and Mat_26:41.” Comp. Trench, Synn., First Part, pp. 207–10]. The idea (of Rüchert) that Paul felt especially touched by the insinuation contained in the relative sentence, inasmuch as he was conscious that notwithstanding all his vehemence he was really deficient in personal courage, must have originated in a sad misapprehension of the Apostle’s character as presented in his life and Epistles. Those opponents who urged this objection in order to weaken the impression which his severe reproofs had produced, had found a plausible reason for their assertion in the fact that, for fear of aggravating the evil, he had spoken of some things within the Church itself with a degree of hesitation. It is possible, too, that after his second visit to Corinth (and before our first Epistle) the state of things had become so much worse, that he had felt obliged to write with more severity than he had displayed when he was among them (Meyer). It would be hardly correct to go back as far as his first visit among them (1Co_2:3), for the observation of his opponents had probably been made at some later period. But the matter on which the Apostle exhorts his readers is contained in the prayer (δέομαί) which follows in 2Co_10:2.—But I pray that I may not when present have to be bold with that confidence with which I think to be bold against some.—[By translating παρακ. of 2Co_10:1, and δέομ of 2Co_10:2, by the same word (beseech) our common version fails to preserve the growing earnestness indicated by the latter word. For a similar interchange of these words see chap.2Co_5:20-21; 2Co_6:1; 2Co_8:4]. The δέ not only indicates that he was taking up again what had gone before, but it introduces a contrast to the sentence implied in the relative sentence. The prayer itself, as the context and the want of the accusative of the object shows, was directed not to God (for then παρακαλῶ in 2Co_10:1 would have no significance) but to the Corinthians. [“The terms in which this is expressed are taken from the description which the detractors were accustomed to give of him (2Co_10:1), which, although apparently incidental, is the key note of all that follows, in which the ideas ταπειν. and θαῥῥ. in various turns of thought and phraseology continually and prominently recur.” Stanley.] The article τό serves to make the infinitive sentence especially prominent. Παρών corresponds in signification with εἰς πρόςωπον in 2Co_10:1. The thing prayed for is, that they would not allow it to become necessary for him to be bold among them. The πεποίθησις was that confidence in his official authority and rights which was connected with good conscience, and whose dependence was indeed upon God, but need not be understood here. Λογίζομαι is not in the passive (I am reckoned) to express the way in which he was estimated by his opponents (Luther). Beza not only regards it as a passive, but takes τολμῆσαι as a preterite, which, however, would have called for some additional word (ἁπών) to imply this (comp. Meyer). It denotes here, as it often does in Euripides and Herodotus, the intention, the design or determination of the mind. [Chrysostom thinks the word does not imply a full or settled purpose. Paul “said not ’wherewith I am prepared,’ but ‘where with I think,’ for he had not yet resolved upon this, though his opponents had given him occasion enough.” Bloomfield notices a paronomasia in λογίζομαι and λογιζομένους, which if introduced into English might perhaps be best expressed by reckon]. As the case is different with λογιζομένους, the word there has the meaning of, to reckon for, or as something. ʼΕπί τινας should be connected not with θαῤῤῆσαι but with τολμῆσαι, which must here be taken absolutely and in the sense of, to have courage, to be resolute, to step forth boldly (as in Homer, Pindar, the tragic poets and Thucydides). [It has also something of the signification, to venture, to have the heart, as if the agent endured or suffered something, because he acted in spite of natural feeling, or under great difficulties. This idea may be traced in the use of the word here].—namely, those who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. (2Co_10:2 b.)—He does not name these persons, but he immediately characterizes them from the way in which they were in the habit of judging him. ̔Ως is here used as in 1Co_4:1. [ΙΙεριπατού̓ντες etymologically signifies, to walk about, hither and thither, and Stanley thinks that we have here a reference to this original meaning]. Κατὰ σρκα περιπατεῖν here signifies, a course of conduct, characterized by the σάρξ (i.e., by the psychic-corporeal life), destitute of a spiritual character, and not merely dependent upon external influences, and of course feeble, but in positive antagonism to the spirit, and of course sinful; i.e., the organ and principle of sin (Beck, Christl., Lehrwiss, p. 278). The idea of weakness probably predominates, but the expression describes a course of conduct determined by the fear of men, or the desire of pleasing men, and hence a personal bearing disgraced by cowardice or servility (ταπεινός). The human nature referred to was therefore one enfeebled, not merely from the want of Divine support, but from sin (comp. on 1Co_12:17).—For though we walk in the flesh, we do not make war according to the flesh (2Co_10:3).—A reason is here given for the prayer in 2Co_10:2, and at the same time he exonerates himself from what had been charged upon him by his opponents (τοὺςλογιζ).—περιπατοῦντας. I beg of you not to allow me to be placed in such circumstances that I shall be obliged to venture on an unpleasant part when I shall be present with you. For although we are walking in the flesh, we do not take the field, or carry on war according to the flesh, i.e., we are not determined by fleshly considerations as those persons imagine. Στρατεύεσθαι (1Co_9:7), understood in the more comprehensive sense implied by its contrast with περιπατεῖν, designates the Apostles’ whole ministry in its numerous conflicts with hostile powers, under the figure of a warfare. Comp. 2Co_2:14; 1Ti_1:18. The emphasis lies upon the two contrasted prepositions ἐν and κατά. The flesh (σαρξ)
is indeed the sphere in which we move, i.e. the psychical and corporeal life with all its sinful infirmities is the instrument by which and the department in which we act (comp. ζῶ ἐν σαρκί in Gal_2:20), but it is not the influence which determines our movements.” The reason for this assertion is given in 2Co_10:4.—For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty before God for the pulling down of strong holds.—The Apostle here describes the kind of weapons he used, i.e. the means by which he carried on his ministry (ὅπλα 2Co_6:7) in contrast with those of his adversaries. As his weapons bore not the stamp of the flesh, there was no reason for saying that his action as a Christian warrior was under the direction of the flesh., W. F. Besser: “The text must certainly give a strong testimony against the mingling of ecclesiastical authority with the civil power of the sword (comp. Augsb. Conf. p. 64, Art. of Smalc. p. 344].”—The Apostle brings into positive contrast with the carnal σαρκικά), comp. 2Co_1:12) not the spiritual (πνευματικα) but the mighty in God’s sight (δυνατὰ τῶνεᾶ). The fleshly is also that which is feeble, and especially when it is in conflict with the world for the cause of God, it is entirely powerless.Σαρκικός however is not precisely equivalent to, feeble, but the only thing which in this case is powerful is that which proceeds from, and bears the impress of the Spirit. For a notice of the spiritual panoply see Eph_6:11 ff. Similar contrasts may be found in 2Ch_32:8; Isa_31:3; Ps. 88:39. Power is directly related to spirit also in 1Co_2:4; Luk_1:17. Δυνατά is more particularly defined byτῷ θεῷto mean that which is powerful in God’s esteem, before God. Comp. ἀστεῖος τῷ θεῷ in Act_7:20, and also Jon_3:3. And yet the phrase is not intended to be simply a superlative, but to signify the truth or the reality (Osiander: acceptable to God) of the power. Neander: mighty, because God gave them, and overthrows strong holds by means of them. In opposition to the explanation which makes this phrase mean: through or for God, it may be said that the former would be superfluous, being self-evident; and although the latter might seem appropriate in the sense of: to the honor, or, for the use of God, (i.e. to show forth his power) there is nothing in the context to call for such a remark.9—The end which these weapons were to subserve, and to which they were adapted, is announced in πρὸς καναίρεσιν ὁχυρωμάτων. They are the instrumentalities by which the κόσμος, or its ἂρχων, the god of this world (τοῦ αἰῶος 2Co_4:4), endeavors to obstruct the progress of God’s cause and the work of salvation. οχυρωμάτα signifies castles or fortresses. [They are things intended to serve in the mind as strong holds do in warfare. Comp. Pro_21:22. Stanley (p. 500) thinks that the peculiar imagery here used was suggested by the Mithridatic and Piratical wars which took place in Cilicia; the latter only 60 years before the Apostles’ birth. One hundred and twenty such strong holds are said to have been in existence and to have been taken in the war with these pirates. Each word here used strikingly carries out the metaphor]. The way in which this overthrow was effected is more particularly described in 2Co_10:5.—Casting down reasonings and every lofty thing which is erected against the knowledge of God.—As the first and most prominent of these strong holds, he mentions λογισμούς, intellectual bulwarks which were probably not so much projects or hostile plans as unevangelical thoughts or fixed conclusions of human (Hellenistic or Judaistic) philosophy, in direct opposition to the Christian faith, 1Co_3:20. [Our English “imaginations” is hardly the proper word here. The idea is rather “reasonings.” It refers to theoretic subtilties or argumentations]. Comp. the contrasted γνὥσις τοῦ θεοῦ. Καθαιροῦντες is anacoluthic; comp. 2Co_9:11. To connect it with 2Co_10:3 so as to make 2Co_10:4 a parenthesis, seems not only unnecessary but unallowable inasmuch as 2Co_10:4 is essentially a continuation of the main thought, and καθαιροῦντες is most naturally referred back to καυαίρεσιν. [As all the prominent words of this passage are evidently military we must suppose the allusion in καθαίρέω was to the use of the “crow” which pulled (not cast) down the walls or towers of an enemy. Stanley gives several instances of such a use of the word in classic writers. (See also Cobbin)]. In καὶ πὰ́ν ὕψωυα, etc., (every high thing, etc.) he reverts to the metaphor he had left in λογισμούς and which had been only hinted at in καθαιροῦντες. ̔Yψωμα signifies an elevation, something made high, as a tower, wall or anything of the kind. In sense it is much the same as οχυρώματα in 2Co_10:4 i.e. it is something by which the enemy strives to maintain his ground. By πᾶν it becomes a general term in which even the λογισμοί are included, and it then signifies every kind of human greatness which could be made use of in such a warfare; according to Osiander, wisdom, eloquence, power, righteousness, honor, wealth.—Agreeably to the metaphor, ἐπαιρόενον [opposite of καθαιρ] should be construed not in the middle but passive voice. That against which these high things were erected, and whose progress, and ascendency was thus to be prevented, was the knowledge of God (γνῶσις τοῦθεοῦ); not (subjectively) as it existed in the minds of his opponents, and was opposed by the darkness of human wisdom, but objectively, something which met men in common life, and called forth their opposition: that revelation of the plan and work of salvation, in which Christ was proclaimed and God was manifested in Christ. In addition to the negative acts by which the fortresses obstructing the progress of Divine knowledge were overthrown, we have those which were positive, when the Apostle adds,—and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, (2Co_10:5 b.)—When the enemy is thus captured, the victory must be complete. This enemy is πᾶν νόημα; which is here not the same as design, and then to be joined with εἰς τὴν ὑρακοὴν, so as to mean every design in opposition to the obedience, etc., for even if we do not take into consideration the want of the article (τὸ), and the use of εἱς instead of the foregoing κατά, we should find that νόημα in this sense would be no proper object of captivity, and that a much better sense would be afforded by supposing τὴν ὑπακοήν the fortress to which they were carried. Thus obedience was as it were the place to which the captive enemy was brought and hence we have εἱς instead of a dative, as in Rom_7:23. As the intellectual element predominates in the whole context, we have no reason to take νόημα in the sense of intention [Alford] or disposition; and still less of the spiritual mind itself which exercises thought, i.e. the understanding; Luther: all human reason.10 This obedience of Christ, in the sense of a subjection to Christ, is in other passages called the obedience of faith Rom_1:5; Rom_15:18. The idea is: to bring every thought or understanding which is otherwise opposed to Christ, into subjection to Him. ΙΙαρακοή and ὑπακοή are contrasted in 2Co_10:6. [The former signifies (strictly) a failing to hear or a hearing amiss, and so a want of obedience; the latter a listening to authority, and so a subjection to another. See Webster, synn. p. 225, also Trench, Synn. 2d Ser. p. 73.] Although the Apostle does not entirely forsake the line of thought which he had pursued in the preceding paragraph, i.e., of contention generally with hostile powers, he now returns more decidedly to the affairs of the Corinthian Church. And having in a readiness to punish every failure in obedience when your obedience shall have been fulfilled (2Co_10:6).—He evidently regarded that Church as specially subject to his Apostolical authority, and it was only in their return to him that he expected the completion (πληρωθῆ) of their obedience to Christ. Upon that obedience he made to depend the time in which he should exercise his disciplinary power upon those Judaistic corrupters who might persist in opposing his authority. For this he was even then ready (ἑν ἑτοίμω ἕχειν=in promptu habere), and he was only waiting for the completion of the Church’s obedience. Comp. 2Co_2:1; 2Co_13:10. A delicate hint seems here conveyed that he would make a distinction between these seducers and those who had been seduced; and an admonition is expressed that the latter would do well by their entire submission to his instructions, to escape the punishment he was about to inflict (perhaps excommunication, or at least something which would be a proof of his miraculous powers as an Apostle) on those who might continue disobedient. It would be incorrect to understand this fulfilment of their obedience as referring to the Apostle’s call for a collection. He says that he was in readiness, in opposition to those who might suggest that he was not in earnest in the matter (comp. Osiander [also Jelf, & 622, 2]). [Stanley’s paraphrase well expresses the idea of this passage: “I conjure you not to compel me to break the bounds of the gentle and forgiving character of Christ. But be assured that, if I do exercise when I am present, the authority which some think I shall never venture to exercise but at a distance, it will be a real authority. I shall come against you like a mighty conqueror, though with Weapons, not of earthly, but of heavenly warfare; and every alien thought and imagination shall fall before me, like fortresses before a victorious army, and shall be reduced to submission, like captive hands: and those who resist shall be punished like the last remnants of a defeated insurrection. To effect all this, I wait only till I am assured of your submission, that I may not confound the innocent with the guilty, the dupes with the deceivers.” He speaks as if his opponents were not members of the Corinthian Church, but foreign to it; and hence as if they were not addressed in this epistle, and were only awaiting the obedience of the Corinthians that he might exercise his vengeance on them].
2Co_10:7-11. In this passage the Apostle maintains that his relations to Christ were of an intimate nature, in opposition to his opponents, who professed that they alone stood in such relations; and he adds the assurance that when he should come to Corinth in person, and not merely by his letters, as they asserted, he would give them a proof of his Apostolical authority.—Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? (2Co_10:7 a)—The way in which we interpret this sentence must depend upon the sense we give to τὰ κατὰ πρόσωπον. If it means things lying in sight before their eyes, from which the Corinthians might recognize, if they were disposed to do so, his Apostolical dignity, the idea would be that he was calling upon them to attend more carefully to things obviously before them. In this case βλέπετε would be construed in the imperative [: Look at what is before your own eyes]. The analogy of other passages, however, would require that this verb should have stood at the head of the sentence, comp. 1Co_1:26; 1Co_10:18; Php_3:2. If that expression, however, means that which is merely apparent, it may refer to something in his opponents which gave them an external advantage; or to something external in the Apostle himself, which made the Corinthians postpone him to them. In this case, βλέπετε must be construed in the indicative, either as a direct assertion, and a severe reproach to them [Vulgate, Stanley], or as a question (with Theodoret, Erasmus, Meyer [Alford, Hodge, and our English A. V.]) in accordance with the lively and earnest spirit of the general passage. The context (2Co_10:1-10), is certainly in favor of referring the expression to the Apostle himself. [In this case, however, many think that βλέπετε would be quite as much required at the commencement of the sentence, and to be preceded by a τι or some similar word. The signification finally attained is much the same, whether the indicative is taken annunciatively or interrogatively. Adopting the latter as the most probable, the Apostle] intended to speak of his outward manner, which, when he was at Corinth, had not been bold or confident, and hence had afforded ill-disposed persons an occasion for suspecting him of weakness and timidity. The question was directed not to his principal antagonists, but to the Church itself; at least, to that portion which had listened to the pretensions of these opponents. In the next verse, however, he changes his address and fixes his eye upon these opponents themselves.—If any man trusts in himself that he is Christ’s, let him conclude this again of himself, that as he is Christ’s, so also are we (2Co_10:7 b). The word ἑαυτῶ makes the personal vanity and self-conceit of such a confidence very prominent, inasmuch as it is a confidence in one’s own self. In χριστοῦ εἶναι we have the idea of belonging to Christ, but the context does not imply that this was in the sense of kindred (perhaps through James), or of a particular fellowship with Peter; nor does it refer merely to the general relationship of all believers, but to the special ownership implied in δοῦλος (which indeed a number of authorities add to the reading of this passage, though it is evidently a gloss), or διάκονος χριστοῦ (2Co_11:23). To this ἑαυτῶ corresponds ἁφ̓ (Lachmann ἐφ̓=in, though the reading is not sufficiently authenticated) ὡαυτοῦ, which is made emphatic by πάλιν, again (not, on the other hand). But this phrase, of his own self, may mean either, proceeding from himself, i.e., referring to what he might see of himself, inasmuch as he would find the same evidences of this being Christ’s in Paul as in himself; or by himself, without any suggestion or assistance from the Apostle; as if the meaning were: we should expect that those who assume such high grounds with respect to themselves, would need no suggestions from others, but that they would apply the same principles and come to a correct conclusion here. This last explanation seems the more probable. The first reminds us of the supposed Christ-party in Corinth which claimed a special relation to Christ on account of their Jewish descent (comp. 2Co_11:22), or on account of some intercourse with him by mysterious visions, such as are referred to in 2Co_12:1 ff.; and according to it, the Apostle was maintaining that they would find the same marks of intimacy with Christ in him. But the alleged facts are altogether too uncertain to exercise any influence upon our exposition. There is no necessity of assuming that Paul had any where reference in xριστοῦεἶναι to such a party or its leaders, and the utmost that we can infer from what is here said is that he might possibly have some allusion to the name of that party. Neander thinks that Paul must have referred here to some opponents who claimed to belong exclusively to Christ on account of having received their Christianity directly from the Apostles of the original Church. The claim of these persons, whatever it might be, Paul met with the assertion that he also could speak of himself in the same terms in which those earliest Apostles said they were Christ’s. The words, as he himself is, so also are we, are intended to be a conciliatory and a moderate presentation of his true claims. When he speaks unreservedly and tells the whole truth on this subject, he goes beyond what is implied in such a comparison (2Co_11:23). Eί̀ τις (delicately, instead of ὅστις) is not necessarily against the idea that his opponents were probably a number of persons. The equality or the title to an equality of position which he had claimed in 2Co_10:7, he makes clear in 2Co_10:8, by adding—For even if I should boast somewhat more abundantly of the power which the Lord gave us for edification and not for your destruction, I should not be put to shame.—He means to say, that if he should go much further in his claims of official authority, he would never be found an idle boaster. The particle ἑάν is not designed to concede that he was about to boast in this manner, and τε γὰρ has the sense of, for even as in Rom_1:26; Rom_7:7. The object of τε is to indicate that some other member of a sentence stands in harmony with it or in a reciprocal relation to it. In the present case it points out such an agreement or correlation between ἑὰν—καυχήσομαι and οὐκ αίσχυνθήσομαι (Passow, Tr. A. B. I. 2 a. bb. B.). [On the use of ἕαν with the Aorist subjunctive when something objectively possible is thought of in the future, but not conceived of as exactly certain, see Winer § 43, 3 b. We may here render καυχήσωμαι like the Latin fut. exact and αἱσχυνθήσομαι as the fut. simpl. as in our common English version. The word “ἑξουσία includes both the ideas of power and of right or authority.” Hodge]. ΙΙερισσότερον (accus.) should be taken in a comparative sense. According to some, the comparison has reference to what had been said in 2Co_10:4-6; but according to others, it has reference to his opponents (more than they boast). It is most natural to suppose that he is putting himself on an equality with those opponents mentioned in 2Co_10:7, and his meaning would then be: yet more than I just now did when I made myself the equal of such as claimed to be Christ’s servants. In the words, for edification and not for destruction, the church is represented as if it were a house or a temple of God (1Co_3:16) [and Paul and his associates in the ministry are supposed to be artificers in the construction of the whole and of each part. It was no part of his mission to destroy, but only to save and put in order (a true conservatism). Howson calls attention to the fact that out of the twenty-two times in which the words edify, and edification are used figuratively in the New Testament, they are in every instance but one used by Paul; and the one exceptional instance (Act_9:31) is in a book composed probably under his superintendence, and by a writer of his school. It is possible that his predilection for the trope may have sprung from his craft as a Cilician tent-maker. But Howson is of the opinion that the word has always a social character, i.e., that it is always applied to the progress of a community, not of an individual. Hence believers are not severally a building, but only parts (living stones) of a common structure (Metaphors of St. Paul in Sund. Mag. for Jan., 1867, pp. 257–63)]. The expressions here used incidentally also suggest that his opponents had not edified but had rather pulled down (comp. 1Co_3:17), and that they had arrogated to themselves powers which Christ had not bestowed upon them. The καθαίρεσις of 2Co_10:4 had been of a different nature from that which is here spoken of, for the object of that had been to destroy only what obstructed the Christian faith‚ and to animate and assist such as were living a life of faith (οἱκοδομὴ in 1Co_8:1). The communicative ἡμῶν indicates that there were others who shared in this power, and who were his genuine associates, and not unworthy intruders into this high office. The words I shall not be ashamed, are very concise and emphatic. They refer to what he was doing, or to the results of his labors as an Apostle, in consequence of which all his boasting on this subject would be proved to be the sober truth. With this is immediately connected a final sentence (2Co_10:9).—That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.—This is introduced by no τοῦ ο δὲ λέγω, or anything of the kind. The aim which is implied in the ἵνα must be that of God who would not allow him to be put to shame. It was by an appeal to the results of his Apostolic power that he justified himself from the charge of using expressions in his Epistles which could never be carried into execution, and had been, therefore, thrown out for mere intimidation. There is no need, therefore, of commencing a new period with ἵνα, which, after a parenthesis in 2Co_10:10, comes to a conclusion in 2Co_10:11 (that I may not seem to terrify you by my Epistles, let such a one think, etc.). There would certainly be something abrupt in the way in which such a sentence would be introduced (and hence some manuscripts insert a δὲ after ἵνα), and the idea itself would be inappropriate (since nothing is, in fact, brought forward in 2Co_10:11 to obviate the objection which 2Co_10:9 supposes). [“A clause with ἵνα, as we have seen before in this Epistle (comp. also Gal_2:10), often depends on some word or words omitted, but easily supplied from the context. “This is the only instance in the New Testament where ἅν, after a conjunction, is used with the infinitive. Winer (§ 43 6) resolves it into ὡς ἁν ἑκφοβοῖμι ὑμᾶς, as if I might wish to terrify you, which agrees with our translation.” Hodge]. In later usage ὡς ἅν has the sense of the simple ὡς with the ἅν, i.e., of tanquam quasi (as if), and it is here employed to modify the force of ἐκφοβεῖν, or to indicate that Paul was acting like one who terrifies. The plural seems to imply that Paul had already written to the Corinthians more than one Epistle. Neander: “We may reckon up, first, an Epistle now lost; secondly, that which we now call the first; thirdly, that upon which we are now commenting, and, perhaps, finally, the one which was sent by the hands of Titus.” [Barnes and Stanley think that the Corinthians might have seen some of Paul’s Epistles to other churches, and been so well acquainted with them as to make this general remark respecting them. Four large Epistles (two to the Thessalonians, one to the Galatians, and one to the Corinthians) among those now extant had been written (the two first in the city of Corinth) before this time. Alford also suggests that Paul may have included the letter he was then writing, by way of anticipation].—For his letters, they say, are indeed weighty, and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible (2Co_10:10).—He here introduces his opponents, urging an objection founded on the objection which had been presented in 2Co_10:9. The speakers who are the subject of φησίν, are his opponents, and this verb is equivalent to the impersonal φασίν of later usage (Passow, II. 2, p. 2238). There is no reason for confining this to some single person. Bαρύς has the sense of, gravis, significant, important, impressive, inspiring respect, the opposite of ἕξουενημένος. While his letters were important and forcible (mighty), his bodily presence was feeble (not weak on account of disease or smallness of size, but on account of a personal presence which lacked power, the opposite of ἱσχυραί), and his oral discourse (instructions of all kinds, exhortations) commanded no respect, and were received with contempt (comp. 1Co_2:3 f.). There is no intimation that he was destitute of those bodily organs which were needful to a good oral expression, or of Grecian refinement and culture. Let such an one conclude this, that such as we are in word by Epistles when absent, such are we also in deed when present (2Co_10:11).—Those who insinuated such things respecting him, might be assured that he would exhibit the same character in all his apostolical conduct as in his writings, and that no one would have reason to reproach him for acting the double part ascribed to him in 2Co_10:10 (comp. 2Co_10:1). The omission of the conjunction (asyndeton), and the position of τοῦτο, at the beginning of the sentence, are emphatic. Δογίζεσθαι is here contrasted with the inconsiderate judgment mentioned in 2Co_10:10, and it has the sense of, to weigh well. To τοιοῦτοι τῷ ἕργω we must supply ἑσμέν, not ἑσόμεθα as if he had intended to say that he would actually fulfil his threatenings (λόγος). What he meant was, that the influence which he exerted personally as an Apostle would seem to one who carefully observed it, and reflected upon it, quite as important and energetic as that which he exhibited in his writings.
[It cannot after all be denied, as Alford concedes, that some allusion is here made to a deficiency in the apostle’s personal appearance and delivery. It does not seem that his opponents, objection was founded wholly on his reserve in the use of his apostolical powers. Without conceding that he was precisely ὁ τρίπηχος ἅνθρωπος καὶ τῶν οὑρανῶν ἅπτομένος, and even if we receive the descriptions given in Pseudo-Lucian, Malalas, Nicephorus and the Apocraphal Acts of Paul and Thecla as either caricatures or exaggerated traditions of a modern date, we are yet compelled to yield something to the almost universal agreement of antiquity. The general notion which the whole ancient church appears to have preserved of our Apostle was, that he was of a short stature, and that his body was disfigured by some lameness or distortion; that his head was long and bald, his complexion transparent, his forehead high, his nose aquiline, his eyes sparkling, and his eyebrows close and prominent. And yet that there was nothing in his person which amounted to a very unsightly deformity, we have a right to conclude from Act_14:12, from his public influence before his conversion, from the power he often exhibited as an orator, and from the impression he appears everywhere to have produced. It is not improbable, however, from such passages as 1Co_2:3, 2Co_2:13, and others in the epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians, that his temperament was more than commonly liable to nervous agitations; and it would not be strange if his enemies had seen something when he was at Corinth, which they could pervert to his disadvantage. See Conybeare and Howson, chap. 7. p. 224. Smith’s Diet. Art. Paul; Ad. Clarke, and Stanley.]
2Co_10:12-18. To show that his personal influence was as energetic as his epistolary discourses and exhortations, he now appeals to what he had actually done as an Apostle. He calls attention to the fact that, unlike his arrogant opponents, he had confined himself to those limits which were appointed to his calling, and within which the church of Corinth properly fell, etc.—For we venture not to number ourselves among, or compare ourselves with, some who commend themselves (2Co_10:12).—The words τολμᾶν signify either, not to have a heart for something, from a moral repugnance to such a proceeding (1Co_6:1); or, better, ironically, not to venture; [in this matter we are indeed timid], with a severe implication that his opponents were vain enough to do so. A paronomasia may be noticed in ἑγκρῖναι, signifying, to place in a line with, and συγκρῖναι, to liken, to place by the side, to make equal. The words τισὶ τῶν συνιστάντων signify with certain persons (comp. 2Co_10:2) of the class that commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves among themselves and comparing themselves with themselves are not wise [understand it not.] In this sentence αὑτοὶ with all its subsequent qualifications, appears to apply most appropriately to the Apostle himself (comp. Gal_4:4). It then appears to be the regular positive expression, corresponding to the subsequent negative in 2Co_10:13, [they measuring themselves, etc., but we will not boast ourselves of things without measure,] and finds its further development in the assertion (ἁλλὰ κατὰ τὸ μέτρον κ. τ. λ.) but we will boast according to the measure, etc. It was for this reason that we are able to account for a reading of the text which arose in the earliest times, according to which οὑσυνιοῦσιν. ἡμεῖς δὲ was left out. It seemed difficult to apply what was said in connection with αὑτοὶ to Paul’s opponents, and οὑ δυνιοῦσιν would make no good sense if αὑτοὶ were applied to Paul himself (they commend themselves; but we, measuring ourselves by ourselves—i.e., “by what we really find ourselves to be—and comparing ourselves with ourselves, not with those wise men, those pretended knowing ones; or, “comparing ourselves with ourselves, who are so unwise, in the opinion of our opponents”!). They also found that on this interpretation the words ἡμεῖς δὲ not only seemed superfluous, but injurious to the sense of the passage, and that on the other hand the sentence read smoothly and with an appropriate meaning if οὑ συνιάσιν. ἡμεῖςδὲ were left out (“they commend themselves; but we measuring ourselves by ourselves, etc., will not boast as to things beyond our measure”). It is evident, therefore, that the reading of the Respectus which has those words is the most difficult reading, and hence was most likely to have been the true one and altered to get rid of the difficulty. This also accounts for the fact that the abbreviated reading is sustained only by Occidental manuscripts, and that even these are by no means in agreement, since some of them have ἡμεῖς δὲ. But even the reading of the Receptus which is much better sustained is capable of a very appropriate sense. Let αὐοὶ be applied to Paul’s opponents. Then the measuring themselves among themselves, is not the correct estimate which people form of themselves and their performances in contrast with a more uncertain one from a comparison with others, but a proud self-conceit springing from a constant fixing of the thoughts upon themselves and their fancied excellences and performances, and from never observing those who are superior to them, and who have distinguished themselves by more exalted achievments; in other words, it is an idle self-satisfaction and self-admiration. Nor is συνιοῦσιν to be construed as a participle in the dative plur. (anacoluthic), but a verb in the 8d pers. plur. Ind. of συνιέω, like συνιᾶσιν, the more common Attic form (adopted by Lachmann on the authority of B. and some other MSS.). The word stands here in an absolute sense: (they not understanding, not reaching a clear discernment, being deficient in understanding;) like the participle οἱ συνιέντες=those who understand, and ὁ συνιῶν Rom_3:11, and συνῆκαν Mar_6:52. It implies either that the course they take is the reason for their want of intelligence, or that it is the way in which they exhibit this want. Others explain it: they do not observe or perceive that they are measuring themselves. by their own selves; or they do so without being aware of it; but such a sense is agreeable neither to the order of the words, nor to the general sense of the passage. For the Apostle is speaking not of the way in which they were blinding themselves, but of the folly of their proceeding, in contrast with his own course. With that measuring of themselves by themselves which is sure to lead off into unbounded self-laudation, (inasmuch as no objective limits can be assigned to a man’s exaltation of himself), the Apostle contrasts that boasting of one’s self which is confined to the limits assigned him by God. Ἀλλά is to be taken in the sense of but, either like the Germ. sondern, completely reversing or giving the negative to the previous clause, or like the Germ. aber, only partially doing so. The former is preferable on account of the preceding οὐ. As he now wishes to carry out the contrast of persons which had been given already in ἑαυτούς τισι, he brings up in strong light the kind of conduct which is most opposed to the pretensions of which he had been speaking. But οὐσυνιοῦσιν offers an obvious explanation of οὐ τολμῶμεν (Meyer.) [It must be confessed that there is on this interpretation an appearance of defect in that sharp contrast which seems demanded by the ἁλλὰ at the commencement of the passage. That particle seems to require that what he was about to say should be in direct opposition to the self-commendation of those of whom he had just spoken. By referring αὐτοῖ to the Apostle, this would be clear, since he would oppose his way of proceeding to theirs; but if that word is referred to his opponents, we have the conduct of the same persons shown in contrast]. Osiander endeavors to avoid this difficulty, by making αὐτοὶ especially emphatic [giving it an exclusive power] equivalent to soli [they alone, by themselves, separate from all other men. Kuehner. Gram. Am. ed. § 302, 6; Jelf. § 656, 3. a.]. This would make the Apostle say, that he would not venture to put himself among or even by the side of such persons, but that he would leave them to themselves and to their own folly. In this case a severe and bitter irony would be expressed: “but they, for their own special part, since they measure themselves, etc., are not wise; but we,” etc. Something of this kind was undoubtedly intended by the Apostle in whatever way his language is construed; but it is questionable whether it is implied in αὐτοί. [The contrast implied in referring αὐτοὶ to Paul’s opponents is in the very spirit of this section, and seems demanded by the argument. The very object he had in view was to put himself personally in opposition to them. The complete meaning developed by such a construction may be expressed thus: “we confess we have not the boldness which some have shown; and hence we shrink from numbering ourselves, or even comparing ourselves with them. On the other hand, we think that they are far from showing wisdom when they resort to self-commendations, and seek for credit by comparing themselves not with true Apostles, but with one another, and with their ownselves at different periods. Their self-love is sure to flatter them when they look solely at their own and others’ accomplishments, instead of comparing themselves with the standard which God has given us.”—See a sermon on this text by Dr. Chalmers].—Nay, neither will we boast without measure—[as far as to things which have no limit] (2Co_10:13). The authorities are here in favor of καυχησόμευα (Rec.) and are sufficiently strong to prove it genuine. The future [absolute, looking to indefinite time and to an ethical impossibility, Webster, chap. 6. p. 84; Winer, § 41, 6] implies that such a boasting could never by any possibility take place (comp. Rom_10:14). If we leave the word out of the text, we must suppose that the Apostle in 2Co_10:15, by an anacoluthon (καυχώμενοι) turned back in his thoughts to εἰς τὰ ἅμετρα. Fritzsche, who prefers the shorter reading of the text in 2Co_10:12, and who concludes that οὑ συνιοῦσιν originated in some marginal gloss, and then created a necessity for inserting ἡμεῖς δὲ, is in favor of such an explanation. But the Receptus has been triumphantly defended by Reiche (Commentar. I.) and Meyer.—But we boast according to the measure of the rule which God apportioned to us.—Opposed to εἰς τὰ ἅμετρα (on to the unmeasured, εἰς implying the extent or boundaries toward which the boasting tended, and which formed its measure or limit), stands here κατὰ τὸ μέτρον (according to the measure). This latter measure is more particularly defined by the additional τοῦ κανόνος, which signifies [properly, a reed, rod or staff, to keep anything erect, firm or upright, and then] the measure of the line, or the space determined by the measuring line [Robinson’s Greek and Eng. Lex to the N. T.]. We prefer the latter signification in the sense of a measured space accurately defined; and hence, in this place, in accordance with what follows, the department of influence, or of official duty, assigned him by God.11—A measure—even unto you. in the words οὖ ἐμέρισεν ἡμιν ὁ θεὸς μέτρον we have an instance of a bold attraction in the sense of ποῦ μέτρον (in apposition with τοῦ κανόνος) ὁ̓. The reason it is joined thus with τοῦ κανόνος probably was, because the Apostle wished to give prominence to the thought that the measure was precisely determined, inasmuch as the field of his activity had been marked out for him by God, as if by a surveyor’s chain, when the Spirit within him, as well as external providential circumstances, had shown him in what direction and how far he should go (comp. Act_16:6 ff.). In ἐφικέσθαι ἄχρι καὶ ὑμῶν (to extend even unto you) he meant to say, that in this distribution of parts (1Co_7:17), God had made his measure extend even to
Corinth. The infinitive is connected with ἐμέρισεν, in which is contained the idea of an intention. Ἄχρι, etc., i.e., to Corinth, which was then the extreme limit of Paul’s preaching in the West. He proceeds, in 2Co_10:14, to show that he might, without presumption, regard them as within the sphere of his influence, and to confirm what he had said in 2Co_10:13.—For we stretch (over-extend) not ourselves beyond our measure, as though we reached not unto you.—The phrase ἱπερεκτείνειν ἑαυτόν properly signifies to stretch one’s self over or beyond the measure, which had been assigned him (by the measuring instrument); and in thus using it, the Apostle’s object was to meet the objection that he had arrogated to himself in Corinth something which did not belong to him. We must not construe ὡς μὴ ἐφικνούμενοι (the readings ἐφικόμενοι or ἀφικόμενοι have very feeble authority in their favor), as if it were in the preterite, but take it as a designation of those who do not come, i.e., do not reach to you. The μή denies the idea supposed, and implies that it was only an ideal case which he was supposing, viz: that he had not in fact reached to the Corinthians. He informs them what the real fact was, and confirms what he had before asserted, when he adds—For even as far as you did we come foremost in preaching the gospel of Christ.—̓Εφθάσαμεν suggests that the priority of influence in Corinth properly belonged to him, and that he had been before his opponents in preaching the Gospel and in establishing a Church there. Even if it were proved that φθάνειν in Rom_9:31; Php_3:16; Dan_4:8, should have the meaning simply of to come to a place generally, we think its more fundamental meaning [in the aorist: we have already come, or have come beforehand] should be re tained in this passage. ̓Εν τῷ εὑαγγελίῳ implies that the announcement of salvation was the element in which he moved in all his apostolic journeys; or it simply means, while we were preaching Christ.—Not boasting without measure in other men’s labors (2Co_10:15 a)—These words must be joined to 2Co_10:13, so as to make 2Co_10:14 not merely the second half of 2Co_10:14, but a parenthesis. He resumes the subject contained in οὐκ εἰς τὰ ἅμετρα καυχᾶσθαι, and grammatically connects what he here says with καυχησόμεθα, which had to be understood in ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸμέτρον, etc., in 2Co_10:13. The participial sentence must therefore be joined with καυχησόμεθα and not with ἐφθάσαμεν (Rückert).—But having a hope that as your faith increases we shall be enlarged among you according to our rule abundantly (2Co_10:15 b).—We have here a further development of the Apostle’s discourse. In the first place an object is given to the καυ χᾶσθαι, which he had disclaimed for himself when he says: ἐν ἀλλοτρίοις κόποις. This contains an indirect allusion to his opponents, who in fact boasted of other men’s labors, and arrogated as their own what had been done by others (κόπος, Joh_4:38; 1Co_3:8). With this negative he goes on to connect the prospect of an extension of his sphere of labor beyond Corinth, in consequence of an anticipated increase of their faith; αὐξανομένης τῆς πίστεωςὑμῶν is a more forcible expression than the simple participle ἐλπίζοντες would have been, and it signifies a firm, habitual confidence. The present αὐξανομένης indicates not only that their faith would be increased (Engl. A. V.), but that it was then actually increasing. He had an assurance that their faith would have a steady, pure and vigorous progress, and hence that he would not much longer be contracted and held back by his care for them. On this assurance he entertained a confident hope in a short time, ἐν ὑμὶν μεγαλυνθῆναι, etc. Ἐν ὑμῖν does not belong especially to that which had just been said, as if the Apostle had intended to say that he hoped their faith would be increased either in their hearts (in distinction from their outward growth among the people) or in the common fellowship of believers; for in either case ὑμῶν would be superfluous. He hoped that when their faith had been increased, he would be magnified among them, and would be assisted by their growing congregations to accomplish further and more important results. There is evidently nothing in the language used to imply that the Apostle was thinking of the geographical position of Corinth or of the favorable opportunities which would be presented there for more extensive enterprises (ἐν is in the sense of per). [And yet, as Grotius and Rosenmueller suggest, such an idea would have been peculiarly appropriate to the Corinthians, who were great navigators, and had peculiar facilities for assisting him on his journey to countries farther West and South. Not unreasonably, Osiander concludes from this passage that no Apostle had before this been further West]. Even the metaphor of a man of extraordinary stature, who could therefore reach further without going beyond his measure (Meyer), is probably foreign to the passage. Still less appropriate is the explanation of μεγαλύνειν, which makes it signify: celebrari (to be praised, although in other places the word may have that meaning), or rather: to be glorified among you. The context, however, favors the idea that the Apostle was thinking of an enlargement or exaltation of his power to perform his duties, in consequence of which he would be able to press further on, and enlarge the sphere of his labors. That this increase of his greatness would only be in conformity with his calling as an Apostle, he indicates by the words, according to our rule (κατὰ τὸν κανόνα ἡμῶν). This rule has no reference to the general principle expressed in Rom_15:20, for the connection (2Co_10:13) required him simply to say that he was confining himself to the limits God had assigned him (according to our measuring line, i.e., never to go beyond the space God has distinctly marked off for me). He is careful, however, to inform his readers that these limits did not abridge his free action and did not make his very great enlargement impossible. This he lets us know in εἰς περισσείαν. He was well aware that he had been ordained to an Apostleship which was universal in its object (comp. Rom_1:13 ff; Rom_15:23 f., 28), and which called for an extraordinary energy. Rückert’s idea, that αὐξαν.—εἰς περισσείαν has a tincture of irony about it, appears to be without foundation (comp. Meyer).—To preach the Gospel as far as the parts beyond you (2Co_10:16 a). He here informs us more definitely what would be the result of the enlargement of which he had just spoken, and what he would become capable of. Εὐαγγελίσασθαι is here the infinitive either of the design or of the result to be accomplished by the enlargement; it is not simply epexegetical of what that enlargement was to be (q. d., that is, to make known the Gospel), but to tell us what would follow that enlargement, or why he hoped for it (in order that). As in 1Pe_1:25; 1Th_2:9; Joh_8:26, εἰς is here used to imply the making known to, and bringing the Gospel into, those countries. ̓Ὑ̓περέκεινα is a word used in a corrupted Greek style for ἐπέκεινα. In the next clause he proceeds to give us the negative description of the same result or design—not to boast ourselves of things prepared for our hands in another’s line (2Co_10:16 b.). In this additional qualification of what he had said, he intended to signify that in such an extension of his Apostolical influence he did not mean to boast like his opponents of something already prepared for him in the sphere of other men’s labors, i.e., to appropriate to himself the fruits of other persons, labors, and thus to acquire a false reputation for greatness. [In our common English version a comma should be placed after the word “line,” so that no one should read the passage as if it were, “another man’s line of things”]. The words ὁκανών have here the sense of, what is marked off by a measuring line; properly, the extent of space intended for another and assigned to him by the measuring line. The meaning of the word is not changed here, though the general idea it conveys is affected by the context. In contrast with this false and censurable self-glorification, he now presents in a general sentence the glorying which is proper and commendable. The general rule with respect to this he announces thus—But he that I glorieth let him glory in the Lord (2Co_10:17). Comp. 1Co_1:31. The reason for this glorying which is mentioned in 2Co_10:18 makes it evident that, κύριος (God) is here represented to be not so much the object of the glorying as the reason on account of which one glories. To a selfish and arbitrary self-commendation, to a false boasting, stands opposed a glorying in a fellowship with the Lord, as the true source of all ability, or on account of that approbation which God bestows upon us and which is revealed in the blessing attending our labors. Such a glorying is shown in the confession that whatever success we have comes from God (comp. 2Co_3:3).—For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth (2Co_10:18). With respect to this commendation of ourselves, comp. 2Co_10:12. The person who presumes to commend himself thus is brought before us with a special emphasis in ἐκεῖνις. Δόκιμος, in this connection, where the Apostle is speaking of Christ’s ministers, signifies one who is approved or authenticated as a faithful minister of the Lord (2Ti_2:15). Meyer draws from the whole passage a somewhat different sense; for in his view καυ χᾶσθαιἐν κυρίω is a glorying in God as the Being through whose grace and power he has and does every thing (comp. 2Co_12:9 ff.; 1Co_15:10). The opposite of this is the commendation of our own selves: “for not he who acts differently from this, and instead of glorying in the Lord, commends himself, is approved (tried experimentally by Christian tests), but he whom the Lord commends (by His blessing, and not by any literal or direct praise). Neander: “Only that which the Lord accomplished by the instrumentality of a man is really his commendation, not his own commendations of himself, or dead letters of commendation like those which the Judaizing teachers carried.” [Comp. 2Co_3:1, and above 2Co_10:12].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
[1. The Christian and especially the Christian pastor, should be a man of combined strength and gentleness. The one quality without the other produces a distorted character. Without strength there can be no real gentleness, to the very idea of which the conception of a reserved force is necessary, an energy which on occasion forbears to exert its appropriate qualities. The Apostle had been gentle and meek in the former part of this Epistle, but it was not from feebleness of character. He could be, like his Lord, a lion or a lamb, as circumstances called for such qualities. The Church needs heroes as well as martyrs; to contend sometimes for truth and rights, as well as sometimes to surrender themselves to the smiter. There may be more danger that God’s people should fait in benignity or meekness, but there have been seasons where they have shown an equally painful lack of a magnanimity which sympathizes with great enterprises and with oppressed humanity, and a fervent zeal which cannot bear them that are evil (Rev_2:2; Jdg_5:23)].
2. The minister of Christ is a spiritual warrior, in arms against every thing which is in the way of the progress of Christ’s kingdom, of the truth and of the knowledge of God; or which tends to impede or impair their exclusive and complete authority. He is often compelled to experience that his natural powers are weak and Sinful, but his sinful infirmities and afflictions are never allowed to control his method of warfare. The Spirit of that God, in whose cause he maintains the conflict, supplies him with weapons of Almighty power, which pierce every covering, overcome all opposition, and overthrow the strongest holds. This sword of the Spirit, the enlightening and quickening word, cuts through the most ingeniously contrived knots which the mind of man, however aided by Satanic art has been able to form, and batters down and destroys the most powerful defences which the reason of man has been able to construct against God. This is the light which penetrates the darkness of the human understanding, awakens in men a consciousness of their weakness and their errors in Divine things, convinces them of the infallible and exclusive certainty of the revelation God has made of Himself in Christ and so completely subjects their mental powers to Christ that that revelation becomes their only authority in matters of faith. In opposition to an enemy Whose equipment is “great power and much craft,” the spiritual combatant or commander has not only a Divine energy but a wisdom which is superior to all human craftiness. But before punishing the refractory, he distinguishes accurately between the seducers and the seduced, and he is careful kindly and thoroughly to win the latter and to draw them away from their dangerous associates. In such a work his love will be quite as prominent as his wisdom, for he will remember that his official power was intrusted to him by God not to destroy but to save and benefit his fellowmen.
2. The true minister of Christ can easily be distinguished from all arrogant intruders into the sacred office, in the first place, by his abstaining from all self-laudation, and by his leaving it entirely to God to justify him and to authenticate him as a servant of the Lord; so that if he ever boasts it will be a glorying in the Lord by whose grace he is qualified for his work, and without which he is and can do nothing: and in the second place, by his confining himself strictly to the sphere to which his Lord has called him, in which he makes all he does subservient to the Divine glory, and beyond which he never attempts to pass into new fields until he has performed all that had been previously required of him and is led and strengthened by the Divine hand.
[3. The conflict of truth with error, of sin and holiness, can never cease until all sin and error are exterminated from the earth. While true benevolence will allow of no such intolerance as resorts to carnal weapons against the life, reputation or outward prosperity of ungodly men, it can never be wanting in inclination, wisdom or power to pursue its conquests while any degree of sin or error remains in the world. This conflict is therefore truly “irrepressible” until the kingdom of darkness shall be utterly destroyed].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Starke:
2Co_10:1. Christ’s faithful ministers will endeavor to deal with souls as Jesus Himself dealt with them (Mat_12:17-20).—It is right to meet all evil reports, but let it be always with becoming modesty.
2Co_10:2. Hedinger: Gentleness may and ought sometimes to be followed by sharpness and severity. In a world which is filled with wrong and outrage, who would be perpetually administering consolation (1Ti_5:20) ?
2Co_10:3. God’s people and servants are spiritual soldiers who must war a good warfare (1Ti_1:18), and for this God alone can provide adequate weapons.
2Co_10:4. Ibid: A fortress is what makes resistance and is not easily taken. In the unsanctified heart it is: wilfulness, a proud spirit, inveterate wickedness, habitual sins, the old Adam with all his defences, subterfuges and pretended rights; or it is: everything which Satan and the world sets up in opposition to the kingdom of Christ, such as power, great names, craft, fraud, calumny, wealth, great numbers, philosophy and eloquence.—Chrysostom: Carnal weapons are wealth, fame, worldly power, fluency of speech, severity, circumventive arts, flatteries and hypocrisies.
2Co_10:5. Ibid: That which is lofty is also proud, established. Here it stands for all opposition to the word of God, to Christ, to repentance and to faith; inasmuch as men are ashamed of the humble requirements and the cross of Christ, ridicule the duties of self-denial, and resist the progress of Christ’s kingdom with all their subtility and power.—Reason is one of the noblest of God’s gifts, but when it is abused, when it sets itself against God’s word, and claims to be the supreme judge and arbiter in matters of faith, etc., it must be rejected.
2Co_10:6. The revenge which springs from a carnal and embittered spirit should always be repressed, but that which comes from a spiritual desire to rebuke and faithfully punish wickedness is commendable and desirable.—A faithful minister should endeavor to unite, edify and strengthen his people before he attempts to scatter and punish those who are opposed to him.
2Co_10:7. Teachers and preachers should not be directed by the mere outward semblance of things, but act honestly, faithfully and suitably to their calling.
2Co_10:8. A good Christian will always be grateful to those who faithfully tell him the truth and never flatter him.—Spiritual power should be exercised with no other desire than to edify and benefit God’s people (2Co_12:19).
2Co_10:9. An upright servant of God will be especially careful to avoid every appearance of that which has been laid to his charge (1Pe_2:12).
2Co_10:11. We should strive never to make an improper use of the gentle dealings of pious people, lest we compel them to exchange gentleness for severity.—It is a great thing for a preacher never to contradict his words by his works, and to be always the same, present or absent, etc.
2Co_10:12. No man can judge himself correctly, if he looks only at himself. He must compare himself with those who possess more excellent gifts, that he may learn to think moderately of himself.
2Co_10:13. God has measured out to every faithful preacher, the precise limits of his official duty, and he should strive to occupy these with all fidelity, and to leave nothing undone within his measure!
2Co_10:14. A grandiloquent style of speaking however common and favored by worldly people, is peculiarly offensive to the servants and the children of God.
2Co_10:15. Blessed is that congregation which, for a long time, has a faithful pastor, and has grown and strengthened under his ministrations.—But the minister who has been successful in saving and building up the people of his charge, may be convinced on right principles, that God has called him to go further, and enlarge his field.—The great business of Christianity is to have faith. This is the true bond by which our souls are spiritually united with God, and through which we become and continue branches of Christ, derive spiritual nourishment from Him, and so are able to advance in goodness.
2Co_10:17. Everything without Christ is nothing; and nothing with Christ is everything.—-2Co_10:18. Spener: To praise one’s self is to derogate just so much from God’s glory, and is an insolence which God will assuredly resist. Great indeed is the commendation which God bestows; by showing to an assembled universe, that He is pleased with our works, by the testimony of a good conscience in our own hearts, and by the successful result of what we have done.
Berlenb. Bible:
2Co_10:3. Christians live in the flesh among their fellowmen, not to obey, but to overcome their fleshly inclinations.
2Co_10:4. Before anything can be built up in the kingdom of God, whatever is opposed to it, as pride and false prejudices must be discovered and removed.
2Co_10:5. Carnal wisdom, vain thoughts, and the conclusions of unassisted reason, are the principal obstacles with which the gospel has to contend. They can never be subdued by external force, nor by counter opinions of men, but by the sword of the Spirit. Our great work is to learn to wield this sword with faithfulness and skill.—The right knowledge of God will always lead to a subjugation of ourselves to Him, for it will show what are our true relations to Him. Whoever follows not the Lord Jesus as a little child, but proudly adheres to the conceited maxims of human wisdom, will certainly fall into darkness. It must be our constant care to humble every high thing and bring it into subjection to the simplicity of Christ. It will be easy to do this if we allow the Holy Spirit to work freely in our hearts.
2Co_10:7. Whoever sees only what the outward eye naturally rests upon, will never observe the Spirit, and the footsteps of Christ.
2Co_10:8. If the appointed overseers in the Church would use their power in the wisest manner, they should insist upon nothing but what will promote the growth of real piety, and they should exclude from visible fellowship none whom Christ has thought worthy of an invisible fellowship with Himself and His people.—If each one would give his attention to the measure which God hath measured to him, and be faithful in that without disturbing others in their proper spheres, the peace and unity of the Christian world would never be broken.
2Co_10:15. Our first business is to learn what is the peculiar work to which God calls us.
2Co_10:17. As long as you imagine you have something to boast of, you know neither God nor yourself, and you are making a god of yourself.
2Co_10:18. We have here a little text of great importance. Great and small, strong and feeble, come within its range, that the one may not be discouraged, and that the other may not be presumptuous.
Rieger:
2Co_10:1-2. Nothing is more difficult than for a man to speak much of himself. If, however, circumstances demand it, let him show that a good conscience is not necessarily a feeble or timid one.—Our Lord always endeavored to make the way of repentance and amendment as easy as possible, and He never threw needless impediments in the path of those who were seeking for truth.
2Co_10:5. We should never hesitate to break in pieces all carnal weapons, but we should strive to bring those who once used them, to accept of the easy yoke of Christ, and to learn of Him that they may find that rest which their souls never knew while contending against God.
2Co_10:7 ff. We are very liable falsely to suspect others, when our judgments are guided by wrong principles, and are formed according to appearances. How cruel have been the imputations under which the most excellent of the earth have sometimes been obliged to live! Wicked men have not been afraid to trample under foot those whom God has prepared to sit with His Son on the throne of His glory. Teach us, O God, so to use Thy grace, that we may meekly submit to ignominy, and yet hope for glory!
2Co_10:12 ff. Where God helps, there only can the believer find a path to walk.
2Co_10:17 f. Something we must have to support us while all around us are judging and despising us. But if thou wilt glory, glory only in the Lord who has accepted of thee, and counted thee worthy of His high calling, with whose pounds thou art trading, and for whom thou art to live and die.—Even in the judgment of common sense it is a contemptible thing for a man to praise himself. But there are many arts by which it is consistent with good manners and intelligence to draw upon ourselves the observation of those around us.—The Lord can praise us, sometimes by opening doors which no art or power of man could previously open, and sometimes by quieting those who before had thought unfavorably of us (Rev_3:9). But in general our cause must be reserved for that great day when the Lord will judge every secret thing.
Heubner:
2Co_10:1. The good qualities of those who act as spiritual shepherds are sure to be misrepresented. Their gentleness will be called weakness, and their earnestness, arrogance and rashness. Even those who commonly appear retiring and diffident, when necessity calls for it, sometimes put forth great energy.
2Co_10:3. The Christian must always be at war with the world, but his weapons must be spiritual and very different from those of worldly prudence.
2Co_10:4. Only the pure in heart have courage to attack sins which are rooted deeply in the spirit of the world, and sustained by public laws and usages (wicked maxims, established customs and erroneous opinions).
2Co_10:5. Man’s pride rebels against the Gospel, but those who are enlightened and strengthened by the Spirit of God can get the victory over it.—That reason which exults itself against Christianity and will learn nothing from Christ, is false (Luther: Satan’s harlot).
2Co_10:6. All who are in favor of right and order in the Church must ordinarily rally around their ministers.
2Co_10:7. There are other and perhaps better Christians than yourself (against exclusiveness).
2Co_10:8. There is a salutary power which belongs to the pastoral office, which is not for condemnation, but for edification, and which ought always to be cheerfully acknowledged by the people. Ministers should never attempt to drive their people by slavish fears.
2Co_10:10. Extraordinary talents or merits are not always connected with an imposing presence or a remarkable eloquence.
2Co_10:11. The truest respect of our fellowmen is acquired by showing them that we have been called of God and are led by His Spirit; not by exhibitions and a consciousness of our own powers, which too often engender pride.
2Co_10:12. Great as thou mayest be, there are probably some much greater! Nothing can be more idle than for a man to make himself his standard and then measure himself by it.
2Co_10:13. God gives to every man the sphere of action in which his talents may be best employed; this he should strive to occupy, and never break into that of his neighbor and arrogate to himself something which is not his.
2Co_10:15. Those who occupy well a small sphere will be very sure to be Divinely called to a larger (Luk_19:17).
2Co_10:17. No garment is so beautiful and no honor so illustrious as humility.
2Co_10:18. What if you are commended by yourself and by all men? One word from your final Judge may turn it all to shame. How different will be His estimate of all human merit!
W. F. Besser:
2Co_10:3. The Spirit of Christ enables us not only to mortify the deeds of the body (Rom_8:13), but to subject the flesh in which we live and walk (Gal_2:20) so completely under the seal of the Spirit, that our tongue, eyes, ears and all our members, our reason, and all our minds and hearts, shall be consecrated to the service of God (Rom_6:13). But whoever serves God in this life must be a warrior. If this is true of all Christians (Eph_6:10), it is in a double sense true of ministers. But he wars a good warfare if, while walking in the flesh, he wars not after the flesh, with passion, vindictiveness, pusillanimity, unworthy artifices and vain ambition.
2Co_10:4. In the eye of the world, carnal weapons are mighty, and the spiritual weapons of the Church (the word of God, preaching, faith, confessions, patience and spiritual gifts) are of no consequence; but in God’s sight, carnal weapons are powerless and vain, and those which come from the holy armory, where David obtained his equipments (Psa_18:35-36), are mighty. What bulwarks has the god of this world erected to keep men in their wicked ways! The idolatrous systems of heathen nations, the self-righteous prejudices of the Jew, the philosophic arrogance of the Greek, the civil grandeur of the Roman, the haughty power of the world, the whole manner of life sanctioned by ancestral usages and deeply rooted popular prejudices, strongly fortified errors of heretics,—these are the strongholds which the Church has had to storm, with no other weapons than the trumpet of the Gospel and the sword of the Spirit.
2Co_10:5. As a beleaguered enemy builds up one wall behind another, and erects many towers in his defence, so rises up from the carnal institutions assailed by the Gospel, one high thing after another to maintain their life, their purposes, their honor, and their loves and pleasures against the word of God, which demands an unconditional surrender. What was it that subdued me and made me renounce myself, die to myself, and thus become my own enemy; made me depend entirely upon Jesus, lose myself in Him, and find my all in Him? Nothing but the word of God, whose power is so wonderful. This it was which destroyed every high thing which my imagination erected, and behind which I had intrenched myself. As long as reason, with its power of thought and will, remained in the service of the flesh (Eph_2:3), she was God’s enemy and “Satan’s harlot” (Luther); but no sooner was she taken captive to the obedience of Christ, than she became a submissive handmaid, performing precisely the opposite service for, not against, the knowledge of God. For faith is in its essential nature obedience to Christ (Rom_1:5; Rom_16:26).
2Co_10:8. This text appeals to all ministers: For edification and not for destruction! This admonishes us that we should make such a use of the power which the Lord has committed to us that we may be commended as faithful stewards.
[The Christian Church is engaged in a conflict, and every Christian is a warrior. I. For what? 1. For the knowledge of God; and 2. for the obedience of Christ (2Co_10:5). This conflict can never cease while a hurtful error, or a disobedient person, remains on earth. Strongholds must be demolished (2Co_10:4); rational powers taken captive (2Co_10:5); and incorrigible ones cast out (2Co_10:6). II. Some principles according to which it must be conducted. 1. Christ must be over all, all must be His, and exclusive Christ-parties among such as belong to Him are schismatic (2Co_10:7); 2. Christ’s Spirit must animate all; (a) his meekness and gentleness (2Co_10:1), or (b) his severity (2Co_10:2) according to the occasion; 3. Spiritual weapons alone must be used: every man’s freedom and external position must be respected, but whatever truth and love can do must be done (2Co_10:4); 4. Nothing but the good of individual men and of society must be sought (2Co_10:8-9); 5. Men must be valued not by their own or other’s estimate of them, but by the standard of Divine truth (2Co_10:12; 2Co_10:17-18); 6. Each one must be confined to the sphere to which Providence assigns him, and yet this should be continually enlarging (2Co_10:15), 16].
Footnotes:
[1]2Co_10:4.—Rec. has στρατείας, but its authority is feeble. [Internal evidence would seem strong in favor of στρατείας both here and in 1Ti_1:18, for ordinarily (though by no means uniformly) it is used for military service or warfare, while στρατιά signifies rather an army: but they are often used interchangeably, and the external evidence against it is too strong to be forsaken. (Tisch.). Lachm. however (sustained only by Cod. B.) adopts it.]
[2]2Co_10:7.—Rec. has χριστοῦ after ἡμεῖς; but it is thrown out by the majority of the best MSS. [Tisch. after rejecting it in ed. 3d, restores it in ed. 7th with the remark: “at ut molestum omnino omissum videtur: addidisse quemguam vix credibiu videtur.” And yet the documentary evidence against it (B. C. D. (1st hand) F. G. Sin. many cursives, Vulg. Goth. Syr. Arm. with most of the ancient expositors) is very strong.]
[3]2Co_10:8.—The predominance of evidence is in favor of τε after και; it is easier to conceive of its omission than of its insertion. On the other hand καί before περισσότερον has the weight of authority against it, and it is probably a supplementary addition. [Tisch. now restores it and thinks it more likely to have been omitted than added by a foreign hand.]
[4]2Co_10:8.—ἡμῖν after κύριος is uncertain. It might have seemed superfluous after ἡμῶν, and yet very appropriate after ἔδωκεν. The best MSS. do not have it.
[5]2Co_10:10.—[ἐπιστολαὶ is placed before μέν by Lachm. after Codd. B. and Sin.]. φησίν is better sustained than φασιν; it is also the more difficult reading.
[6]2Co_10:12-13.—οὐ συνιοῦσιν ἡμεῖς δὲ are thrown out by a number of critics, but on the sole authority of Occidental MSS., some of which have ἡμεῖς δὲ, although these last words seem like an incomplete restoration when they stand alone. The transcriber’s eye easily passed from οὐ before συν or οὐχ after ἡμεῖς δὲ, and it was difficult to explain the passage without omitting these words. See critical remarks [and Stanley's extended discussion.]
[7]2Co_10:13.—καυχησόμεθα. has satisfactory evidence in its favor; and is neither to be left out nor exchanged for καυχώμεθα nor καυχώμενοι.
[8]2Co_10:14.—Lachm. has ὡς γὰρ instead of οὐ γὰρ ὡς, but his authorities are weak [only Cod. B. and two very recent cursives. As he plaees the mark of interrogation after ἑαυτόυς, the sense remains the same.]
[9][This seems hardly conclusive, for the Apostle might very properly call attention to the agency of God through which his weapons were so powerful. Is there any greater call for his mere assertion that his weapons were powerful in God’s sight (i.e. truly)? The ancient Greek Expositors (whose opinions on such a question are entitled to weight, favor the meaning given in our common version, as e.g. Chrys.: “Paul here refers the whole power to God–he says not we are mighty, but our weapons are mighty through God.” So also Bloomfield,conybeare and Stanley (in his translation). Wordsworth less appropriately renders the phrase, God-ward in contrast with man-ward or in the direction of, in respect to, men. He refers to Act_7:20. Comp. Jelf, § 611, b.]
[10][This is one of those passages which became so important in the controversy with Rationalism. The etymological construction of the word is certainly in favor of the meaning: a thought, an intellectual perception as it is formed in the mind; and yet a very extensive usage in classic writers favors the meaning, the faculty of the understanding, or even the mind itself. The sense, too, if we adopt this meaning, would be highly appropriate; for while it is the λογισμοὶ, which were demolished, the mind itself which once entertained them, is here supposed to be taken captive to the obedience of Christ. We are compelled, however, by the connection which deals entirely with the products of human action against Divine knowledge, to adopt the etymological signification].
[11][Thereis no evidence beyond the vaguest tradition that before their separation at Jerusalem the Apostles portioned out the different provinces of the world to one another, and yet there was doubtless an understanding, perhaps silently acquiesced in by them all, that only one Apostle, or supreme authority, was needful on any field. In some special sense, “the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to Paul and that of the circumcision to Peter” (Gal_2:7); and in consequence of this, James, Cephas and John went unto the circumcision, and Paul and Barnabas unto the Gentiles (Gal_2:9). Paul appears also to have adopted the rule that he would leave the minor details of labor to inferior hands, when the Gospel had once been planted in a place, while he pressed forward to new countries. Hence he proposed to visit even Rome, where a Church had been formed by others, only by the way (Rom_15:20; Rom_15:24). If, then, any persons came to Corinth in the character of Apostles, or professing to act under the authority of other Apostles, while Paul was still alive and active on that field, and especially if they resisted his authority, it was a decided infringement of this express or implied arrangement, or a plan denial of his right to the name of an Apostle. Comp. Stanley].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain I. PRELIMINARIES TO THE MEASUREMENT, 2Co_10:1 to 2Co_11:21.
I. PRELIMINARIES TO THE MEASUREMENT, 2Co_10:1 to 2Co_11:21.
1. Insinuations of his foes; his weapons, and readiness to meet them, 1-11.
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1. Now I Paul myself—A very bold and emphatic presentation of himself. As he is calling his assailants—perhaps his chief assailant—to the front, so he presents his own breast to the issue. Timothy, Titus, and Luke are no longer at his side, for this combat touches alone himself—the apostle.
Beseech you—Never did battle begin more gently.
Meekness and gentleness—Meekness is the inward temper; gentleness is its manifestation towards others. He could beg that he might be allowed to remain within the range of the gentle side of Christ’s being, and not be called to exercise its sterner judicial functions.
Who—I. These words following are an ironical quotation of his opponents’ language.
Base— Rather, humble, subdued: the opposite of bold, or confident.
Of these bitter assaults made upon St. Paul by his Ebionitic opponents we have some curious specimens in a work called “The Clementines,” a work composed some time in the last half of the second century, which is still extant. These Clementines, so-called from their claim, falsely made, to have been composed by Clement, bishop of Rome, consist mainly of professed conversations between apostles and apostolic men, as Peter, James, and the Elders. Stanley has selected therefrom a number of malignant passages, illustrative of their character. Paul is unnamed, but represented under the appellation, “Simon Magus.” Peter is alone both apostle of Gentiles and Jews, and his rival Magus, alias Paul, is a “deceiver.” “Although,” says Stanley, “Peter is spoken of as ‘the first of the apostles,’ and as appointing Clement to the See of Rome, yet James is described as superior in dignity both to him and Clement, and to all the apostles; as ‘the lord and bishop of the holy Church,’ ‘bishop of bishops, ruling the Churches everywhere,’ ‘the bishop,’ ‘the archbishop;’ ‘the chief bishop,’ as opposed to Caiaphas ‘the chief priest.’ So the Ebionites ‘adored Jerusalem as the house of God.’ (Irenaeus, Hoer., 1:26.) Compare 2Co_1:24; 2Co_11:5; 2Co_11:20, and contrast Jas_1:1; 1Pe_5:2.
“St. Peter is represented as warning St. James against ‘the lawless and foolish teaching of the enemy,’ (του εχθρου ανθρωπου,) who perverts ‘the Gentiles from the lawful preaching of Peter,’ and who misrepresents Peter ‘as though he thought with the Gentiles, but did not preach it openly.’ Compare Gal_2:12; Gal_2:14. The ‘enemy’ (homo inimicus) takes part in a conspiracy against the life of James, and receives letters from the high priest to persecute Christians at Damascus. Compare Act_9:1.
“St. Peter warns his congregation to beware of ‘any apostle, prophet, or teacher, who does not first compare his preaching with that of James, and come with witnesses, lest the wickedness,’
which tempted Christ, ‘afterwards, having fallen like lightning from heaven,’ (comp. Act_26:13-14,) ‘should send a herald against you, and suborn one who is to sow error (πλανην) amongst you as it suborned this Simon against us, preaching in the name of our Lord, under pretence of the truth.’ Compare 2Co_3:1; 2Co_10:12-18; 2Co_5:12.” See further, note on Gal_2:21.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain Ch. 2Co_10:1-6. St Paul’s intention of overcoming all opposition…
Ch. 2Co_10:1-6. St Paul’s intention of overcoming all opposition to the Gospel
1. Now I Paul myself] “Until now, Paul has addressed himself preeminently to the better intentioned in the Christian Church, but henceforth he addresses himself to those who had sought to lower his dignity and weaken his authority by representing him as weak in personal influence,” as well as in bodily strength and consistency of purpose, “although courageous and full of self-commendation in his letters.” Olshausen. The word ‘myself’ is difficult to explain. Deans Stanley and Alford explain it (1) of St Paul’s intention to enter upon personal matters. St Chrysostom seems to imply (2) that it refers to the emphasis with which he speaks, and he cites Gal_5:2, Phm_1:19. But (3) it seems more probable that it means ‘I, the very man who in absence am said to be bold, shew my consistency by preferring meekness even in my letters. I am meek, not because I am afraid, but because I ought to be meek. But if meekness fails, then I must be severe.’ Cf. 2Co_10:2; 2Co_10:9-10; also 1Co_4:21. It must be remembered that one main purpose of this Epistle is to vindicate the consistency of the Apostle. See ch. 2Co_1:17-19.
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beseech] Rather, exhort. See note on ch. 2Co_1:3.
meekness and gentleness] Myldnesse and softnesse, Wiclif. Tyndale introduced the translation meekness. The word gentleness is due to our translators. But it is not the exact equivalent of the original. Derived from a word signifying like the truth, and therefore fair, equitable, it came to be the equivalent (see Aristotle, Ethics 2Co_10:10, and vi. 11) for the habit of mind engendered by the practice of regarding the rights of other people as well as our own. Aristotle describes it as the principle which underlies justice and tempers it, and as resulting in sympathy. Its nearest equivalents in English are fairness, considerateness, reasonableness. It and the cognate word occur in the N. T. only in Act_24:4; Php_4:5; 1Ti_3:3; Tit_3:2; Jas_3:17; 1Pe_2:18. For meekness cf. Mat_11:29-30; Isa_42:2-3; Isa_53:7.
in presence] Some translate by in personal appearance. See 2Co_10:7, and margin here. But the word seems in this verse to be opposed to absence. See 2Co_10:11. Also the Greek of Act_3:13; Act_25:16.
base] See note on ch. 2Co_7:6, where the word in the Greek is the same as here. The word base signifies originally low in position. Cf. the word basement and the French bas. See also Act_17:5. So Spenser, in his View of the State of Ireland, distinguishes between the “lords and chief men,” and the “peasants and baser people.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) Now I Paul myself beseech you.—His thoughts, as…
X.
(1) Now I Paul myself beseech you.—His thoughts, as has been said, have travelled back to Corinth. The stinging words which Titus had reported to him (see Note on 2Co_10:10) vex his soul. He speaks in the tone of the suppressed indignation which shows itself in a keen incisive irony. The opening formula is one which he reserves as emphasising an exceptionally strong emotion (Gal_5:2; Eph_3:1; Phm_1:19).
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By the meekness and gentleness of Christ.—On the precise ethical significance of the former word see Note on Mat_5:5; on that of the second, on Act_24:4. The temper described by the latter is that of one who does not press his rights, but acts in the spirit of equitable concession. The use of the formula of adjuration implies (1) that he felt how the opponents of whom he is about to speak were lacking in those two excellencies; (2) that he could appeal to what they knew of the personal character of Jesus as possessing them. This knowledge, it is obvious, must have rested on a general acquaintance with the facts of the Gospel history, like that implied in his treatment of the Lord’s Supper in 1Co_11:23-25; and of the Resurrection in 1Co_15:1-7; and in his reference to our Lord’s teaching in Act_20:35.
Who in presence am base among you.—Literally, in person—i.e., in personal appearance. Possibly, however, the translators may have used the word “presence” in this sense. So Bacon speaks of “dignity of presence.” The fact that “outward appearance” is given in the margin as an alternative reading, suggests, however, that though they changed the word, they meant what Cranmer and the Geneva version had expressed by “when I am present with you.” For “base,” read downcast, or of low estate. We have already seen, in 2Co_7:6 a reference to the offensive word.
But being absent am bold toward you.—This also was one of the taunts. “It was easy to be bold at a distance; but would he have the courage to face them? Was not his delay in coming a proof that he was shirking that encounter?”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain With this chapter begins the last great section of…
With this chapter begins the last great section of the Epistle (ver. 1, 2Co_13:10) which contains an impassioned vindication of the apostle"s position as compared with that of his opponents. It is so much more vehement and severe than the former part of the Epistle, and the whole style and tone of the Epistle at this point change so completely, that many have supposed that this is in reality another letter, and some have even identified it with the letter alluded to in 2Co_7:8-12. There is no trace of external evidence in favour of this view. It is much more probable that St. Paul would here have ended his letter but for fresh information given him by Titus, or the arrival of some new messenger from Corinth, from whom he learnt the bitter way in which his enemies spoke of him. The most flagrant offender seems to have been one teacher from Jerusalem (vers. 7, 10, 11, 12, 18; 2Co_11:4) This man and his abettors and other party opponents spoke of St. Paul as mean in aspect (vers. 1, 10), untutored in speech, (2Co_11:6) bold at a distance and cowardly when present, a man of mere human motives (ver. 2), and not quite sound in intellect. (2Co_11:16, 2Co_11:17, 2Co_11:19) They had been introducing new teaching, (2Co_11:4) and had shown themselves boastful (ver. 7), insolent, rapacious, violent, (2Co_11:20, 2Co_11:21) intrusive (ver. 15), and generally dangerous in their influence, (2Co_11:3) which had succeeded in alienating from St. Paul the minds of many (ver. 18; 2Co_11:8, 20 12:13, 14) Such accusations and such conduct now roused the deep indignation of St. Paul, and his Apologia pro vita sua is mainly given in these chapters.
Plunging at once into his subject, with a solemn appeal, he declares his apostolic power (vers. 1-8), and that he will exercise it in person as well as by letters, in answer to the taunt of his opponents (vers. 9-11). He then shows that his estimate of himself is formed on very different methods from those of his adversaries (vers. 12-16), and that he referred all grounds of boasting solely to the judgment of God (vers. 17, 18).
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Now I Paul myself. The words, as Theodoret says, express the emphasis of apostolic dignity. He is going to speak of himself and for himself. "I, the very Paul, with whose name you make so free." The conjecture may not even be impossible that this portion of the letter may have been written with his own hand. Perhaps he began without any intention of writing more than a few concluding words, but he was carried away by his feelings, and the subject grew under his hands. (comp. Gal_5:2; Eph_3:1; Phm_1:19) Beseech; rather, exhort. By the meekness and gentleness of Christ. The conduct which he is obliged to threaten might seem incompatible with this meekness and gentleness. (Mat_11:29, Mat_11:30) It was not really so, because even Christ had been compelled at times "to burst into plain thunderings and lightnings." Still, severity and indignation were not in themselves after the inmost heart and will of Christ, though human perversity might compel love itself to assume such tones. He entreats them, however, not to force him to stern measures. Gentleness. The word epiekeia means "fairness, forbearance, sympathetic consideration for others," or, as Mr. Matthew Arnold prefers to render it, "sweet reasonableness" (see Act_24:4; Php_4:5; Jam_3:17; 1Pe_2:18) Who in presence, etc. Here, and in many similar passages of this section, he is evidently adopting or quoting the actual taunts of his adversaries. In modern times the words would be enclosed in inverted commas. Base; rather, humble. (see note on 2Co_7:6 2Co_12:7) Being absent am bold. The charge, if true, would have been the mark of a coward; and it naturally awakens an indignant echo in the language of St. Paul.
Vers. 1, 2.
Self-vindication.
I Paul myself beseech you," etc. Paul, as we have frequently intimated, had detractors in the Corinthian Church, men who sought to gain power by calumniating him. We are not in possession of all the calumnies. Paul knew them all. Throughout these two Epistles we find him constantly on the defensive; here again we find him standing up for himself. In his defence he manifests
I A STRONG DESIRE TO DEAL WITH THEM IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. "Now I Paul myself beseech entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." He seems to shrink from the idea of so defending himself as to act contrary to the mild and gentle spirit of Christ. Whatever I say in my defence, I would say in the spirit of him "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again." Thus we should always act, even in reproving others and defending ourselves; in all we should be actuated and controlled by the spirit of Jesus Christ. No reproof will go so thoroughly home to the heart of the offender as that which breathes and echoes his spirit.
II A KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONTEMPTUOUSNESS WITH WHICH HIS DETRACTORS REGARDED HIM. "Who in presence am base lowly among you, but being absent am bold of good courage toward you." This does not seem to be the estimate he forms of himself, but the character which his slanderers had given him. In ver. 10 it is so stated: "For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible." It would seem that they spoke somewhat thus flow bold and courageous this man is in his "letters;" but how mean and contemptible in his appearance and conduct! He here intimates that when he comes amongst them he would be "bold" and courageous. They shall know that I am no coward, and with indomitable fearlessness I shall administer the necessary rebuke.
III A DREAD OF EXERCISING SEVERITY TOWARDS THEM. "But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh." It is the characteristic of a great soul, especially of a great soul inspired with the spirit of Christ, to shrink from inflicting pain on any heart. Yet when duty calls it must be done.
HOMILIES BY C. LIPSCOMB
Vers. 1-7.
Change in the Epistle; spirit of his defense.
No one can fail to notice the change in the tone of the Epistle which appears in this chapter. Every thoughtful reader of St. Paul knows how abrupt his transitions frequently are, and how rapidly he digresses from his main point to something incidental to his topic. His mental associations are governed by two distinct laws first, by ideas exciting feelings which lead him to diverge from his main line; and next, by emotions arising from some occult source that vary his action of intellect. In this instance there may have been a pause in writing after he had finished the subject of the collection. Naturally a reaction would set in. One of his excitable temperament could not have been relieved of oppressive solicitude, as he had been by the return of Titus, nor given such an expression to his joy as we have in ch. 8. and 9. without subsequent exhaustion of nervous energy. If, meantime, news came to him of the renewal of Judaizing zeal at Corinth, and of some sudden accession of strength to the party so inflamed against him, we can readily see why his indignation should be aroused. To have his hopes dashed in this way, in such a conjuncture and by such unscrupulous opponents, would put a terrible strain on a nature organized as sensitively as his, all the more so since a new era seemed about dawning in the history of the gospel. Europe and Asia appeared ready to join hands most heartily in the work of evangelizing the world, and just at this most auspicious period, to witness a fresh outbreak of discord was the severest of trials that could have befallen him. Whatever the cause, it was a sad thing for this noble spirit to be sorely chafed in an hour when it was rallying from an unusual depression and girding itself for special endeavours to cement the Asiatic and European Churches closer together. Here, in the very heart of Achaia, were agents from the Judaizing party at Jerusalem, who appear to have become more jealous than ever of his growing influence, and were heated to fiercer hostility against the apostle because of the recent triumph of his authority. While he was exerting every nerve to help the Church in Jerusalem, men from that very community were working in Corinth to disparage his ministry and undermine his personal character. It was shocking ingratitude. In itself it was rankling jealousy; in its connections, base partisanship. At that moment the interests of Christianity hung on the precise work he was doing. The liberal gospel he was preaching, the gospel of free grace and of equal honour and privilege to Jew and Gentile, was attesting its Divine excellence in the "exceeding grace of God" manifested by means of the abounding charity of Macedonia and Achaia. And yet all the promise and hope of this inspiring movement were thrown into the utmost peril by these fanatical zealots. Had he not felt this wrong keenly and resisted it courageously, he would have shown a want of manliness; for no character can have force that lacks indignation when its own integrity and a great cause identified with that integrity are ruthlessly assailed. It is under such circumstances that the true man appears in the way his sense of injustice operates. Quite as plainly the wise leader will display himself in the perception of what the emergency requires and in the decision with which his measures are executed. Now, the apostle is before us again as a study in this particular aspect of his character and ministry. Much as we have learned of him, something remains to be seen, and we may feel assured that the additional insight will amply reward us. The first utterance of his soul enkindles our admiration. Wronged, vilified, St. Paul appeals to the Corinthians "by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." It is not "we" but "I Paul," for he was the person singled out for these malicious attacks and he would reply from his own heart. It is not that sort of "meekness and gentleness" which craft and conventionality often assume to hide their art and malignity. It is the spirit of Christ, the meekness which acts by turning inwardly upon the mind and soothing its faculties, and the gentleness that exhibits itself in outward tranquillity. St. Paul cannot speak of these except as Christ"s virtues. They are his; they have his life; they take their power and beauty from him. "I Paul myself his individuality emphasized in an unusual manner you," at the instant when the lion was more likely to show itself in human nature than the lamb, that it may not be necessary for me to exercise my authority over these offenders. If, as my enemies say, I am base in presence among you and bold only when absent, I pray you not to let this matter go to such an extremity that I shall have to use "the rod." When one"s courage has been challenged and his heroism derided, it is extremely hard for a brave man like St. Paul to forbear. But had he not said, "Love suffereth long and is kind"? Words were things to him and here was the proof of love, side by side with the irony that was not to be concealed. Would he announce an inflexible determination to punish? No; further discipline might be needful for him, further forbearance might be desirable in the case of his assailants; and all he ventured to affirm was, "I think to be bold against some." Who were the "some"? Evidently those who impeached his motives and openly reviled his ministry. How does he describe them? By the thoughts they entertained of him as an apostle. "They think of us as if we walked according to the flesh," referring to a course of conduct "determined by the fear of men or the desire of pleasing men, and hence a personal bearing disgraced by cowardice or servility. The human nature referred to was therefore one enfeebled, not merely from the want of Divine support, but from sin" (Lange"s "Commentary"). Such an opinion respecting the apostle indicates clearly enough the evil source whence it sprang. It happens often that the judgments we pronounce on others are most true in application to ourselves, and, unawares, we have disclosed what our own hearts are in estimating outside parties. A politician who is always charging other politicians with being demagogues is generally a demagogue himself, and the man who never hesitates to apply the epithet of a liar to others is quite sure to be a liar himself. But how does St. Paul meet the charge of being carnally minded in his high office? "Though we walk in the flesh live a corporeal life, we do not war after the flesh," or "according to the flesh," the contrast being in the words "in" and "according." And forthwith he proceeds to show the difference between walking in the flesh and warring according to the flesh. A warrior he is, an open and avowed warrior a warrior who was to cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; a warrior too who would punish these Judaizers if they continued their disorganizing work; but a prudent and considerate warrior, deferring the avenging blow till "I am assured of your submission" (Stanley) "that I may not confound the innocent with the guilty, the dupes with the deceivers." What kind of a preacher he was he had shown long before; what kind of an apostle he was among apostles as to independence, self-support, and resignation of official rights in earthly matters, he had also shown; further yet, what kind of a sufferer and martyr he was had been portrayed. Step by step he had gone on with this faithful unfolding of himself, giving the most unique spiritual biography in the world of literature, and that too on no preconceived plan. How many aspects of his character had been sketched! The man as ambassador, representing the majesty of a glorified King, and labouring to reconcile a world to his Divine sceptre; the man as coworker with all the blessed ministries of earth and heaven; the man as philanthropist sharing the poverty of his countrymen in a far off city; and now the man as warrior, leading on his hosts to battle against alien spirits; what a wide activity, how minute, how full, how varied, how comprehensive. At no point does this personal narrative draw its interest from self alone. Self is always subordinate. The biography interweaves with a history that infinitely transcends all private fortunes and all earthly affairs, and is nothing less than the history of providence in the development of Christian doctrine coincident with the work of the Holy Ghost in glorifying the ascended Christ of the Father. "Casting down imaginations." The reference is to reasoning or disputings of the natural man in the pride of his intellectual power. Yet they are imaginations, the products of the imaging faculty, the fond conceits of creative ingenuity. All these were religious beliefs or connected in some way with them, so that what the apostle said at Athens was true elsewhere: "I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." Men who held these beliefs were earnest supporters of them and were always ready to defend their tenets. No matter in what province or city he preached the gospel, these disputants appeared. It was a battle on all occasions, and hence a battle figure, "casting down," or the destruction of bulwarks. Philosophy, art, manufactures, trade, husbandry, seamanship, military life, domestic life, statesmanship, were all intimately associated with these religious beliefs. Paganism occupied the ground. Or, if Judaism had found lodgment over the empire at every prominent centre of industry, it was the Judaism that had crucified Jesus of Nazareth. So then there was battle everywhere. The "wisdom of the world" and of "the princes of the world," backed by social influence and civil authority, was arrayed against the gospel. In the land of its birth, Christianity had nothing to show but a few Galilean fishermen, with a community of poor disciples, and behind these a malefactor"s cross. In the lands to which it came on its mission of grace, it summoned men to repent of sin, to practise self-denial, to become new creatures, to abandon idolatries that were in league with lust and cruelty, and, in lieu thereof, accept a faith which demanded a pure heart and a holy morality. It could only make its way by "casting down imaginations," by telling men that they were deluded by sophistries, and further by destroying "every high thing" that exalted itself against the knowledge of God communicated to man by the revelation of the gospel. No compromise could be allowed; every thought was to be brought into" captivity" to the "obedience of Christ." What captivity meant they fully understood. It was a military word, and he uses such terms that they might have clear and vivid ideas of Christianity as a war, and nothing less than an exterminating war, on whatever stood opposed "to the obedience of Christ." The "weapons" he used were not "carnal." All the world knew his weapons. He made no disguise of them. Boldly, constantly, in every place, he proclaimed Christ, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, nor had a mob occurred, nor had perils gathered about him, nor had Roman officers interfered for his protection, except on the single issue of preaching Christ crucified. No heathen would charge him with using carnal weapons.
Philosophers of Athens, inhabitants of Lycaonia, Demetrius and his workmen at Ephesus, would make no such accusation against his ministry. Only the Judaizers had done this thing. Let them understand that these weapons were "mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." Neither a false Judaism nor a colossal idolatry could offer any effective resistance to the gospel. Let these Judaizers know that his weapons were "mighty through God," and that in due time he would show "a readiness to revenge all disobedience." And let the Corinthian Church look deeper than the "outward appearance." To construe his manner of "meekness and gentleness" into imbecility and cowardice was not truth, but falsehood. And whence came this evil way of judging? Not from themselves, but from some wrong teacher who professed to have external advantages in favour of his teaching. Let that conceited man know that, if he is Christ"s, so also am I L.
HOMILIES BY E. HURNDALL Ver. 1.
The meekness and gentleness of Christ.
How different was Christ to
(1) the anticipations of the chosen people!
(2) the heathen conceptions of deity!
I THE MEEKNESS OF CHRIST. Illustrated in:
1. His lowly birth. The manger prefigured the whole life.
2. His humble station. Highest in heaven, lowliest on earth.
3. His obedience to Joseph and Mary. Obedience was new to him. He was the Ruler, and yet he submitted to be ruled.
4. His manual toil. The Jews looked for a conqueror and saw a carpenter.
5. His endurance of scorn and insult. Scorn and insult were much more to him than they ever can be to us. Remember he was the adored of heaven!
6. His earthly poverty. He possessed all things, and yet bad nothing not even a place where to lay his head.
7. His bearing before the Sanhedrim, Pilate, Herod, the soldiers, etc. How little and mean they must have seemed to him! and yet he did not crush them.
8. His submission on the cross. The infinitude of meekness! Nothing could transcend this. This was the culmination of a meekness which shone throughout the marvellous earthly life.
Ride on, ride on in majesty; In lowly pomp ride on to die; Bow thy meek head to mortal pain; Then take, O Christ, thy power and reign.
9 . His burial. He went, not only to death, but to the grave. He lay in a borrowed sepulchre.
II THE GENTLENESS OF CHRIST. Exhibited in:
1. His treatment of children. How immortal have those words become! how typical they are of the Christ heart, "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me"! (Mat_19:14)
2. His conduct towards the poor, the sick, the bereaved, the penitent. What compassion and tenderness! "A bruised reed shall he not break". (Isa_42:3)
1. His words. "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street". (Isa_42:2) Well might they marvel at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
2. His forbearance towards his disciples. Few things illustrate his gentleness more strikingly than this. How much had he to bear from those nearest to him! How gentle he was to the impulsive, blundering, often almost insolent, Peter! How gentle even to Judas!
3. His dealing with sinners. Except to the hopelessly hardened, upon whom gentleness would have been thrown away, and to whom it would have been an evil rather than a good. His general attitude towards the sinful is expressed by those memorable words, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls". (Mat_11:29)
4. His care of his mother. History has no more touching incident than that at the cross, "Woman, behold thy son!". (Joh_19:26)
III THOUGH SO MEEK AND GENTLE, CHRIST WAS FULL OF POWER AND MAJESTY, NO student of his life can question this; enemies and friends alike confess it. Force and noise are not synonymous. Silent forces are often mighty. To be meek is not to be weak. Simplicity, tenderness, humility, are marks of the truly great. These flowers grow upon the top of the mountain. A man who is ever anxious to "assert himself" usually shows how very little he has to assert.
IV THOSE WHO BEAR CHRIST"S NAME SHOULD PARTAKE OF CHRIST"S NATURE. It is for us to be meek and lowly followers of the meek and lowly Jesus. When the apostle would be most forceful to the Corinthians, he claimed for himself these attributes of his Master. We are strongest when we are most like Christ. We shall be better, live better, worship better, work better, if we possess the "meekness and gentleness of Christ. H.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1.
The meekness and gentleness of Christ.
It is important to notice that this chapter begins a new section of the Epistle. St. Paul has hitherto been addressing the better, the more spiritual, portion of the Corinthian Church; but now he turns to the section that impugned his authority, misrepresented his conduct, and spoke evil things of himself. Olshausen says, "Until now Paul has addressed himself preeminently to the better intentioned in the Christian Church; but henceforth he addresses himself to those who had sought to lower his dignity and weaken his authority by representing him as weak in personal influence," as well as in bodily strength and consistency of purpose, "although courageous and full of self-commendation in his letters." Dean Plumptre says, "The stinging words which Titus has reported to him vex his soul. He speaks in the tone of the suppressed indignation which shows itself in a keen incisive irony. The opening formula is one which he reserves as emphasizing an exceptionally strong emotion" (see Gal_5:2; Eph_3:1; Phm_1:19) Conybeare indicates that the party with which St. Paul now deals was the Christian section of the Judaizing party a section which, throwing off all authority, even though it was apostolic, declared that they received Christ alone as their Head, and that he alone should communicate truth directly to them. There is some ground for the supposition that "they were headed by an emissary from Palestine, who had brought letters of commendation from some members of the Church at Jerusalem, and who boasted of his pure Hebrew descent, and his especial connection with Christ himself. St. Paul calls him a false apostle, a minister of Satan disguised as a minister of righteousness, and hints that he was actuated by corrupt motives. He seems to have behaved at Corinth with extreme arrogance, and to have succeeded, by his overbearing conduct, in impressing his partisans with a conviction of his importance and of the truth of his pretensions. They contrasted his confident bearing with the timidity and self-distrust which had been shown by St. Paul. And they even extolled his personal advantages over those of their first teacher; comparing his rhetoric with Paul"s inartificial speech, his commanding appearance with the insignificance of Paul"s "bodily presence. Conybeare gives a translation of vers. 1 and 2, which effectively expresses the spirit in which the apostle began his pleading with this malicious party. "Now I, Paul, myself exhort you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ (I, who am mean, forsooth, and lowly in outward presence, while I am among you, yet treat you boldly when I am absent) I beseech you (I say), that you will not force me to show, when I am present, the bold confidence in my power, wherewith! reckon to deal with some who reckon me by the standard of the flesh." Archdeacon Farrar says, "There is (in these closing chapters) none of the tender effusiveness and earnest praise which we have been hearing, but a tone of suppressed indignation, in which tenderness, struggling with bitter irony, in some places renders the language laboured and obscure, like the words of one who with difficulty restrains himself from saying all that his emotion might suggest. Yet it is deeply interesting to observe that the "meekness and gentleness of Christ" reigns throughout all this irony, and he utters no word of malediction like those of the psalmists." By the term "meekness" we are to understand the habit of putting self aside, which was so characteristic of Moses, and the supreme grace of the Lord Jesus. By the term "gentleness" is not meant "softness of manner," but "fairness," "considerateness of the feelings of others." It indicates the habit of mind that is engendered by the practice of regarding the rights of others as well as our own. Meekness and gentleness belong to those passive graces which it was a great part of our Lord"s mission to exemplify, to set in prominent place, and to commend. Bushnell speaks of the sublime efficacy of those virtues which belong to the receiving, suffering, patient side of character. They are such as meekness, gentleness, forbearance, forgiveness, the endurance of wrong without anger and resentment, contentment, quietness, peace, and unambitious love. These all belong to the more passive side of character, and are included, or may be, in the general and comprehensive term, "patience." "These are never barren virtues, as some are apt to imagine, but are often the most efficient and most operative powers that a true Christian wields; inasmuch as they carry just that kind of influence which other men are least apt and least able to resist." Considering St. Paul"s naturally sensitive and impulsive temperament, it must have cost him much effort and prayer so to restrain himself that he could speak, even to such active enemies, with the "meekness and gentleness of Christ.
I THE MEEKNESS OF CHRIST IN ST. PAUL. The word seems unsuitable for him unless we give it the proper meaning, which is not self-assertive, willing to bear quietly, more anxious for others than for self. St. Paul was not even anxious, first of all, for his own imperilled reputation. The honour of Christ was involved in his self-vindication, and for Christ"s sake he undertook it.
II THE GENTLENESS OF CHRIST IN ST. PAUL. Save to hardened scribes and Pharisees, our Lord ever spoke softly and persuasively, or, at most, reproachfully. He, in his considerateness for others, would not break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax. And nothing is more striking in the Apostle Paul than the gentlemanly delicacy with which he considers the feelings of others. His hand trembles when it holds the rod, And the words of reproof and reproach break forth from a grieved and troubled heart. F.W. Robertson says, "He vindicated his authority because he had been meek, as Christ was meek; for not by menace, nor by force, did he conquer, but by the might of gentleness and the power of love. On that foundation St. Paul built; it was the example of Christ which he imitated in his moments of trial, when he was reproved and censured. Thus it happened that one of the apostle"s "mightiest weapons" was the meekness and lowliness of heart which he drew from the life of Christ. So it ever is; humility, after all, is the best defence. It disarms and conquers by the majesty of submission. To be humble and loving that is true life. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness…
2Co_10:1
Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
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The meekness and gentleness of Christ
These words recognise Christs character as an accepted standard of appeal among the Corinthians. To ourselves such an appeal would not be strange. But does it not strike you as remarkable here? For remember that only a few years before this the oldest of the converts were gross idolaters. The standard of appeal has not altered. The preacher refers back to Christ as the source of all authority and influence. As Christians, if we are in perplexity, we ask the question, What did Christ do? and when we discover that, our course is clear. There is to us no higher joy than to please Him. But notice what it is in Christ to which Paul refers.
I. The meekness and gentleness of Christ.
1. Men had been striving to overturn Pauls authority and destroy his influence. This was enough to excite the indignation of any true-hearted man, and no wonder if he had vindicated his character in stinging words. But he will not do this. He will conquer them by the gentleness which Christ ever manifested to those who had gone astray. Most thoroughly had he entered into Christs spirit. He can never forget how tenderly and patiently the Saviour had treated him. Years after, when writing to one who had never tried the patience of Christ as he had done, he said: I thank Christ Jesus our Lord (1Ti_1:12-16). Paul had experienced the power of Christs meekness and gentleness, and he was anxious that others should know it too.
2. Let us turn to the, life of Christ, and see how full it is of this Divine virtue. John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God! and, though there is an idea of sacrifice, what is more meek and gentle than a lamb? He Himself declared, I am meek and lowly of heart. Think of all He suffered, and the manner in which He suffered it. He came into the world eager to bless and save it, but He was despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And yet in no instance was He ruffled by the injuries wrought on Himself. When the helpless and the poor were oppressed, He stood ready to defend them. How He scathed the Pharisees! Yet even in their case tenderness and love were in His heart, for immediately after His tremendous exposure He breaks out in a wail like a mother for the child of her love, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, etc. And to the very close of life He remains the same. Isaiah (Isa_53:7) and Peter (1Pe_2:23)--the one in prophecy, the other in history--unite in bearing testimony to the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
II. The gentleness of Christ was not an amiable weakness. There are many who obtain credit for this virtue who have no manner of right to it. They are patient if any one wrongs them, and seem the incarnation of good humour. Often this disposition is simply a consciousness of helplessness or indifference. But Christ was gentle because He was strong. It was an awful power that Christ carried with Him; and were it not that we know how gentleness clothed that power, we should be ready to wonder that men did not shrink in fear before His presence. He had power enough to drive devils into the deep, yet gentleness to gather children in His arms.
III. Jesus was gentle, but it was not because he was ignorant of mens characters. We may often act towards others in kindness and forbearance because we do not know them. But Christ knew what was in men; He was never deceived; and this was one of the reasons of His gentleness. He saw good as well as bad. He understood all the difficulties that beset men. Allowances were to be made, and He made them; circumstances were to be considered, and He considered them. We are hasty in judgment, because we are so ignorant of what passes within the hearts of those we condemn. Christ was full of forbearance, because He knew the whole.
IV. Jesus was gentle, but not because he was indifferent to justice and purity. We often overlook sin, because we do not much care whether things are right or wrong. A child does wrong; a friend in amiable pity says, Oh, let him go this time. The friend cares very little about justice itself or the law of the household. When a criminal is taken, there are plenty of weak people who will urge you to let him go. They get credit for gentleness. But then, indeed, some people are always ready to forgive any wrong that has been done against some one else. People are careless because they have no hatred of what is evil in their own natures. They have sinned so much themselves that they readily condone sin in others. But all this is not true gentleness; it is indifference to righteousness. Now Christs gentleness was not of this nature. He did care what men did. He was perfectly pure, and every sin wounded His heart like a poisoned arrow. He loved righteousness, and hated iniquity. He was as just as He was loving; and it was to vindicate Divine justice that He came to Calvary. He died the just for the unjust.
V. This meekness and gentleness is the weapon by which Christ conquers us. It is the power of His love that subdues human hearts. He will bear with men until His very patience and gentleness shall make them ashamed of their sin. What argument can be more powerful than this? (W. Braden.)
The meekness and gentleness of Christ recommended to the imitation of the young
When this pathetic address is considered in connection with the circumstances that led to it, the character of Paul appears in a very interesting light. In writing to a church where party spirit was raging, the apostle expresses himself in a manner prudent and mild, yet firm and dignified. The meekness of Christ is a phrase expressive of the calmness and patience, the forbearance and humility by which He was distinguished.
I. In what way meekness and gentleness should operate in the young is the first topic that claims our attention.
1. Meekness and gentleness appear in modest and unassuming manners. Meekness and gentleness are directly opposed to the love of display, and this desire to have the pre-eminence. They delight in the shade of retirement, and shrink from the glare of public observation.
2. Meekness and gentleness appear in calmness and forbearance under provocations and injuries. The power of meekness and gentleness is sometimes affectingly manifested under domestic evils.
3. Meekness and gentleness appear in courtesy and kindness in the intercourse of life.
4. Meekness and gentleness, prompt to lenity and indulgence to others, and to abstinence from all measures of rigour and severity. The spirit of meekness and gentleness will preserve us from rigour and severity in judging of the actions of others.
5. Meekness and gentleness appear in patient acquiescence under the afflictions of life.
II. I proceed now to show that the meekness and gentleness of Christ present the most persuasive motives to the cultivation of these excellences.
1. Meekness and gentleness appear in the character of our Lord in the most winning form. If your hearts are at all open to the influence of good example, they must be gained now.
2. It is the meekness and gentleness of One whom you are under the strongest obligations to imitate. Reflect on what He endured for you.
3. Consider how much His honour and that of His religion are concerned in the regard which you pay to the meekness and gentleness of Christ. You wish the world to think well of the spirit of your Master, but you must know that they will judge of it from you.
4. Consider how much Christ is related to you. To beseech a child, by the virtues of his parents, will probably guard him against the opposite vices, and lead him to act as they did.
5. Consider the glory of His person and character. It is not the meekness and gentleness of one whose station is low, or whose influence is insignificant; nor are these solitary graces in His character.
6. It is the meekness and the gentleness of one who has connected the most important consequences with our imitation or neglect of his example: If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of Hi (Rom_8:9). I conclude by recommending the imitation of this meekness and gentleness to other classes of persons. Ye who are old, I beseech you by the meekness and the gentleness of Christ, not to aggravate the sorrows of your evil days by peevishness and discontent. Ye parents, I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, to beware of provoking your children to wrath, and to endeavour to persuade before you attempt to compel. Masters, do your duty to your servants, forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master is in heaven, and that there is no respect of persons with Him. Ye who are at variance, I beseech you by these virtues of Christ to leave off contention. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God (Mat_5:9). Ye members of churches, follow after the things that make for peace, and things whereby one may edify another. Let political parties cease to distract the nation by their broils and their scurrilities; and let them in the spirit of the gospel direct their efforts to promote peace on earth and good-will among men. (H. Belfrage.)
The gentleness of God
I. Gentleness is the method by which strength manifests itself.
1. The greater the power of the being, the greater will be the marvel and the delicacy of gentleness. In a woman we expect gentleness. But in a warrior it creates an admiration that it does not in woman.
2. It is wonderful, too, in proportion to the provocation to contrary feelings. That all rude and hateful things should find themselves the subjects of gentleness, this is surprising.
3. It is likewise wonderful in proportion to the moral sensibility and discriminating purity of the mind which exercises it. Gentleness, springing from easy good-nature, which will not take the trouble to vindicate justice and right, will not command even respect.
II. Consider, then, with these interpreting remarks, what must be the nature of gentleness in God.
1. He dwells alone from eternity to eternity, because there is none other that can be of His grandeur of being. The whole earth is said to be but a drop of the bucket before Him. And that such a One, living in such a wise, should deal-with His erring children with gentleness is wonderful and sublime!
2. Consider also His moral purity and His love of purity, and His abhorrence of evil. That such a Being should carry Himself with gentleness toward those who have forfeited all claim to mercy and gentleness--this is wonderful! The life of every individual is a long period of moral delinquency. No one who has not had the experience of a parent can have any adequate conception of the patience and gentleness exercised by a mother in rearing her child. True mothers are only Gods miniatures in this world. How great will be the disclosure which shall be made when, in the great day, Christ shall enrol from the archives of eternity the history of each individual soul. It will be seen then how much patience must have been exercised by the Divine Being in rearing a single one of His creatures. Now consider national life. Judge from your own feelings how God, with His infinite sensibility, must feel when He sees men rising up against their fellow-men, waging wars and devastating society by every infernal mischief that their ingenuity can invent The Bible says that God is past finding out; not merely His physical power, but His disposition--His moral nature. If God cared for the misconduct of men no more than we do for the fiery strifes of an ant-hill, there would be no foundation for such a conception of Divine gentleness and Divine goodness. Evil is eternal in the sight of God, unless it be checked and cured. Sin, like a poisonous weed, re-sows itself, and becomes eternal by reproduction. Now God looks upon the human race in the light of these truths. And tell me what other attribute of God, what other influence of His character, is so sublime as this--His gentleness?
III. Now, while these statements are fresh in your mind, i desire to present to you a clear conception of God as your Personal God. He is not a Being that dwells in the inner recesses of the eternal world, inaccessible, incomprehensible. Men never find Christ, but are always found of Him. He goes forth to seek and to save the lost. It is the abounding love of His heart that draws us up toward Him. We love Him because He first loved us. It is this willing, winning, pleading Christ, who wields all the grandeur of justice and all the authority of universal empire with such sweet gentleness that in all the earth there is none like unto Him, that I set before you as your personal friend. He does not set His holiness and His hatred of sin like mountains over which you may not climb. He does not hedge Himself about by the dignities and superiorities of Divinity. All the way from His throne to your heart is sloped; and hope, and love, and patience, and meekness, and long-suffering, and kindness, and wonderful mercies, and gentleness, as so many banded helping angels wait to take you by the hand and lead you up to God. And I beseech you by His gentleness, too, that you fear Him no longer; that you be no longer indifferent to Him; that you wound Him by your unbelief no more, but that now and henceforth you follow Him--for there is none other name under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. Conclusion: I hold up before you that God who loves the sinner and abhors sin; who loves goodness with infinite fervour, and breathes it upon those who put their trust in Him. And remember that it is this God who yet declares that He will at last by no means clear the guilty! Make your peace with Him now, or abandon all hopes of peace. Be not discouraged because you are sinful. It is the very office of His love to heal your sins. Who would need a physician if he might not come to his bedside until after the sickness was healed? What use of schoolmaster if one may not go to school till his education be complete? (H. W. Beecher.)
The tenderness of Christ
I. In connection with what has been revealed to us concerning His mission and life.
1. It harmonises with the prophetic intimations.
(1) See this in the very titles bestowed upon Him. Lest the spirit should fail at the thought of the Ancient of Days, the Everlasting Father, the Mighty God, we are encouraged to look at Him as the seed of the woman, the consolation of Israel, the Prince of peace. Though He is the plant of Renown, He grows up a tender plant. Though He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, He is led as a lamb to the slaughter. And though speaking to us out of the bush burning with fire, it is a fire which only awes by its brightness, but consumes not a leaf with its flame.
(2) Still more does this come out in prophecies bearing more directly on His work and office (Isa_32:2; Isa_42:1; cf. Mat_12:18).
2. And such as prophecy declared Christ should be, such, in all the actings of His earthly life, do we find He was. With His own disciples He had to bear much. Yet rarely does His language rise to harsh reproof--scarcely even to upbraiding. It is rather that of a subdued, softened, melancholy tenderness. And was there less of tenderness in His dealings with those who were not disciples? with the penitent woman in Simons house? with the woman of Samaria? etc.
3. This tenderness of the Saviours character has accompanied Him into heaven, arching as with the mild splendours of a rainbow the throne of His mediation, and giving a softened light and lustre to the moral administration of God (Rev_1:1-20; Rev_2:1-29; Rev_3:1-22).
II. In its bearing on some of the experiences of the Christian life.
1. How should we be comforted by it under early convictions of sin, and doubts of the Divine forgiveness? None should despair whilst in the midst of the throne there stands the gentle Lamb of God whose blood cleanseth from all sin.
2. It should be very comforting when cast down by the weakness of our faith. The same weakness has been exhibited by our brethren in the world, but a gracious Saviour allowed for, pardoned them. Look at that agonised father as he brings his demoniac son to the Saviour. Weak faith, mixed faith, little faith--better this than none at all: Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief. Or see again how tenderly the Master deals with His fearful disciples in the storm. And therefore to all who are suffering from this infirmity, we say, Be not afraid, only believe.
3. Consider it as it bears upon our slow progress in the Divine life--our coldness in sacred exercises, our fluctuations and decays of religious feeling. Go to Gethsemane, and look on the disciples sleeping when they ought to have been praying; but the compassionate Saviour can excuse all. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
4. See the Christian under the pressure of outward adversity. More than thirty years did our Divine Master spend in that school. And we love to think of Jesus as touched with a feeling of our infirmities now that He reigns in heaven.
5. See the Christian again under the prevalence of temptation, and what a strong refuge has he in the Saviours tenderness: For in that He Himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted. Yes, tempted in all points like as we are. And now, in heaven, He brings to bear on His work for us all the sacred memories and experiences of His earthly state.
6. Behold the Christian in that hour of natures greatest weakness, when he sees opening before him the doors of the unseen world. Then does he feel the power of the Saviours tenderness most; for it is His special office to deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (D. Moore, M. A.)
The gentleness of Christ
Gentleness is not so much the essence of goodness as it is its exquisite setting; it is a kind way of being good. It is not the tree itself, but the blossom upon its boughs; but the tree of which it is the blossom is the tree of life. There is none so gentle as the Lord God omnipotent. We see and feel His gentleness in the way in which He is daily conferring His bounties.
I. The way in which He exercised His power. We are almost afraid of power in the possession of man. When we think of the Pharaohs, the Herods, the Caesars, the Napoleons, we shrink from the committal of power to any human arm. He laid a gentle hand upon the sick; He spoke gentle words to those who appealed for His succour, quietly and graciously.
II. The way in which He taught Divine truth. Men of brilliant powers often like to flash them upon society; genius often drizzles and bewilders. But the Great Teacher, not neglecting the opportunity that offered, went quietly and meekly to His work of utterance, He chose the humble wayside, the upper room, the shaded garden, where He could teach His disciples.
III. The way in which He treated error and failure and sin.
1. Gently He excused the extravagant zeal of one of His disciples, discovering for her a justification she would never have found for herself. She has done it for My burial (Mat_26:12).
2. Gently He bore with infirm discipleship; correcting their misunderstanding, enlightening them in their darkness, and on one occasion most graciously accepting their intended but halting service (Mat_26:41).
3. Gently He rebuked and restored failure and fall (Luk_22:61; Joh_21:15-19).
4. Gently He dealt with those who rejected Him.
5. Gently He dealt with those whom all others spurned; admitting the publican into His kingdom.
6. Gently He bore Himself at the last sad scenes. We may beseech men by the gentleness of Christ--
(1) To have their own character and conduct clothed with this grace; that themselves and their life may be beautiful and attractive like their Lords.
(2) To yield their hearts to Him who is the rightful object not only of high regard, but of a true affection; this gentle Lord of truth and grace is one whom we can love and therefore serve.
(3) To shrink from the condemnation of Christ. We can afford to disregard the threatenings of the violent, but we may not despise the earnest warnings of the calm and true. (W. Clarkson, B. A.)
The apostles vindication
The Epistle has until now been addressed to those who at least acknowledged the apostles authority. But now we have St. Pauls reply to his enemies. Note--
I. The impugners of his authority.
1. We must distinguish these into two classes--the deceivers and the deceived; else we cannot understand the difference of tone, sometimes meek, and sometimes stern, which pervades the vindication; e.g., comp. verse 2 with verse 1. His enemies charged him with insincerity (2Co_1:12-13; 2Co_1:18-19); with being only powerful in writing (2Co_10:10); of mercenary motives; of a lack of apostolic gifts; and of not preaching the gospel. They charged him with artifice. His Christian prudence and charity were regarded as devices whereby he deceived his followers.
2. We must also bear in mind that the apostle had to deal with a strong party spirit (1Co_1:12), and of all these parties his chief difficulty lay with that which called itself Christs.
(1) Though these persons called themselves Christs they are nevertheless blamed in the same list with others. And yet what could seem to be more right than for men to say, We will bear no name but Christs; we throw ourselves on Christs own words; we throw aside all intellectual philosophy; we will have no servitude to ritualism? Nevertheless, these persons were just as bigoted and as blameable as the others. They did not mean to say only, We are Christs, but also, You are not Christs. This is a feeling which is as much to be avoided now as then. Sectarianism falsifies the very principle of our religion, and therefore falsifies its forms. It falsifies the Lords Prayer. It substitutes for our Father, the Father of me, of my Church or party. It falsifies the creed: I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord. It falsifies both the sacraments.
(2) However Christian this expression may sound, the spirit which prompts it is wrong. This Christ-party separated themselves from Gods order when they rejected the teaching of St. Paul and the apostles. For the phase of truth presented by St. Paul was just as necessary as that taught by Christ. Not that Christ did not teach all truth, but that the hidden meaning of His teaching was developed still further by the inspired apostles. We cannot, at this time, cut ourselves off from the teaching of eighteen centuries. We cannot do without the different phases of knowledge which Gods various instruments have delivered to us. For Gods system is mediatorial--that is, truth communicated to men through men.
II. His vindication.
1. St. Paul based his authority on the power of meekness, and it was a spiritual power in respect of that meekness. The weapons of his warfare were not carnal.
(1) This was one of the root principles of St. Pauls ministry. If he reproved, it was done in the spirit of meekness (Gal_5:1); or if he defended his own authority, it was still with the same spirit (2Co_10:1). He closes his summary of the character of ministerial work by showing the need of a gentle spirit (2Ti_2:24-26).
(2) Here, again, according to his custom, the apostle refers to the example of Christ. He vindicated his authority, because he had been meek, as Christ was meek. So it ever is: humility, after all, is the best defence. Do not let insult harden you, nor cruelty rob you of tenderness. You will conquer as Christ conquered, and bless as He blessed. But remember, fine words about gentleness, self-sacrifice, meekness, are worth very little. Would you believe in the Cross and its victory? then live in its spirit--act upon it.
2. St. Paul rested his authority not on carnal weapons, but on the spiritual power of truth. The strongholds which the apostle had to pull down were the old habits which still clung to the Christianised heathen. There was the pride of intellect in the arrogant Greek philosophers, the pride of the flesh in the Jewish love of signs, and most difficult of all--the pride of ignorance. For this work St. Pauls weapon was Truth, not authority, craft, or personal influence. He felt that truth must prevail. A grand, silent lesson for us now! when the noises of a hundred controversies stun the Church. Let us teach as Christ and His apostles taught. Force no one to God, but convince all by the might of truth. Should any of you have to bear attacks on your character, or life, or doctrine, defend yourself with meekness, or if defence should make matters worse, then commit yourself fully to the truth. Outpray, outpreach, outlive the calumny. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Chapter 22
Chapter 22
WAR.- 2Co_10:1-6 (R.V)
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THE last four chapters of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians stand as manifestly apart as the two about the collection. A great deal too much has been made of this undeniable fact. If a man has a long letter to write, in which he wishes to speak of a variety of subjects, we may expect variations of tone, and more or less looseness of connection. If he has something on his mind which it is difficult to speak about, but which cannot be suppressed, we may expect him to keep it to the end, and to introduce it, perhaps, with awkward emphasis. The scholars who have argued, on the ground of the extreme difference of tone, and want of connection, that 2Co_10:1-18; 2Co_11:1-33; 2Co_12:1-21; 2Co_13:1-14, of this Epistle were originally a separate letter, either earlier (Weisse) or later (Semler) than the first seven chapters, seem to have overlooked these obvious considerations. If Paul stopped dictating for the day at the end of 2Co_9:1-15; if he even stopped a few moments in doubt how to proceed to the critical subject he had still to handle-the want of connection is sufficiently explained; the tone in which he writes, when we consider the subject, needs no justification. The mission of Titus had resulted very satisfactorily, so far as one special incident was concerned-the treatment of a guilty person by the Church; the tension of feeling over that case had passed by. But in the general situation of affairs at Corinth there was much to make the Apostle anxious and angry. There were Judaists at work, impugning his authority and corrupting his Gospel; there was at least a minority of the Church under their influence; there were large numbers living, apparently, in the grossest sins; {2Co_12:20 f.} there was something, we cannot but think, approaching spiritual anarchy. The one resource the Apostle has with which to encounter this situation-his one standing ground alike against the Church and those who were corrupting it-is his apostolic authority; and to the vindication of this he first addresses himself. This, I believe, explains the peculiar emphasis with which he begins: "Now I myself, I Paul entreat you." αυτος εγω Παυλος is not only the grammatical subject of the sentence, but if one may say so, the subject under consideration; it is the very person whose authority is in dispute who puts himself forward deliberately in this authoritative way. The δε ("now") is merely transitional; the writer moves on, without indicating any connection, to another matter.
In the long sentence which makes up the first and second verses, everything comes out at once-the Apostles indignation, in that extreme personal emphasis; his restraint of it, in the appeal to the meekness and gentleness of Christ; his resentment at the misconstruction of his conduct by enemies, who called him a coward at hand, and a brave man only at a safe distance; and his resolve, if the painful necessity is not spared him, to come with a rod and not spare. It is as if all this had been dammed up in his heart for long, and to say a single word was to say everything. The appeal to the meekness and gentleness of Christ is peculiarly affecting in such a connection; it is intended to move tile Corinthians, but what we feel is how it has moved Paul. It may be needful, on occasion, to assert oneself, or at least ones authority; but it is difficult to do it without sin. It is an exhilarating sensation to human nature to be in the right, and when we enjoy it we are apt to enlist our temper in the divine service, forgetting that the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. Paul felt this danger, and in the very sentence in which he puts himself and his dignity forward with uncompromising firmness, he recalls to his own and his readers hearts the characteristic temper of the Lord. How far He was, under the most hateful provocation, from violence and passion! How far from that sinful self-assertion, which cannot consider the case and claims of others! It is-when we are in the right that we must watch our temper, and, instead of letting anger carry us away, make our appeal for the right by the meekness and gentleness of Jesus. This, when right is won, makes it twice blessed. The words, "who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am of good courage toward you," are one of the sneers current in Corinth at Pauls expense. When he was there, his enemies said, face to face with them, he was humble enough; it was only when he left them he became so brave. This mean slander must have stung the proud soul of the Apostle-the mere quotation of it shows this; but the meekness and gentleness of Christ have entered into him, and instead of resenting it he continues in a still milder tone. He descends from urging or entreating (παρακαλῶ) to beseeching (δέομαι). The thought of Christ has told already on his heart and on his pen. He begs them so to order their conduct that he may be spared the pain of demonstrating the falsehood of that charge. He counts on taking daring action against some at Corinth who count of him as though he walked after the flesh; but they can make this face-to-face hardihood needless, and in the name not of his own cowardice, but of his Lords meekness and considerateness, he appeals to them to do so. Δυσφημούμενοι παρακαλοῦμεν.
The charge of walking after the flesh is one that needs interpretation. In a general way it means that Paul was a worldly, and not a spiritual, man; and that the key to his character and conduct-even in his relations with Churches-was to be sought in his private and personal interests. What this would mean in any particular case would depend upon the circumstances. It might mean that he was actuated by avarice, and, in spite of pretences to be disinterested, was ruled at bottom by the idea of what would pay; or it might mean-and in this place probably does mean-that he had an undue regard for the opinion of others, and acted with feeble inconsistency in his efforts to please them. A man of whom either of these things could be truly said would be without spiritual authority, and it was to discredit the Apostle in the Church that the vague and damaging charge was made.
He certainly shows no want of courage in meeting it. That he walks in the flesh, he cannot deny. He is a human being, wearing a weak nature, and all its maladies are incident to him. As far as that nature goes, it is as possible that he, as that any man, should be ruled by its love of ease or popularity; or, on the other hand, should be overcome by timidity, and shrink from difficult duties. But he denies that this is his case. He spends his life in this nature, with all its capacity for unworthy conduct; but in his Christian warfare he is not ruled by it-he has conquered it, and it has no power over him at all. "I was with you," he wrote in the First Epistle, "with weakness and fear and much trembling"; but "my speech and my preaching were with demonstration of the Spirit and of power." This is practically what he says here, and what must be said by every man who undertakes to do anything for God. No one can be half so well aware as he, if he is sincere at all, of the immense contrast between the nature in which he lives and the service to which he is called. None of his enemies can know so well as he the utter earthenness of the vessel in which the heavenly treasure is deposited. But the very meaning of a divine call is that a man is made master of this weakness, and through whatever pain and self-repression can disregard it for his works sake. With some men timidity is the great trial: for them, it is the flesh. They are afraid to declare the whole counsel of God; or they are afraid of some class, or of some particular person: they are brave with a pen perhaps, or in a pulpit, or surrounded by sympathizing spectators; but it is not in them to be brave alone, and to find in the Spirit a courage and authority which overbear the weakness of the flesh. From all such timidity, as an influence affecting his apostolic work, Paul can pronounce himself free. Like Jeremiah {Jer_1:6-8} and Ezekiel, {Eze_2:6-8} he is naturally capable, but spiritually incapable of it. He is full of might by the Spirit of the Lord: and when he takes the field in the Lords service, the flesh is as though it were not. Since the expression εν σαρκι περιπατουντες refers to the whole of the Apostles life, it seems natural to take στρατευομεθα as referring to the whole of his ministry, and not solely to his present campaign against the Corinthians. It is of his apostolic labours in general-of course including that which lay immediately before him-that he says: "The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strong holds."
Nobody but an evangelist could have written this sentence. Paul knew from experience that men fortify themselves against God: they try to find impregnable positions in which they may defy Him, and live their own life. Human nature, when God is announced to speak, instinctively puts itself on its guard; and you cannot pass that guard, as Paul was well aware, with weapons furnished by the flesh. The weapons need to be divinely strong: mighty in Gods sight, for Gods service, with Gods own might. There is an answer in this to many of the questions that are being asked at present about methods of evangelizing; where the divinely powerful weapons are found, such questions give no trouble. No man who has ever had a direct and unmistakable blessing on his work as an evangelist has ever enlisted "the flesh" in Gods service. No such man has ever seen, or said, that learning, eloquence, or art in the preacher: or bribes of any sort to the hearer; or approaches to the "strong holds," constructed of amusements, lectures, concerts, and so forth, were of the very slightest value. He who knows anything about the matter knows that it is a life-and-death interest which is at stake when the soul comes face to face with the claims and the mercy of God; and that the preacher who has not the hardihood to represent it as such will not be listened to, and should not be. Paul was armed with this tremendous sense of what the Gospel was-the immensity of grace in it, the awfulness of judgment; and it was this which gave him his power, and lifted him above the arts, the wisdom, and the timidity of the flesh. A man will hold his own against anything but this. He will parley with any weapon flesh can fashion or wield; this is the only one to which he surrenders.
Perhaps in the fifth verse {2Co_10:5}, which is an expansion of "the casting down of strong holds," a special reference to the Corinthians begins to be felt: at all events they might easily apply it to themselves. "Casting down imaginations," the Apostle says, "and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God." "Imaginations" is probably a fair enough rendering of λογισμους. though the margin has "reasonings," and the same word in Rom_2:15 is rendered "thoughts." To what it applies is not very obvious. Men do certainly fortify themselves against the Gospel in their thoughts. The proud wisdom of the Greek was familiar to the Apostle, and even the obvious fact that it had not brought the world salvation was not sufficient to lower its pride. The expression has sometimes been censured as justifying the sacrificium intellectus or as taking away freedom of thought in religion. To think of Paul censuring the free exercise of intelligence in religion is too absurd; but there is no doubt that, with his firm hold of the great facts on which the Christian faith depends, he would have dealt very summarily with theories, ancient or modern, which serve no purpose but to fortify men against the pressure of these facts. He would not have taken excessive pains to put himself in the speculators place, and see the world as he sees it, with the most stupendous realities left out; he would not have flattered with any affected admiration that most self-complacent of mortals-the wise of this world. He would have struck straight at the heart and conscience with the spiritual weapons of the Gospel; he would have spoken of sin and judgment, of reconciliation and life in Christ, till these great realities had asserted their greatness in the mind, and in doing so had shattered the proud intellectual structures which had been reared in ignorance or contempt of them. "Thoughts" and "imaginations" must yield to things, and make room for them: it was on this principle Paul wrought. And to "thoughts" or "imaginations" he adds "every high thing [ὕψωμα] that exalts itself against the knowledge of God." The emphasis is on "every"; the Apostle generalizes the opposition which he has to encounter. It may not be so much in the "thoughts" of men, as in their tempers, that they fortify themselves. Pride, which by the instinct of self-preservation sees at once to the heart of the Gospel, and closes itself against it; which hates equally the thought of absolute indebtedness to God and the thought of standing on the same level with others in Gods sight,-this pride raises in every part of our nature its protest against the great surrender. It is implied in the whole structure of this passage that "the knowledge of God" against which every high thing in man rises defiantly is a humbling knowledge. In other words, it is not speculative merely, but has an ethical significance, which the human heart is conscious of even at a distance, and makes ready to acknowledge or to resist. No high thing lifts itself up in us against a mere theorem-a doctrine of God which is as a doctrine in algebra; it is the practical import of knowing God which excites the rebellion of the soul. No doubt, for the Apostle, the knowledge of God was synonymous with the Gospel: it was the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ; it was concentrated in the Cross and the Throne of His Son, in the Atonement and the Sovereignty of Christ. The Apostle had to beat down all the barriers by which men closed their minds against this supreme revelation; he had to win for these stupendous facts a place in the consciousness of humanity answering to their grandeur. Their greatness made him great: he was lifted up on them; and though he walked in the flesh, in weakness and fear and much trembling, he could confront undaunted the pride and the wisdom of the world, and compel them to acknowledge his Lord.
This meaning is brought out more precisely in the words with which he continues-"bringing every, thought, into captivity" to the obedience of Christ. If we suppose a special reference here to the Corinthians, it will be natural to take νοημα ("thought") in a practical sense-as, e.g., in 2Co_2:2, where it is rendered "devices." The Corinthians had notions of their own, apparently, about how a Church should be regulated-wild, undisciplined, disorderly notions; and in the absence of the Apostle they were experimenting with them freely. It is part of his work to catch these runaway thoughts, and make them obedient to Christ again. It seems, however, much more natural to allow the wilder reference of αιχμαλωτιζοντες to the whole of Pauls apostolic work; and then νοημα also will be taken in a less restricted sense. Mens minds, and all that goes on in their minds (νοήματα covers both: see 2Co_2:11; 2Co_3:14; 2Co_4:4), are by nature lawless: they are without the sense of responsibility to guard and consecrate the sense of freedom. When the Gospel makes them captive, this lawless liberty comes to an end. The mind, in all its operations, comes under law to Christ: in its every thought it is obedient to Him. The supremacy which Christ claims and exercises is over the whole nature: the Christian man feels that nothing-not even a thought-lies beyond the range in which obedience is due to Him. This practical conviction will not paralyse thinking in the very least, but it will extinguish many useless and bad thoughts, and give their due value to all.
The Apostle descends unmistakably from the general to the particular in 2Co_10:6 "Being in readiness to avenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled." Apparently what he contemplates in Corinth is a disobedience which in part at least will refuse to surrender to Christ. There is a spirit abroad there, in the Judaists especially, and in those whom they have influenced, which will not bend, and must be broken. How Paul means to take vengeance on it, he does not say. He is confident himself that the divinely powerful weapons which he wields will enable him to master it, and that is enough. Whatever the shape the disobedience may assume,-hostility to the Gospel of Paul, as subversive of the law; hostility to his apostolic claims, as unequal to those of the Twelve; hostility to the practical authority he asserted in Churches of his founding, and to the moral ideas he established there,-whatever the face which opposition may present, he declares himself ready to humble it. One limitation only he imposes on himself-he will do this, "when the obedience of the Corinthians is fulfilled." He expressly distinguishes the Church as a whole from those who represent or Constitute the disobedient party. There have been misunderstandings between the Church and himself; but as 2Co_1:1-24; 2Co_2:1-17; 2Co_3:1-18; 2Co_4:1-18; 2Co_5:1-21; 2Co_6:1-18; 2Co_7:1-16 show, these have been so far overcome: the body of the Church has reconciled itself to its founder; it has returned, so to speak, to its allegiance to Paul, and has busied itself in carrying out his will. When this process, at present only in course, is completed, his way will be clear. He will be able to act with severity and decision against those who have troubled the Church, without running any risk of hurting the Church itself. This leads again to the reflection that, with all his high consciousness of spiritual power, with all his sense of personal wrong, the most remarkable characteristic of Paul is love. He waits to the last moment before he resorts to severer measures; and he begs those who may suffer from them, begs them by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, to spare him such pain.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 1, 2. Now I Paul. Thus far in this…
1, 2. Now I Paul. Thus far in this epistle Paul has associated himself with Timothy (1:1) and his fellow-laborers. He has spoken in the plural. Now he uses the singular, and there will be seen in the 10th and 11th chapters a tone of severity contrasted with the gentleness and love of those that precede. Those chapters are addressed to the church which had as a body cleared itself of fault. There was, however, a faction who opposed him, who disparaged his claims as an apostle, and he now speaks for the benefit of these. This accounts for the change of style and tone. Since the opposition was to him personally, he speaks in person. I repeat what has been before said, that this opposition came mainly from the Judaizing Christians who thought Paul had gone wrong in not requiring Gentile Christians to come under the bondage of the Jewish law. Who in presence am base. Lowly. His first letter had been stern (1 Cor. 5). The opposers said that he was very gentle when present, but bold when absent.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Remarkable change of tone here, and henceforward. So remarkable…
CRITICAL NOTES
Remarkable change of tone here, and henceforward. So remarkable that—in last century, for the first time, then in beginning of this, and again, after a respite, during the last fifty years—from time to time Higher Criticism has suggested, or claimed, 10–13 as a distinct document, perhaps a letter between the two extant Epistles. But Textual Criticism knows of nothing but an unbroken connection with 1–9. The change [from “we” to “I” (generally); “the conciliatory and affectionate strain of entreaty which pervaded the first part is here exchanged for a tone of stern command and almost menace; there is still the same expression of devotion to the Corinthian Church; but it is mixed with … a sarcasm and irony” paralleled in the First Epistle, but not up to this point in the Second (Stanley); also, “the Corinthians are no longer commended for their penitent zeal, but rebuked for their want both of love and penitence” (ib.). The confident hopes of the first part of the letter give place to gloomy forebodings] may be sufficiently accounted for by supposing a pause here in the writing of the letter. [Say, a new day’s dictation beginning here; or a new amanuensis to be found; or anything else which may conceivably have made a break, during which perhaps new tidings may have come from Corinth; or Paul’s mood may have changed, and the darker aspect of matters may have reasserted a predominance over a more hopeful view, during the interval.] Romans 14, 15 in less degree contrast with 1–13 (Farrar). 2Co_10:2; 2Co_10:7; 2Co_10:10 [if translate literally “says he”], 11, 12, 18, and 2Co_11:4, by (e.g.) Farrar, Conybeare and Howson, are supposed, but not necessarily, to point out some pre-eminent opponent of Paul. Have to infer from Paul’s language—certainly once (2Co_10:11), and perhaps in other cases (e.g. 2Co_10:1), quoting the words and thoughts of opponents—who these were and what were their charges against him. [Like calculating the disturbing cause—perhaps a new planet—from the perturbations it originates in the path and movements of one already known.]
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2Co_10:1. Gentleness.—Same as “moderation” (Php_4:5); also in Act_24:4; 1Pe_2:18. “Moderation which recognises the impossibility cleaving to formal law, of anticipating and providing for all cases that will emerge; … recognises the danger that … waits upon the assertion of legal rights, lest they should be pushed into moral wrongs; … pushes not its own rights to the uttermost.” [Php_4:5 excellent example.] “All” God’s “going back from the strictness of His rights as against men; … all His refusals to exact extreme penalties,” are the archetype and “pattern of this grace in us.” (Trench. Syn., § xliii.) Also, “meekness” is passive; seated in the inner spirit; shown by the superior to the inferior; “gentleness” is active; exhibited in conduct; shown by man to man, without distinction of higher or lower. “Meekness” is that “temper of spirit in which we accept God’s dealings with us without disputing or resisting; … does not fight against God, and more or less struggle and contend with Him.” (Trench, xiii.) He says, further, that this attitude before God makes us bear meekly [e.g. as David from Shimei] human provocation. See this in Mat_11:29; hence Paul’s appeal here. Q.d. “Let me still have room to exhibit towards you the meekness and gentleness of Christ; do not oblige me to put these aside and bear myself otherwise toward you.” I Paul myself.—“Think of me, me. ME; you know me; you did love me; you owe much to me.” Perhaps latter part to be read as if quoted: “Who am (as they go about saying) base.” Base.—, “lowly”; this and “meek” found together in Mat_11:29; significantly. This rendering, however, requires the verse to be read as Paul’s own sentiments.
2Co_10:2.—“I beseech you, so reform and change [before I come] that,” etc. Notice, “Show courage”; not same word as in 2Co_10:1. “Count,” “reckon,” for “think.” “They have formed their judgment of me and my probable action; I too have considered my plan of campaign against these high-speaking and high-exalted gentlemen and their doings.”
2Co_10:3-4.—Cf. Gal_5:16; Gal_5:25, “Walk in the Spirit.” Paul not afraid of a verbal inconsistency, with a real consistency underneath. According to (2Co_10:3), same word as “after” (2Co_10:4). Cf. Rom_8:5-9. Flesh, here, for sake of antithesis, used first in a morally neutral sense, and then [“after the flesh”] with the more usual evil connotation. “In the flesh,” more than “in the body,” of course, but not more than, “as conditioned by the limitations, liabilities, weaknesses, of innocent, non-moral, human nature; the conditions under which all human workers must do all human work.” Carnal.—See under 1Co_3:1; 2Co_3:3. Weapons.—Includes defensive armour; not weapons of attack only. “Fleshly lusts war against the soul.” Its “instruments” (Rom_4:12) are literally “weapons.”
2Co_10:5.—Note, not to the “obedience” of Paul, but “of Christ.” Also “bringing into captivity” conveys more than merely making captive; rather “leading captive,” as in a triumphal procession. Suggested that the form of the imagery here is local, with a colouring drawn from the ruined hill-forts of Rough Cilicia, the western half of the province. Paul may have heard old people in Tarsus tell how, sixty years before he was born, the mountains were infested with pirates, who swept the Levantine seas, sallying forth from many little ports and coves on the coast, and retiring with their booty to inaccessible hill-forts; till at last Pompey the Great had organised a formidable expedition and cleared out the nest of robbers, reducing a hundred and twenty forts to ruins, and carrying captive over ten thousand prisoners. [Must not make too definite or precise; language very general.]
2Co_10:6.—Note the happy adroitness of “your”; as if suggesting, “You, of course, will not do anything but obey, ‘fulfilling’ obedience to me—and to Him—completely. Those others, who will not,—well, I shall be prepared,” etc. A “gentlemanly” turn of thought.
2Co_10:7. Appearance.—Same word as “in presence” (2Co_10:1). “They say that, as to appearance, I look to be nothing and nobody.… These very wise people, are they so superficial in their grounds of judgment as that? Do they—you—only go by the surface look of a man, or of things?” [Both indicative and imperative are supported strongly], Christ’s.—Too definite to refer this to 1Co_1:12 : “I of Christ.” Note [with Beet] that Paul does not allow any personal feeling, or heat of controversy, to lead him to deny that even his opponents may be Christ’s; he himself is, at all events, and that is all he insists upon. Think.—“Count,” “reckon,” as 2Co_10:2; and so “thoughts” (2Co_10:5) is “reckonings.” Note small change of reading and rendering.
2Co_10:8. Boast.—First of sixteen occurrences of this word in this section. More abundantly.—Than even in 2Co_10:1-5. Does he revert to “we,” as expressing what is true of all apostles? A significant characteristic of apostolic authority. (Repeated in 2Co_13:10.)
2Co_10:9.—Facts will justify Paul. His Master will see to that for him, so that his “letters” (generalised from the First) may not seem mere empty thunder.
2Co_10:10.—Keep “say they”; not “says he,” of an individual. Singular; but like on dit, man sagt.; was “weighty and strong” ironical? Or a real concession, not to be refused even by his opponents? Perhaps (ironically): “He writes very effectively and with vigour—does he not?” Presence.—His Parousia (literally); the word used of Christ’s “appearing.” But “appearance.” in our colloquial sense, is in the word, as well as “appearing.”
2Co_10:12.—tries to keep one of Paul’s (favourite) assonances. “Pair, or compare” (Waite, in Speaker). His own type of man, and, above all, each man himself, was to each his standard of excellence; self-instituted, self-applied. “A mutual-admiration and self-admiration society” (Waite). “We dare not” [same word as 2Co_10:2 : “There is one thing I dare not do”] “take up our place in the ranks of such self-satisfied gentlemen—oh, dear, no!” Note the polished sarcasm at the end: “are not wise.” One expects something very caustic as the conclusion. “What shall I say of these brethren? They—they—they—are—without understanding! We will not say more!” The “weakness” of the remark is its strength and sting.
2Co_10:13-16.—“Why do these men come to Corinth at all? They have their province; I have mine.” [Perhaps appointed in Acts 15; see Gal_2:7; Gal_2:9]. Each of us has his “measure,” his “boundary,” marked out as with a “measuring rod.” [Cf. for the thought, Act_17:26. Also, more than a verbal coincidence with the A.V. will be found in comparing Psa_19:4 (Hebrew) with Rom_10:18.] Yet in Antioch, in Galatia, as in Corinth, they dog my footsteps, and only work at undoing my work; on trespass the while! If I am at Corinth, or come to it, I am on my own ground (2Co_10:14). God put you clearly within my part of the world’s field. Indeed, I am intending to make you my base of operations, if you will help me, for a new venture into regions beyond, as yet untouched by anybody, but mine to occupy. See Rom_15:18; Rom_15:24. Illyricum his limit. Nicopolis in Epirus he did perhaps reach, (Tit_3:12). [Suggested that his Greek language would not carry him beyond, into Illyricum.] See this man, “of no appearance,” pushing back farther and farther the borderland between “Gospel” light and heathen darkness!
2Co_10:17-18.—Another of Paul’s parenthetic escapes, from the oppressiveness of an unwelcome topic into a region of broader, clearer, freer, spiritual thought. “Away from men’s jealousies, narrownesses, enmities, rivalries; away even from my own enforced boasting! Let us all stand together a moment before Him. Who will boast there?”
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—Whole Chapter
In these two Epistles Paul reveals himself, more clearly than in any other of his writings. This section, 10–13, is pre-eminent in this self-portraiture. [As Rousseau’s, so these] Paul’s “Confessions.” In this chapter two companion, complementary portraits of him and his work. In the first a soldier, armed, ready to go on a warlike expedition against his opponents. In the second a pioneer missionary, carrying the knowledge of his Lord into regions appointed as his sphere, where no other had as yet even named Him.
A. Paul going on campaign (2Co_10:1-11).
1. This section is really the Ultimatum before War is declared and opened.—He still hopes that it may be averted. He begs (2Co_10:1-2) that the necessity of strong measures may not be forced upon him. He had rather come in civilian than in military array, wearing “the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” That very spirit, indeed, displayed for eighteen months when he was amongst them, had been misunderstood. The very unobtrusiveness of demeanour, the very silence as to any Apostolic claim to maintenance, the simple, unadorned presentation of the Gospel of a Crucified Saviour,—had all been perversely interpreted as a consciousness of official and personal inferiority to some other apostles and teachers. Yet he is loth to do otherwise, or to bear himself otherwise amongst them, if he comes again. He is willing even yet to hope—against all he hears from his informants—that (2Co_10:6, latter clause), before he comes, all this big, boastful talking—so bitter against himself,—and all the many shameful and disorderly doings in the very Church, will be put away, and “the obedience of Christ fulfilled” by them, at least by all but an insignificant minority of “disobedient” ones. The very mildness of such an appeal will, he knows, be again misinterpreted to his disadvantage; this very letter will hardly seem so “weighty and powerful” as usual. Yet he does not want to “destroy.” Anybody can cast a soul out of the fellowship; nothing is easier than to strike a refractory man off a Church roll; with a word he, as an apostle, can “deliver a man to Satan,” with all the awful consequences of such handing over; but this after all is not the main, or his favoured, use of Apostolic power and authority. [So, very rarely did Christ use His power otherwise than for beneficent ends, and never merely to vindicate Himself, or to punish an enemy.] It is given “to build up, not to pull down,” or to ruin (2Co_10:8). It is the glory of an apostle “not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luk_9:56). Any hireling can abandon or scatter a flock; a shepherd loves to collect or recover them, even to recover one obstinate, persistent wanderer. It is far more difficult to keep a waverer, or a fallen one, in connection with the Church, and to bring him again into living union with the Head; such work is more congenial to Paul’s heart. Why will they force matters to an extremity by their persistent wrongdoing? (2Co_10:2). [As above suggested, how all this echoes and embodies the very spirit and attitude of Christ—and so of God—towards rebel sinners. How many an “ultimatum” is sent, full of warning and appeal, before the doom at last falls. God wants peace; the name “Immanuel” is the expression of His desire and effort. If men will have it “God against us,” then they must know all the fulness of His power, moving to execute the sentence of His righteous “wrath.” That power, too, is “in readiness to revenge all disobedience, when the obedience of the Church is fulfilled.” How mighty to destroy; yet how unwilling to set destruction in motion! How lingering His anger; how loth to strike! See, e.g., Christ simply “withdrawing Himself” (Mat_12:15), and the occasion of it (2Co_10:14), and the reason (2Co_10:17).] He is willing even to acknowledge that some of his self-constituted opponents are really “Christ’s” (2Co_10:7), in a sense comparable to (“even so”) that in which he himself is so. They should be allies, not enemies. A very noble trait this in Paul’s conduct of the controversy. A very high development of grace in a man, that he can hopefully include amongst those who, however erring or mistaken, belong to the Master, his own, even bitter, personal opponents. Difference of judgment too often dims the eyes of love, till it can recognise no brother in the opposite ranks.
2.
(1) Still he can, if occasion demand it, and the issue be forced upon him, come to Corinth “travelling in the greatness of his strength.” [Like his Lord again (Isa_63:1).] Like the Gospel itself, his Apostolic power has two aspects, according as it looks upon those “who are saved” and those “who perish” (2Co_2:15). [All goodness has its condemning aspect. It can kill, as well as make alive.] He can be the man of daring boldness (2Co_10:2). The letters were a truer exposition of the man than was that “weak” bodily appearance because of which they had undervalued him. He has “weapons” in his hand; he is armed for a conflict to the uttermost,—if it comes to that. (What is he thinking of as his weapons of warfare? He could inflict sickness, or death. Yet he can hardly contemplate any extensive use of such an awful prerogative. When he did use it, there was certainly nothing personal in the judicial act; but how easily does such excommunication become “carnal”!) They will find him fearless in condemnation, unmoved by the fear or the favour of any in the Church; they will find a force of will they hardly gave him credit for. The disorders in their midst, the sensuality, the party-spirit, the incipient rationalism (to use the modern word),—these must, and should, be done away with. “Authority”—against authority,—he would take care to make his prevail. [Again we are reminded of the certain, if delayed, victory of the holiness of God, let evil be borne with long as it may, perhaps only to grow bolder because of the very forbearance. See it “exalting itself against the knowledge of God,” in an extreme, an aggravated form just before the final crisis (2Th_2:8). So the room in Jairus’s house was filled with scornful laughter, not five minutes before Christ, with the Divine ease of Omnipotence, raised the maiden from death (Mat_9:24, and || s).] There are evil days in every Church, when no discipline can be too sharp or prompt, no penalty too severe. There are cancers on the moral life of the Church, for which there is only the knife. Gentle means, gentle remonstrance, calm discussion, are no longer admissible. We pity the offender, but at all costs we must put him out of the ministry or out of the Church. So, also, we may be very sensible of the room there is for varying apprehensions of the same truth, and for varying presentations of it; hardly any one mind, or Church, or age, sees all round it; but there may be “heresy,” so obviously such, and so deadly to all spiritual life, or so full of real dishonour to Christ, that no considerations of “liberality,” of “breadth,” no fear of being called “uncharitable,” “narrow,” “heresy-hunter,” must prevent stern denunciation of error, or the most vigorous action against its teachers. “Peace” is worth much, but not worth the sacrifice of principle. [“First pure, then peaceable” (Jas_3:17).] “Reformation” times, “Disruption” times, all times of conflict for Truth, are rough times. [Campaigning always is. No war is waged without wounds and death.] There must be many things to grieve those who love peace, to whom anything like conflict with brethren is anguish. Bearing witness can always be called obstinate self-pleasing. Discipline will always entail what some will represent as hardship or “carnal” revenge. But a Paul must go right on, marching against the stronghold of Falsehood—practical or doctrinal; the builder-up must sometimes be a fighter, a conqueror, a destroyer.
(2) Yet as always remembering that, however personal the temporary, accidental occasions and issues may be, the deep underlying thing at stake is “the obedience of Christ.” Paul is only representative in this matter. He stands only for the Apostolic authority to rule or teach or exercise discipline. “War” against him, resistance to his word and authority, is no personal offence merely, or chiefly; it is resistance to “Christ speaking in him” (2Co_13:3). Thoughts that exalted themselves against himself only,—they would be nothing; but they exalt themselves “against the knowledge of God.” Paul is the temporary embodiment of the two principles of a Divine Revelation from God through His Son, and by His Spirit through His accredited human messengers; and, next, of the Government of the Church by Christ, through His Spirit and the Discipline of the Church,—whatever form that may, from time to time and from Church to Church, assume. [Cf. the principle which explains many of the imprecations of the Psalms. In assailing God’s Anointed, God’s government was assailed. The righteous Sufferer is often suffering, only because men hate Righteousness. It is personal wrong indeed, but the serious aspect of it is the whole attitude towards God and goodness which it reveals; and on that account is God appealed to to punish it.] It is very hard to be thus impersonal, and indifferent quâ the bearing of the matter upon oneself; but the aim must not be lower than, nor aside from, this. Paul is not engaging in the campaign on his own account. He is hardly the Commander, except as under his Chief, and as winning a victory for his King. It is hard to purify a Church, or to engage in controversy for the Truth, and yet to keep the motive pure! Very difficult to war for truth or for the purity of the Church, without warring “after the flesh,”—very difficult for men who, the holiest and wisest of them, “walk in the flesh,” with all the limitations and liabilities of poor human nature! [“The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (Jas_1:20).] The “weapons” must not be “carnal.” Passion must not be met with passion nor pride with pride. Intemperate language must be met with temperate; overstated orthodoxy will be no defence against overstated, crude unbelief. Discipline must be dispassionate. Force will be no remedy against doubt. Coercion will not save faith. Fulmination of anathemas and excommunications, petty parochial or domestic persecution,—“carnal” all!
3. The enemy is personal at Corinth.—[I.e. it is no mere vague teaching or spirit he has to deal with; but persons, though (see Critical Notes) it is not necessary to suppose that some one prominent man is singled out in these chapters.] Yet the Corinthian opponents are as representative as himself. The real enemy is the “imaginations” and “high things” which exalt and entrench themselves against God. It is the natural heart and the natural intellect—vitiated by the root sin, Pride—arraying themselves against Authority, the authority of God. Hence the form of the passage (2Co_10:4-5), which makes it a declaration finding many fulfilments, apart altogether from the particular, historical occasion and exposition. The “imaginations,” the “thoughts,” of the natural heart are not morally neutral; the heart is in them. However it may be in mathematics or in natural science, in theology and ethics there is no “dry light,” or colourless. Everything is studied, accepted, criticised, rejected, in light which is coloured, either at its source, or by the intellectual or heart medium through which it passes. To bow to authority in any sense is repugnant, because of the proud heart. “Independence” seems noblest; [albeit a perfectly impossible ideal for life or thought;] each man, each faculty, will set up its own particular little hill-fort and stronghold within the man.
4. How calmly assured of victory is this Paul, of no imposing presence, with no rhetorical address, coming to a powerful, numerous, wealthy Church whose greater part rejected his authority and sneered at his words, only ironically indeed (?) allowing his written words to have force. Paul did clear away the hill-fortresses. Clement’s epistle to Corinth shows a Church of a wholly different character and temper.
B. Paul a pioneer worker.
I. He has his province.—
1. Appointed by God (2Co_10:13);
2. Suited to his natural capacities;
3. This he will occupy to the fullest of its extent (2Co_10:16);
4. Readily accepting co-operation and support (2Co_10:15).
II. His relations to fellow-workers in other fields.—
1. He recognises that they have a sphere appointed to them (2Co_10:15).
2. Will not interfere with theirs, and expects that they shall not interfere with his (2Co_10:13-14).
3. Recognises theirs; not depreciating or envying, or boasting of his own (2Co_10:17-18).
4. Does his own work, and gives little or no thought to any comparative estimating of men or of success (2Co_10:12).
III. Principles applicable to:
1. Churches and their fields of labour;
2. Different types of workers in same field;
3. Different orders of work for God.
I.
1. Has his province: “according to the measure” marked out by God’s measuring-“rule” [rod]. For special reasons, Peter had the honour of first reaping in the Gentile harvest-field (Act_15:7). He was the real pioneer both to Jews and Gentiles (Acts 2, 10). But at and after the Council, the field was apportioned (Gal_2:8-9). The act of the United Church only recognised and ratified a Divinely-designed division of the world’s great field. In the central highlands of Asia Minor, on its western coast, in Macedonia, in Greece, Paul touched virgin soil, dealt with untouched heathenism [except so far as, e.g., in Lydia’s case, the presence of Judaism had sent some light into the otherwise unrelieved darkness]. Dangerous work [“have hazarded their lives,”—said of the first missionary inroad into such unevangelised districts (Act_15:26)], difficult work, but how honourable to bring the Gospel, and to mention the name of Jesus, for the first time to a country, a city, a soul! [Like the honour of the first captain to break through the boom at Derry and to bring supplies to the famishing people (Macaulay, History, chap. 7). Giving a joy like that of the discoverer of a new remedy, who offers it, and sees its success, in some despairing and desperate case.]
2. The work and the man were fitted for each other. It is not accident or caprice, what worker God chooses for a task. For every task, for every enterprise, there is somewhere the very instrument, the man or woman best of all suited by natural equipment, or by the training of education and surroundings, to accomplish it. It is part of the ever-present, all-complicating “problem of evil,” that the Church—and even God—often seem to have to do the work with “second-best” agents. The best are not to hand, or discoverable, by us; He knows indeed where they are, He calls for their service, but they in their awful freedom disregard or refuse the call. Work seems sometimes to languish, because the—obviously well-fitted—worker is unconverted altogether, or, at best, is not entirely devoted to Christ’s cause. [Given natural adaptation, then the needful grace may be had, “for the asking”; prayer will always win this. The natural fitness is a primâ facie call from God. Esther’s fitness was God’s claim upon her (Est_4:14). He had made her beautiful, and put her upon the throne, with unbounded influence over what heart Xerxes had, “for such a time as this.”] Paul had been trained for his special work. His Roman citizenship put him en rapport with the Empire; his thorough Jewish culture gave him entrée to the Synagogue and the Jewish quarter of a town; the Greek influences of Tarsian boyhood, and, still more, the thoroughness with which he was—beyond perhaps any other apostle or early Christian preacher—emancipated from the prejudice of early training and honest Jewish conviction, so that he apprehended the Gospel with more nearly Christ’s own world-wide view of its adaptation and reach of offer, made him the best to be the pioneer in Gentile lands. [Of natural, physical suitableness, we should have said he had less than some others. Perhaps of no commanding presence; often in poor health; sensitive to slights; unhappy when without sympathetic companionships; soon depressed. His very courage is rather the boldness born of grace, than any special natural courage, which in, e.g., some pioneer travellers seems incapable of feeling fear, or indeed of appreciating danger.]
3. Like his Lord, he desires to say when he lays work down, “It is finished.” Literally this can never be. Work grows as it is being done. But, at least, he desires that no part of his special province shall be unvisited [even to utmost Spain (Rom_15:24; Rom_15:28)]; no part without its centre of light, to radiate illumination through the environing darkness; no mass of population without its lump of the new leaven deposited in its centre. He has a holy ambition to be the first to carry the Light of “the Gospel of Christ.” So, see him; eagerly hurrying hither and thither as the work calls, and openings (Act_16:6-10) invite; never staying long in any one place [eighteen months in Corinth and three years in Ephesus were his longest voluntary residences in any one centre]; tasting continually the joy of “firstfruits” (Rom_16:5, “Asia”; 1Co_16:15, Achaia) in the harvest-field.
4. Yet he makes no unwise attempt to do everything himself. Even the pioneer will be stronger and more successful, if behind him there is a company of praying, sympathising supporters, whom first he led to faith, and whose “faith is” now “increased,” and who can now spare him, and “enlarge” him, i.e. can set him at liberty to strike out, and can support him “abundantly” with their contributions whilst he strikes out into “(regions) beyond” Corinth. [The pioneer first makes the Church, and then uses it as a basis. The Church should thank God for its pioneer agents, prize them, stand by them, supply the needful means for carrying on and extending the work. No more precious gift of God to His Church than men suitable to be pioneer-men.]
II.
1. Sometimes the pioneer is ensnared by his very consciousness of pioneer gifts and grace. He wants, with a “covetousness” which has its noble side, to cover all the field, and not simply his own special section of it. No man has a monopoly of God’s work. God has other labourers, as well adapted to their own apportioned province as he himself is to his. His intense preoccupation with his own work, and his very consciousness of special aptitude, prevent him from appreciating other men’s work, or from recognising fully that he is not himself fitted for every field and for every form of service. Not so Paul. “Another man” has also “his line”; [not at all in the modern colloquial sense, but] the measuring-“rod” has apportioned a sectional “field” to him. No one man—no one Church—can do everything. Paul has none of that narrowness, which, e.g., cannot say a good word for another man’s methods and work, and indeed cannot see them.
2. Hence he refrains from trespassing upon their ground, though he expects [he did not get it!] the like consideration.
3. His “independence” of spirit (2Co_10:16) is by no means the subtle self-complacency, the vanity, which makes a man “boast,” “Ah! I was the first to enter Corinth for Christ! No man had proclaimed Jesus in Galatia until I went! Everybody had missed such-and-such a man, until I took him in hand!” That would be a spirit fatal to success, because cutting the man off from the Spirit of God, in Whose strength he can alone hope to succeed. He will not boast of what he is honoured to do even within his own “line.” The Lord does it all! (2Co_10:17-18). Much less will he intrude into another man’s, and then boast of what he has done “without” (i.e. outside) his “measure.” [As the Judaisers did: “See how many more of Paul’s people we have won over to ‘circumcision as well as Christ’! Gal_6:13 : “glory in your flesh.”] Depreciation, envy, boasting,—all these are strangers to his work and motives. No; it is the Lord’s errand, the Lord’s field, the Lord’s work, the Lord’s labourers, the Lord’s success. He will “make his boast” only “in the Lord.”
4. He therefore simply goes on with his Master’s work. He will neither make himself the standard for others, nor for himself; his own ways and plans and even mannerisms of success shall not be made the absolute Right; nor will he trouble himself very much about the “comparison” which men are drawing—and his own heart would naturally help them—between him and his fellow-workers. The Lord keep him and them all humble together, and bless their labour with all success, even as he desires to be blessed in his own! [Real danger for workers, nervously anxious about their own qualifications and progress in work, to be continually looking away from themselves—their own spiritual life and their own diligence—and eagerly scrutinising others. Very easily leads to distrust of God, to envy, to despondency, if they suffer by comparison; and to self-sufficiency, if the result of their examination seem flattering to themselves. Better to leave others to themselves and to their work and their Master; to go quietly on with our own, leaving nothing undone that we can compass, to fulfil our own task and cultivate our own special field. “Comparison” work is poor work, ill-spent time and thought!]
III. The Churches should carry out the principles,
1. In the arrangement of their work. In some mission-fields, and very often at home, there is waste of activity, of appliances, of plant, of men, by “overlapping.” There are, indeed, calls to enter, which no Church may refuse to listen to. “Open doors” of circumstance and providence compel new enterprises in towns, in mission-fields, where some workers at least are already labouring. But usually the special, temporary call (like that of Peter above) is soon superseded by the paramount considerations which the common sense and the right, catholic, heart of the Church, being herein the expression of the mind of the Lord, dictate; securing some mutual concession and arrangement, dividing the field, leaving each Church in possession of its own “measure” and “line” and province. The spirit which brought Paul’s rivals to Galatia and Corinth,—to reap where he had sown—to pull up, rather, what he had sown, in order to put in their own seed—to steal away from him for themselves, and for their own particular shape of “the Gospel,” the converts whom he had first won for Christ; the selfish competition that follows into a field already brought under cultivation, rather than begin on the untouched forest or the mere waste moorland, in some “regions beyond” the area occupied by the Churches;—these have too often had their individual and their Church embodiment in later ages. Even intense zeal should respect the (perhaps very different kind of) work of other men.
2. God has embodied the principle of apportionment of province and work, in the history of the Truth in His Church. The Churches—the local, national, confessional subsections of The Church—have in the occasions of their divisions, and in their relations to each other, given reason for scorn to the World and pain to every heart which is true to the Unity of the Body. Yet, as always, the historical, providential fact has had its Divine as well as its human aspect. Namely this: Truth is too large a thing for any one mind, or Church, or age to grasp and present, in its all-round completeness. Men, Churches, centuries, have been complementary in their testimony and their work. They have emphasised (have often had their Divine raison d’être for origin and continuance as separate communions, in the need that they should emphasise) now this aspect, now that; perhaps one which was neglected by the rest, or which, by an undue emphasis upon some complementary aspect, had been obscured, or thrust into unmerited discredit; or perhaps one which was specially needed by the man or the time. [Hardly a heresy which has not been an attempt, at first, to recover or express some forgotten phase or portion of truth; becoming a “heresy,” erroneous or mischievous, because, in its turn, crude or ill-balanced in its representation, and failing to do justice to the part of the Whole which others saw and tried to utter.] We may conceivably hold a Church, one in Creed and in organisation, to be in ideal the Best. As matter of fact, the Churches, the ages, the teachers, have each borne their witness to the phase and portion of the Truth which God’s work needed. True Catholicity of spirit recognises that each has a “measure,” a “line,” a province.
3. True Charity as between worker and worker demands the recognition of the principle, “to every man his work” (Mar_13:34). The pulpit will understand the student’s desk, the student will understand the preacher, the evangelist the expositor, the expositor the red-hot evangelist; the worker amongst the facts of criticism of Revelation will not in his library undervalue the country pastor, with his crudely simple, “old-fashioned” views of the Bible, nor will the plain, homely, believing worker be suspicious of the critic; the theologian will give and may ask patient, trustful respect for motives and work, in his relations with the man of science. Each is cultivating his own portion of the field, for the advantage of the Lord of the Whole field; there will therefore be mutual respect, reciprocal non-intrusion in any hostile sense, no mere self-centered comparison of worker and worker, with disparaging thoughts and words concerning “the other” as the issue. There are different types of worker and different orders of work for God.
Also IV. (2Co_10:17-18). The end of the day of toil brings all the Churches, and the workers in all the ages and fields and methods, together before their Common Master. Each brings in his “results”; converts won; fields of knowledge and branches of inquiry secured for Christ; ages or countries and nationalities Christianised, in their literature, their legislation, their social life and its daily moralities; each lays all down before the Lord Christ; and even as His “Well done” is heard, acknowledges that all the success has been His Gift. To-day, and in that day, the man, the Church that glorieth, must let the glorying be “in the Lord.” [“So that, as in my former letter (1Co_1:31), I said to you of your own personal standing and life in and before God—‘He that glorieth,’ ” etc.] Applause from our own Church, or contemporaries, or coterie, will be valued only as it bears bringing into the presence of Him Whose “approval” is the one absolute, eternally true verdict. His “approval” after His “proving” of the work and the worker,—that only is the satisfying, safe ground of self-gratulation. If He say, “Well done,” then only, whatever be the verdict from others, may our heart say to itself, “Well done.”
SEPARATE HOMILIES
2Co_10:5. The Conflict of Faith with Undue Exaltation of Intellect.
I.
1. N.B. Undue exaltation. Religion can have no quarrel with really moral and reasonable intellect, or with human thought that recognises its own weakness and limitations. The arrogance of the pretensions of human thought speaks of a fall, an early, radical convulsion and upheaval which has disturbed the original harmony between reason and revelation. Intellect is the ally, and discoverer, of truth; its highest employment is to be the instrument of religious truth.
2. Also fallen reason is generally enslaved to desire; not free, but unconsciously working at the secret bidding of an irritated passion. Or, working half-conscious of its bondage, for that reason asserts its freedom especially as against the Revelation of God, with nervous, exaggerated vehemence.
3. There is
(1) Mercenary Intellect, in bondage to sharp necessity (as it, sometimes reluctantly, thinks), or to the mere spirit of gain. “Cannot afford to have a conscience.”
(2) Self-advertising Intellect. Will be “original,” at whatever cost. Takes some subtle delight in perturbing the religious world with its startling assertions, made to win notoriety.
(3) Sensualised Intellect. Whole literatures, with their fertility of thought, beauty of language, ample power, aiming to excite basest passions.
(4) Self-reliant, cynical Intellect; the slave of a sublime egotism. But its enslavement is disguised, and its cold, clear, incisive energy passes for the very bloom and majesty of perfect intellectual freedom.
4. True there are nobler types amongst the opponents. Their true house is the Church; but they have not yet found the way to Damascus. They may safely be left to God.
II. Note, intellectual opposition to Revelation, in the second generation, when the great occasions are over, and the great captains are gone, oftenest takes refuge on some natural heights, or behind some artificial earthworks—some unproved assumption, some disputed principle. E.g.
(1) Will admit no room for faith; assumes to know and command the whole field of truth; assumes that there is no higher sphere accessible to man than those of sense and reason. But science never fixes limits to its possible range of inquiry and knowledge. Above the reach of telescope, below that of microscope, it believes in regions of fact hitherto unexplored. No reasonable ground of jealousy if beyond the farthest reach of natural science there be a region real, but unknowable by its powers and instruments of observation. Reason can prove much: an immaterial soul; freedom of will; the righteousness of the judgment of conscience; a First Cause, Who is One, personal, infinite, free, to be obeyed by His creatures. This much, perhaps; with a progress assisted by supernatural guidance, but also disputed at every step. But no more. Death, the Trinity in Godhead, Sin, its removal; of these reason knows nothing that can help the deepest need of the soul of man. She should be faith’s handmaid, not its substitute.
(2) Granted a supernatural, revealed sphere of truth; then, next, reason will have no mystery in it, nothing unverifiable or beyond the grasp of reason. An unreasonable assumption to take; we no judges beforehand of what a Revelation should contain. Further, a mystery is a truth, though one hidden from direct knowledge or unassisted inquiry. Also nature is full of mysteries; Life is a thing really unknown to us. So is Force. The higher we mount in the scale of being, the more there are of these hidden truths. To have rid our thought about these great truths of all objection because they are full of mystery, is to have “cast down” an entrenched fortress, with great powers of resistance.
(3) Granted a revelation, granted some mystery inevitable; then, next, reason will have no dogmatic form, propounded on authority. But impossible to assert definitely any one belief without dogmatically denying its opposite; without limiting intellectual liberty in regard to it. “The real crime of dogma is that it treats as settled and certain that which unbelief would fain regard as doubtful or false.” Prejudice against dogma the last stronghold of the enemy. If religion is to be practical, it must give truth in a form which will give strength for motive and resistance. If Christian truth had not been definite and dogmatic, it would not for eighteen centuries have satisfied the supreme necessities of the human soul.—Condensed from Liddon, “Univ. Sermons,” 1869, sermon vii.
2Co_10:3-5. Topic: The Victory of Christ over Thought; or, The Self-sufficiency of Christianity to fulfil its Mission. Note, the Gospel defined as “the knowledge of God”;—knowledge, clear, systematic, defined, adapted to the constitution, circumstances, destiny, of man. Of God; its author, subject, end. Note, further, this Gospel is to bring men’s thoughts into subjection to Jesus Christ; to enthrone Christ in the soul of humanity. Note, also, the Gospel recognises man as a thinker. Man’s thought may be regarded in three aspects:—
I. The distinguishing attribute of his nature.—Therefore in seeking to purify and ennoble it, and through it to stir and rule the world, the Gospel is performing a noble function.
II. The great parent of his character.—Man is what his thoughts are: false, true, feeble, or vigorous, independent, progressive,—so the man. Nations obey, first Force, and then, as they advance, Thought. No durable prosperity where men’s minds are dormant.
III. The chief instrument of his influence.—No influence man can wield is like this. Can only remove corrupt thought by free and loving thought. Christ set His thoughts circulating; is influencing by His thought every part of the world, every factor of the world’s life. So, then, the noblest task of Christianity is to bring thought into subjection to Christ. How? Not by infringing upon freedom of thought or will. By
(1) Arousing thought into life and action. The first action of Christ on the mind is to make men think; there are some who had no thoughts until they knew Him. By
(2) Removing obstacles. Pulling down, “casting down,” “bringing into captivity,” human depravity. This depravity manifesting itself in (a) Sensuous materialism; the despotism of matter over mind. You cannot hope for, cannot touch, the sensuous man. (b) False philosophy; not this or that system, but the spirit of all wrong systems; proud, mystical, arrogant, forgetting or disdaining the necessary limitations of human mind. (c) Religious superstition; which is indolent; substitutes mechanical action for mental activity (“Don’t think; leave thinking to the priest,” etc.); encourages idleness;—in every religion. (d) Secular authority.
(3) On the other hand: “Our weapons,” etc. “It is no secular principle that guides us. We lean on no material, visible power whatever, but the weapons we do use are ‘mighty.’ No matter what the stronghold may be called, its dimensions, its resources, its popularity, down it must go! Mighty to ‘pull down.’ We have only one thing to bear in mind, namely, to be on the side of Christ and truth and spirituality, and, whatever may become of us, our cause must rise and triumph. Have we confidence in spiritual weapons for the truth?… Shall policy, earthly considerations and schemes and measures, however well intended, be able to sustain the religion of Christ, or the truth that came down from heaven? Shall the Bible, or shall something else, be our guide through the voyage of life? Thanks be to God, I have no difficulty in … taking my side as the humblest of the humble in this war, and whatever fortifications may be erected against the truth a breach shall be made. The citadel shall be taken, and the people’s thoughts be made captive to Christ.”—Caleb Morris, “Homilist,” Third Series, vi. 216 (condensed).
2Co_10:4-5. True Soldiership.—The warlike instinct is in its usual embodiment no more justified by its persistence in human nature than is idolatry or falsehood. Yet there is lawful, urgent use for it. Not against his fellow-man, but, e.g., against nature, to subject it to his use; against his physical propensities; against ignorance, crime, disease, poverty. Plenty to fight against, without fighting man! So then:—
I. The weapons of true soldiership.—First, they are “not carnal”; as opposed to
(1) Miraculous agency; though employed at first, miracles are not the regular weapons with which Christianity fights her battles;
(2) All coercive instrumentality, by the civil power, or other;
(3) All crafty inventions, anything which, to exalt a man or forward a sect, accommodates Christianity to the sensuousness, prejudices, credulity, superstition, of mankind. Next, they are “mighty.”
(1) They are of God—His productions.
(2) They are His instruments. Unlike men and their books, God goes with His ideas, and works by them. Mighty “not through the enactments of law, force of eloquence, cogency of reasoning; not through imposing rituals and thrilling music; not through human zeal, however fervid; not through human sacrifices, however costly; not through human efforts, however adapted and persevering; but through God.”
II. The victories of true soldiership.—They are
(1) Mental. A storm or a wild beast will more readily overcome the body than you will; unless you conquer the mind, you have not conquered the man.
(2) Corrective. Pulling down the fortresses; “prejudices, worldly maxims, associations, passions, habits; behind which the mind entrenches itself against God.” “Infidel thinkings, superstitions, selfish, dishonest, vain, sensual thinkings.” Every anti-theistic feeling and passion. He who strikes at these root-evils of the world, pursues the best plan to conquer all the evils that afflict humanity.
(3) Christian. “The forms of the universe come to man mirrored in his thoughts. The great God comes to him only in the reflections of his thoughts. The million forms of civilisation are thoughts embodied. Of thought man weaves his web of destiny, cultivates, his paradise, or kindles his hell; it is the millstone beneath which he shall sink, or the pinions on which he shall rise for ever. Now the work of a true soldier is to bring this fontal force into an entire subjection to Christ—to make all men like Christ; and then, what a world will this be!”—“Homilist,” iv. 32 (condensed).
HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS
2Co_10:1-2. A Christian—
I. Must expect reproach.—Can do very little—certainly very little extended work for God—in which will not occur many things capable of diverse estimate and representation, by opposite types of mind, by equally honest judgments, or by those whose acquaintance with the facts is, in varying degree, partial and incomplete. John the Baptist and Christ Himself could not please everybody (Mat_11:16-19), nor were understood by everybody. Must also take account of the world’s distinct bias against the spiritual man; it always presumes the most unfavourable interpretation. No undue perturbation or astonishment, therefore, if the thing most simply intended, with the most direct aim at doing right, and that as in the sight of God and of Christ, is the very thing made matter of severest and (as we feel and know) “most unjust” animadversion.
II. Must endure it meekly.—Too easy for self-esteem—wounded, and not without cause of just complaint—to ruffle itself up, and becloud our judgment of our critics, and put us as utterly in the wrong as they, in our feelings towards them, or in our words about them, or in the method of our self-vindication.
III. Yet may meet it with the courage of conscious integrity.—There is time, and occasion, for bearing in silence, and going quietly forward, taking little heed. But there comes time, and necessity for the Gospel’s sake, for simple, direct, bold avowal of what we know to be the truth of the case. (See further, under 1Co_4:3.)
2Co_10:3. Our Warfare; our Conditions, our Foes, our Weapons.
I. In the flesh.—Weakness, ignorance, infirmity. Do not always do or say the wisest thing. “If only we knew better—”
II. Against the flesh.
III. Not after the flesh.—E.g.
1. Bodily austerities fail to subdue the evil heart.
2. Physical coercion, persecution to the death, are no right, or serviceable, methods of securing right opinion or right morals.
3. Human passions are no weapons for doing the work of our campaign against error or sin.
2Co_10:3-5. A true application of this to the war whose purpose and whose issue is the subdual of our own inner self and its life to the yoke of Christ.
I. We are part of the “world” which is alienated from, and in revolt against, the mind and will of God. There is a “world” within us, as there is to be a “kingdom of God” within us; the Individual summarises, focusses as into a small, but very vivid, picture the “world,” or “the kingdom,” as seen on the larger scale in the Race. “Spirit” and “flesh” at ceaseless war within. [Gal_5:17. Observe, not, “So that ye are not in fact able to,” etc., but, “So that ye may not,” etc.; each aiming to restrain the natural aim and action of the other.] The “world” within us is our first, hardest problem. We respond to Mat_11:28-30, and find “rest” from guilty fear and shame, and from any necessary (Rom_7:18-19; Rom_7:21, etc.) obedience to sinful impulse and habit (Rom_7:25). But only to find a new conflict arising, a new and deeper—deepening—appreciation of the presence and evil of sin cleaving to imagination, judgments, purposes, motives. Hate ourselves for the ignorance, pride, envy, jealousy, self-will, love of sin, indolence in service, inertness towards God and good, which we discover.
II. Enemy strongly entrenched.—Sin “native” to us. A usurper, indeed, with no right to possession. [Sin no designed or necessary accompaniment of humanity. Christ’s sinless human life “condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom_8:3). The foundation of all hope of our ultimate triumph in the struggle lies there,—“the Prince of this world”—of this little “world” within us—is “judged,” and shall be “cast out” (Joh_16:11).] But it has made nearly every faculty and power—bodily or mental—a stronghold. [As, in the days of Stephen’s weak rule, the barons covered England with their strong castles, each of which became a centre of revolt against authority, and of cruel, violent oppression.] Physical appetites—natural, neutral, necessary, per se—have become its seat. Imagination, memory, curiosity, joy in new conquests and acquirements, fear, love, anger (which has a rightful sphere and exercise), ambition (which in itself is a tribute to the nobility of human nature, and has saved the world from stagnation),—all have been fastened upon by sin; need reconquering for Christ. Yet, to measure hope by much of our past experience, or by our observation of others, is to say: “The complete conquest is hopeless! A modus vivendi is all we can expect. Must be content that in the hill-country of Canaan there will to the last remain many unsubdued enemies, of whom the most we can expect is that they submit to tribute, and are kept in fairly continuous subjection. No absolute conquest, or perfect peace, until death puts an end to our strife.”
III. Weapons divine.—If it depended upon our watching, praying, effort, our fidelity as against ourselves, our untiring zeal in the warfare; then there would really be no hope of perfect victory; the inner battle-field will never thus be completely cleared of enemies. But remembering the Captain, under Whom we wage the war; the Spirit, our active Ally and Strength; remembering the Key to obtain all needed grace, which, in Faith and Prayer, is put into our hands; remembering the sanctifying power of the Truth (Joh_17:17); there is hope, there is certainty, of
IV. Complete triumph for Christ.—Everything intrinsically and of necessity evil, cast out, cast down; everything in itself natural, neutral, brought under the obedience of a new law—the new thing, “love to Christ,” taking possession of, and regulating all the use and exercise of, every natural endowment, faculty, power, appetite; all that is compatible with loving God with “all the heart,” used, cultivated, indulged, within the limits of His design and law, within the limits where His smile can rest upon us in their indulgence and use. Imagination purified, and turning away from old, evil objects, with a new repulsion; old links of association broken, and new and holier ones set up; all the necessary laws of human thought made to work in new associations and to serve new purposes. [In the parliament of the inner life of the natural man, the government in power belongs to the side of evil; though there is a small, impotent, protesting minority of votes in opposition (e.g. conscience will bear its witness for God from time to time). In conversion Christ comes into power. His “bills” get passed, sometimes in the face of a dogged opposition, and by a narrow majority of votes. When “every thought is brought into the obedience of Christ,” the minority will have disappeared or been utterly silenced. All the votes then go for Christ, and for His will and purposes. He has captured the whole House by His love and by the spell of His cross, and “leads all in His train,” an absolute Master of all.] [When Christ has captured the fort, He will put a garrison in it, to keep it for Himself. Similarly, and in very close analogy, as to anxious thoughts, see Php_4:6-7, made very clear in the R.V.]
2Co_10:5. [Special application to] “Wandering Thoughts.”—Older sense of phrase was wider than ours; equivalent to “all thoughts which wandered from God,” thus covering all the workings of the natural heart. Customary use to-day is rather for “all thoughts which wander from the point in hand.” Really the wandering of attention. Can the attention be perfectly “brought into the obedience of Christ”?
I. Analyse the process.—[Great relief to some consciences to know that very largely, very frequently, “wandering thoughts” are not per se sinful, but are the consequence of want of that mental discipline, for which every student, on every subject, finds it necessary to struggle; the acquisition of the power of giving fixed attention, at will, for any length of time, being of the first necessity in all serious learning, and accounted by a student worth any price to obtain.] (Say) in prayer. In the morning, when going to ask for the coming day’s help, we consider the circumstances likely to arise, the persons likely to be met with. The thought of no one of these comes alone, but linked with memories of former occasions, difficulties, deliverances, failures. An undisciplined attention finds every one of these memories the possible beginning of a train of thought which is followed, one thing suggesting another, until some sudden recollection shows the person who is bowed in prayer that, for he hardly knows how long, he has forgotten the matter he began with, and has reached a point at which he can hardly understand how he arrived. Pulls himself together and begins again; only to find every new request, every memory of past need or help, becoming “points” on a railway which “shunt” his mind on to a “siding,” leaving him far away from his destination and his business. Or in reading the Word, or listening to a preacher; attention wanders. [Sometimes the preacher’s fault. Does not know his business; viz. how to speak so as to win attention for his topic and his message. Very often result of mere physical weariness, which God perfectly understands, and does not condemn. Too weary—quite blamelessly—after a hard day, or a hard week, to give fixed attention to the reading or the sermon. Easy to test character of such “wandering” by seeing whether it also applies equally to some neutral or secular topic. Can attention, just then, be any better given to any other book, any other speaker? We may not altogether exclude the possibility of direct spiritual, evil agency, making suggestions, in order to distract and divert the attention.]
II. Suggest the help.—
1. Do one’s utmost to acquire the power of giving attention at will. If, e.g., a book is worth reading at all, read it with attention, master it; nor simply suffer the author to project so many images in succession upon the white sheet of our mind, which then pass away, leaving no more permanent trace than do the pictures of the lantern. So, listen with purpose to a speaker, watching oneself lest mere fortuitous suggestion tarry us away with it. Every effort will help a habit; a habit worth all the pains, especially when on one’s knees.
2. Consider before prayer what is needed.—Simply to “plump” down upon one’s knees, without any special “wants,” is to invite “wandering.” An act of quiet recollection in entering upon public worship, will do much to fix thought.
3. Pray to Christ.—The idolater wants something visible, to help to make his God real. To the Father we may attribute no form; hard, therefore, for some undisciplined minds to realise that they address a Person; prayer seems sent out into the mere vacancy of space. To meet, blamelessly, the craving for a visible object is one (by-) purpose of an Incarnate God. He has a form which we shall one day see, and may now, lawfully, image forth. It gives some help to fix attention, to pray to Him as if looking at Him,—into His face. [Thus literally bringing thought into obedience “to Christ.”] [Such things as the position of the body, the place in the room, are not trivialities in this connection.]
4. So far as there is spiritual difficulty beneath the wandering, the remedy is in a quickened interest in the topics spoken of, read about, prayed for. What interests us holds attention. We do not “wander” when we care intensely about the matter of our prayer. Hence, again, whilst 1, 2, 3 may seem “carnal weapons,”—prudential, natural helps,—4 is distinctly a “spiritual” remedy. The heart wholly conquered and possessed by Christ will find—physical conditions being allowed for—no great difficulty with thoughts wandering from, or averse to, or rebelling against, spiritual things and themes.
2Co_10:5. This Subjection of Thought to Christ implies:—
I. Forming all our plans as subject to His revision, or reversal, or supersession. [Cf. passing the plans of a new building through the surveyor’s office. Or a subordinate, managing his department with constant reference to the known instructions and leading principles of the Head of the firm.] “Talking all over with” Christ, our Friend, Counsellor, Master; not because we ought, but also because we love to do so. Not chafing, or rebelling, if He substantially modify them, or set them aside for something better of His own.
II. Making His revealed mind in the New Testament the standard of judgment and appeal, in all estimates of persons and questions of wrong and right. Not testing them by the shifting standards of our age, or our “set,” or the customary morality, or worldly expediency, which rules in current literature or business life. Bring conduct, persons, proposals in business, or the like, into His presence; look at them, speak of them, correspond about them, as under the eye, in the hearing, of Christ. “What would Christ think, say, do; or wish me to say, think, do?”
III. Taking any word of His as final and authoritative, in any question of revealed truth, or of Scripture history [or of Old Testament literary history]. Shall endeavour to appreciate with fullest justice what He says; but His word final; no “going behind” it. An unchallengeable datum of any problem into which it enters.
2Co_10:7. “I am Christ’s.”—This may be a word of—
I. Simple, thankful, trustful dependence.—An honour (as Paul feels it); a security (as the sheep feels under the care of the Shepherd),—“I am Thine [“therefore I pray Thee,” or, “therefore Thou certainly wilt”] save me.” Or it may be a word of—
II. Narrow, exclusive (though indirectly so) self-estimation (as with Paul’s opponents).—No monopoly in Christ for any Church, or sect, or person that holds him at all. Cannot say: “The light of the sun, all of it, and only, shines through our one particular window.” There are tests of His presence and work which ought to be fully recognised, outside our circle, in other patterns of Christian than that which we affect or exhibit.
2Co_10:8. Ministerial Authority, a Reality.
I. Not to be “boasted of,” or needlessly paraded; but may rightly and “without shame” or reproach be appealed to and brought into use. [British officers, unlike the Continental, do not always wear their uniform; yet always invested with their authority, and may use it.]
II. Always as a trust “from the Lord” of the Church. No inherent, indefectible dignity making the minister something beyond a mere man. But—
III. A trust for the “edification” of the Church. The minister has authority, that he may the more effectively keep, save, guide, the flock. To use it for “destruction,”—for any selfish ends, or to punish some personal pique or wrong,—a solemn breach of trust. “Have I built up a single soul? No? Then my ministry a failure, if no more.”
2Co_10:9-11. “ ‘They say.’ What do they say? Let them say.” I will act. Said Aristotle: “If what my enemies say is false, I will live so as to prove it so; if true, I will listen and amend.” Paul had nothing to learn from his enemies. But how few have not something!
2Co_10:14-16. [A True Missionary Policy may be expanded and illustrated by timely facts in any particular society, from this.]
I. There are always “regions beyond.”—Work to be done always lies neighbour to work accomplished. “The Church” is only a small clearing surrounded by bush, or forest, or waste, which wants taking in, reclaiming, fencing, cultivating, for Christ.
II. There must always be in a healthy Church the “hope” of pushing farther back the border of the clearing. “Go out into all the world.” Pioneer work which breaks new ground; and quieter, less romantic work, which cultivates what would at once relapse into barrenness or waste if such work were remitted; are equally necessary and profitable. One undivided, indivisible work. But in a healthy Church there must always be the passion for the reclaiming of the “regions beyond.” The Evangelical Revival which regenerated England sent forth, far and near, missionary agencies of every type, in the widest sense of “missionary.”
III. The established work is to be the basis of the pioneer work.—A flying column may make a raid into a hostile land; but ordinarily the advance should keep in close touch with its base. A solitary Livingstone may plunge into darkest Africa, and be lost sight of whilst he is exploring and discovering what there is to do and to be won. But the permanent mission work of the Church wants the organised, established, liberal Churches at home. [Hold the ropes at top of cliff, whilst the rescue party go over to save life in peril.] The obligation, the privilege of the Corinths, the Philippis, the Thessalonicas, is to send forth, to send supplies after, the pioneer Pauls. The missionary on the borderland, or pioneering over the border, is merely the stay-at-home Church embodied. In the differentiation of organ and function in the Body, he is only the particular organ of the Whole which happens to be best suited to do a work which is the work, the responsibility, of All. The whole Body must keep itself healthy, if the Hand which reaches out to gather from the “regions beyond” is to be strong for its work. An unspiritual home Church will not long sustain healthy mission work.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain We now enter upon another field, in which the…
DEFENSE OF HIS APOSTLESHIP.
We now enter upon another field, in which the apostle finds it necessary to defend his claims to the apostolic office from the assaults of his adversaries, at the same time announcing his purpose to deal with them in a summary way when he arrives. During his long absence many preachers had come from Juda, and not only propagated heresies among them, but had done their utmost to sow dissension, especially by impeaching his apostolic authority, advocating the position which many do this day, that there were no apostles but the original Twelve which our Savior called out early in His ministry (Matthew 10). That hypothesis would exclude James and Jude, the brothers of our Lord, and authors of epistles that bear their names, as well as Paul, Barnabas and Apollos. Were these preachers from Juda Christians? They claimed so to be, and probably some of them were in reality, while others were Satan’s counterfeits, though doubtless thinking that they were all right. Much help you will find in your efforts to understand especially the historic phases of revealed truth, if you will remember that humanity, grace, sin, Satan and God are uniform in all ages. Church license had never yet been given to the preachers, being a post- apostolic invention. Therefore it was optionally with men to assume the ministerial office at will, and go forth on their own responsibilities. Though license was instituted purposely to fortify against ministerial counterfeits, like everything else it has long ago been usurped and manipulated by the enemy to the detriment of the cause. Corinth was the great metropolis of all Southern Greece, and one of those innumerable, beautiful and fruitful islands constituting the Grecian archipelago. It was the greatest commercial emporium in the world, situated on the Aegean Sea, giving it the commerce of Asia, the Ionian, and that of Rome. Hence it was an attractive center, into which everything, bad as well as good, focalized. Therefore, during his absence of three and a half years, peregrinating (to travel or journey)
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through Asiatic Christendom, and visiting the churches of Northern Greece, while the Corinthians had enjoyed the glorious gospel of Peter, Apollos, and many other true heralds and exemplars of the genuine article, they had been terribly preyed upon by a diversity of preachers from Juda, and other countries in infantile Christendom, who had not only propagated many errors, but had actually undertaken to supplant the apostolic authority of Paul altogether; of course, in hopes of capturing them for their own aggrandizement. The same state of things is now going on throughout Christendom. This laid upon Paul the unpleasant duty of defending his own claims to the apostolic office, as well as his ministerial character. This duty was not only obligatory on him for the sake of the cause in all ages, but it was especially incumbent on him to protect the faith of his spiritual children, which was being shaken by these heretical inroads.
1. “But I myself, Paul, exhort you through the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in personal appearance am indeed mean among you, but being absent I am bold toward you.” Paul was not only a little, ugly man, quite unimpressive in his personal appearance, but dressing in the very cheapest and plainest style, impressing a stranger like a poor old tramp; while, of course, many of his adversaries were tidy and magnanimous in their physique and manner. Yet the fullness of the Holy Ghost and the majesty of Heaven’s commission made him bold as a lion.
2. “But I pray that being present I may not be bold towards you with that confidence with which I consider that I am bold towards some that reckon us as walking according to the flesh.” Carnal people always judge others by themselves, imputing carnal motives to God’s true people, and thus utterly misunderstanding them. That is the reason why they killed the Son of God and two hundred millions of His faithful followers. They misunderstood them, explaining their deportment from a carnal standpoint. See what a time Paul had with these big, cultured, fine looking preachers, who hounded him everywhere, upsetting his converts, playing sad havoc with his churches and doing their best to undermine not only his ministerial influence but even supplant his apostolic office, to which the glorified Savior in person had called him, both on his way to Damascus and in the temple at Jerusalem.
4. “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty unto God for the pulling down of strongholds.” Only a short time before Paul’s day, Mithridates had conquered and expelled the pirates from the very country where he was born and reared, reducing a hundred and twenty strongholds and capturing more than ten thousand prisoners. Hence it is believed that he had his mind on these notable events when he dictated this verse, so vividly describing the omnipotence of grace in capturing the citadels of sin and Satan.
5. “Casting down reasoning and every edifice which is being raised against the knowledge of God, and leading captive every intent into the subjection of Christ.” Here we see the felicitous, gracious possibility of complete subordination of spirit, mind, body and life to the perfect and holy will of our glorious King. This great work is to be diligently, vigilantly, sedulously and indefatigably sought after, an we receive the experience of entire sanctification, which simply turns over the heart unreservedly to the Holy Ghost, who thoroughly purifies and occupies it contemporaneously with complete consecration. The spirit or the heart is the man properly so called, the mind and body being his servitors. Hence it is incumbent on the sanctified soul to constantly and appreciatively utilize God’s Word, providence and Spirit to bring about this complete subordination of all our mental faculties and corporeal organs to the will of God. Primarily in the Divine administration is the Holy Ghost Himself, sanctifying and dwelling in the heart during the experience of entire sanctification, completely illuminating, subduing, perfecting and occupying the human spirit, i. e., the king of the human organism. Then through the human spirit, His happy and willing ally, He reaches the mind, quickening the memory, illuminating the intellect, fortifying the judgment and purifying the sensibilities, thus bringing into meek and beautiful subordination “every intent into subjection to Christ.” This is a grand achievement, gradually wrought by the Holy Spirit through the co-operation of the human spirit after the latter has been sanctified and become permanently occupied by the Former. Now the mind having been captured and all of its faculties subordinated to the reign of Christ, i. e., every stronghold now in the possession of the King of kings, then this grand conquest reaches the body, literally capturing every member and bringing all into sweet and harmonious conservatism to the will of God.
6. “And being ready to avenge every disobedience when your obedience shall have been completed,” i. e., when the Divine obedience shall have reached not only your spirit in entire sanctification, but passed on into the great dominion of mentality, bringing all your intellectual faculties, judgment, memory and sensibility into beautiful, harmonious conservatism with the Divine administration established in the domain of spirituality and the empire of mentality, then, reaching down, literally capturing your animal body and interpenetrating the one thousand nerves and five hundred muscles and all the members, so tuning up this harp of a thousand strings that none but Jesus can play on it, thus forever spoiling it for the world and the devil; then, instead of listening to the siren song of the tempter, you simply walk out a gigantic warrior, armed with full panoply and ready to attack and smash the very conception of disobedience on the faintest presentation of the enemy.
7. “Whether do you look at things according to appearance?” In that case those big, fine looking preachers would floor poor, little, old, weak-eyed Paul every time. The same is true to-day. The world is cheated and gulled by good looks. Did you ever see a fine-looking preacher who amounted to a picayune? I have preached from ocean to ocean, from the Gulf to the Lakes, and found this principle everywhere verified. As a rule, it is the shabby- looking men and women that put the devil to rout, while it is our great work to fight him off from the good-looking people. “If any one has confidence to himself that he belongs to Christ, let him reckon this again from himself, that as he is of Christ, so are we.” Most important is this constant recognition that God’s people are a unit, and hence the folly and inconsistency of adverse criticism. Diversity is the glory of God’s kingdom. He has made no two things alike. If some of His saints are to you most repellent in speech and manner, remember that God has a great work for them to do for which they would be utterly incompetent if they were like you. Hence you ought to rejoice in this infinitesimal dissimilitude. In the Holiness Movement we have all denominations, all theologies, all races, colors and nationalities. This is a glorious adaptation to the work of God’s holy people in all lands. We ought to rejoice over it and give God the glory, and not waste time and opportunity in criticism. So rest assured that will be attended to without you, for it is the devil’s job, and he never neglects his business. Then please rest easy about all of the Lord’s oddities, for He has use for them.
8. “For if we were to boast somewhat more abundantly concerning our power which the Lord gave us for edification, and not for your destruction, I shall not be put to shame.” The grand end in view throughout the Bible is edification, i. e., the building up of God’s kingdom. Hence we should always pray with that grand end in view. This is an argument for entire sanctification, without which preachers and people in all ages have enthusiastically rushed forth to the literal destruction of God’s Church in their glowing enthusiasm to build it up, such is the fond hallucination of Satan.
9. “In order that I may not seem as it were to terrify you by my letters.” While his writings were exceedingly bold and utterly uncompromising on all lines of truth and righteousness, he wants them to know that the grand end is not destruction, but edification.
10. “Because they say, Truly his letters are weighty and powerful, but the presence of his body is weak and his speech contemptible,” i. e., they charged him with writing, when at a distance and the great sea intervening, like a mighty man with tremendous authority, but when he came among them they were surprised to see a little, ugly, untidy, meanly dressed, shabby-looking man. Then his speech, so plain, straight, hard, rough and uncompromising, contrasted vividly with the studied oratory and beautiful and flowery rhetoric of his adversaries, it put them in quite a dilemma. While no photographs or statues of our Savior or any of His apostles have come down to us, in case of Paul and Barnabas we actually have an exception. When they concluded they were gods at Lystra and proceeded to worship them, they called Barnabas, Jupiter, and Paul, Mercury. This gives us a clear testimony as to the physique of these two noted apostles. When I was at Athens I saw the marble statues of many Grecian gods, having survived the wreck of two thousand years. I saw the marble temples of Jupiter and others still standing. Besides, we have been looking at the pictures of the statues of these Grecian gods all our lives. Jupiter to them was the supreme god of Heaven and earth, enthroned upon the highest pinnacle of Olympus, giving law to the universe. Hence his statue and all of his pictures represent him as a large, fine-looking man. Consequently we may rest assured that Barnabas was a big preacher in more ways than one, and possessing a commanding physique. Now, what do we know about Paul? I am happy to say that we have here very clear information qualifying us to answer this question. The very fact that they thought Paul was Mercury is demonstrative proof that he was like him in speech, manner and appearance. Mercury was the Grecian god of eloquence, who inspired all the orators and gave the poets their immortal songs. His statue represents him as a little, ugly, hump-shouldered man with a head twice as large as the proportion of his body, a sharp, prominent face, anything but handsome. Hence we have from this incidental historic notice positive information corroborating this verse, which certainly speaks for itself. As my books have gone before me into many lands, I now meet no strangers, but am hailed everywhere by people who feel that they are acquainted with me by reading my writings, yet I find them on all hands on meeting me expressing general surprise, and observing, “Why, we expected to see a large, fine- looking man, with a bald head and snowy white beard,” thus ever reminding me of the criticism on the physique of the world’s greatest apostle. [Pardon the apparent comparison, as I am certainly unworthy to black his shoes. I ran into it inadvertently, simply pursuing matters of fact. God grant me at least a participation in the enviable humility of our hero.]
11. “Let such an one consider this, that such as we are through our letters, being absent, such also are we in work, being present.” Paul here makes no reply to their scathing criticism on his person and speech, but assures them that they may depend on it that he will carry out the severity of his doctrine and discipline to the letter. That is a matter in which there can be no flicker.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain 2Co 10:5
2Co 10:5
I. The power of thought. The ability to think is (1) man’s great distinction, (2) the instrument of all his work, and (3) the great material with which he works.
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II. For our thoughts to possess true value, we must learn to lead them. If a man does not lead his thoughts, some other power will, some power of the world, of the flesh, or of the devil, or all these powers combined. Now the central character of the power of our thoughts makes it a first necessity that we should lead them, if we are to remain in possession of ourselves. Thought determines the man. It arrests the attention, awakens feeling, inflames the passions, subdues the will, and commands action. Thoughts, therefore, unled, will be to a man what winds and waves are to a ship under canvas, but without a rudder, or what steam is to an engine without the guiding rail: a driving and destructive power.
III. But if we would lead our thoughts, we must know how to make them interesting. Thoughts wedded to the affections and carried in the congenial currents of the heart so rapidly multiply associations that the difficulty is to abstain from thinking, for thought is captivated, and captivated thought must be active.
IV. But how may we lead our thoughts into captivity? To lead our thoughts we must present to the mind that which is agreeable to its nature, and simply ask for obedience to an authority which, though it speaks without, appeals to its own Amen within us. The authority is (1) conscience; (2) the Divine word; (3) He who speaks in the word.
W. Pulsford, Trinity Church Sermons, p. 24.
Subjection of the Reason and Feelings to the Revealed Word.
The question may be asked, How is it possible to live as if the coming of Christ were not far off, when our reason tells us that it probably is distant? It may be said that we cannot hope and fear, and expect and wait, as we will, but that we must have reasons for so doing; and that if we are persuaded in our deliberate judgment that Christ’s coming is not probable, we cannot make ourselves feel as if it were probable. In considering this objection, I have an opportunity of stating a great principle which obtains in Christian duty: the subjection of the whole mind to the law of God.
I. I deny, then, that our feelings and likings are commonly moved according to the dictates of what we commonly mean by reason, so far from it that nothing is more common, on the other hand, than to say that reason goes one way and our wishes another. There is nothing impossible, then, in learning to look out for the day of Christ’s coming more earnestly than according to its probability in the judgment of reason. What Almighty God requires of us is to do that in one instance for His sake which we do so commonly in indulgence of our own waywardness and weakness, to hope, fear, expect our Lord’s coming, more than reason warrants and in a way which His word alone warrants; that is, to trust Him above our reason.
II. Only reflect, what is faith itself but an acceptance of things unseen, from the love of them, beyond the determinations of calculation and experience? Faith outstrips argument. If there is only a fair chance that the Bible is true, that heaven is the reward of obedience and hell of wilful sin, it is worth while, it is safe, to sacrifice this world to the next. It were worth while, though Christ told us to sell all that we have and follow Him and to pass our time here in poverty and contempt—it were worth while on that chance to do it. Faith does not regard degrees of evidence. Though it is quite certain that Almighty God might have given us greater evidence than we possess, than we have in the Bible, yet, since He has given us enough, faith does not ask for more, but is satisfied and acts upon what is enough, whereas unbelief is ever asking for signs, more and greater, before it will yield to the Divine word. What is true of faith is true of hope. We may be commanded, if so be, to hope against hope, or to expect Christ’s coming, in a certain sense, against reason.
III. As it is our duty to bring some things before our minds and contemplate them much more vividly than reason by itself would bid us, so, again, there are other things which it is a duty to put away from us, not to dwell upon and not to realise, though they be brought before us. Judging by mere worldly reason, the Christian ought to be self-conceited, for he is gifted; he ought to understand evil, because he sees and speaks of it; he ought to feel resentment, because he is conscious of being injured; he ought to be doubting and hesitating in his faith, because his evidence for it might be greater than it is; he ought to have no expectation of Christ’s coming, because Christ has delayed so long; but not so: his mind and heart are formed on a different mould. He goes by a law which others know not, not his own wisdom or judgment, but by Christ’s wisdom and the judgment of the Spirit, which is imparted to him. This it is which gives so unearthly a character to his whole life and conversation, which is "hid with Christ in God."
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vi., p. 255.
References: 2Co 10:5.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1473. 2Co 10:7.—Bishop Temple, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 237. 2Co 11:1-3.—F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians, p. 418; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. ix., p. 223.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain Division 6. (2Co 10:1-18; 2Co 11:1-33.)
Division 6. (2Co 10:1-18; 2Co 11:1-33.)
The overcoming of the difficulties, and of the power of the enemy, which would hinder the work.
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1. The apostle goes on now to meet the difficulties which were manifesting themselves from the spirit of rivalry among those who professedly, at least, were ministers of Christ themselves. He entreats them by that meekness and gentleness of Christ which, with all the positive and supreme claim which He had over His people, and which He never hesitated to enforce, yet nevertheless manifested itself in all His ways towards them. So also will the apostle be lowly among the people of God and assuming nothing, while able to be bold, nevertheless, with the confidence of what God was working by him. He besought them, however, that he might not have to manifest the boldness which he expected to show against some who were putting him down as walking upon their own level, which was according to the flesh. He walked indeed in flesh, a man like other men, but he maintained no fleshly conflict. The weapons of his warfare were not fleshly, and yet mighty through God to the overthrowing of Satan’s power and the strongholds of human pride and reasoning, exalting themselves against the knowledge of God. His aim was not to establish a principle of obedience to himself, but of obedience to Christ, and there he desired to lead captive every thought. All else that would not yield to this in the way of gracious ministry he would be ready to avenge when the spirit of obedience, on the other hand, had been manifested, and those in whom it was were thus separated from the rest.
2. He reasons with them all now, however, as having amongst them those who thus questioned the authority which God had given him. Were they judging by outward appearance, mistaking the lowliness of grace for the consciousness of incapacity? If any one trusted in himself that he was of Christ, let him think this too, that whatever he might be, this the apostle could surely claim nay, if he were to boast more abundantly of the authority the Lord had given him, he would not be ashamed; but it was for edification, not for destruction, and thus he did not want to seem as if he were frightening them by letters. His adversaries took occasion to assert that while the letters truly were weighty and strong, when the man himself was seen there was not what was corresponding to this. He maintains that just what he was in his letters, so would he manifest himself to be when he was present with them. The deed would make good the word. The profession would not be found, as in the case of others it might be, to be beyond the reality.
3. For he did not dare to make himself one of those who were continually commending themselves, people who measured themselves among themselves, and not in the presence of God, or by the results of ministry which God had made apparent. For his own part, he would not imitate this folly, but would go no further than the measure of that which God had apportioned to him; a measure which the Corinthians knew reached even to them, for they themselves were the fruit of what God had done by him. He was not boasting of other men’s labors, and he hoped that, with the enlargement of their own faith, the character of his labors would be enlarged also, and indeed that they would thus prepare his way for an announcement of the gospel in the parts beyond themselves, a kind of enlargement which would be indeed according to his desire. In himself he did not desire to glory, but in the Lord; for self-commendation could not approve the one who used it, but the Lord’s commendation was the whole matter.
4. Provoked himself to a little of what might be considered this sort of folly, he could trust that they would bear with him. After all, in it was really the jealousy which he had with regard to them as those whom he had espoused to one husband, that he might present them, as it were, a chaste virgin to Christ. He feared lest, as man had been seduced from God at the beginning, so now their minds were being corrupted from simplicity as to the Christ. But was there another Jesus than the One he preached, or was there a different Spirit from Him they had received, or was there a different gospel which was truly that? If so, indeed they might well bear with this; but he reckoned that in nothing was he behind, in this respect, those who were pre-eminent as apostles, and if he discarded the excellency or the ornaments of speech, he was not deficient in knowledge, but in every way had made himself manifest in all things to them.
5. Searching around for cause, then, for offence he might have given them, he can only find it possible in his having preached freely to them the gospel of God, taking nothing from them. He had, in fact, at the same time received front other assemblies, as if as he puts it, he had been hired by others to minister to them; all that was deficient being supplied by those from Macedonia, and his own labor being, as we know, for the most part his own support. Thus he had not been a burden upon them as he might reasonably have been; nor was he going now to be such. There was a special reason for this exceptional conduct, and he was glad at Corinth to be able to boast himself in this respect; but why? For want of love to them? No, but to cut off occasion from those who desired occasion, deceitful workers, who had come in with really apostolic pretensions, -but baseless, and inspired of Satan himself; who could readily transform himself into an angel of light, which once he was, but is not. As the accuser of the brethren, Satan’s great plea indeed is righteousness. We see that in his accusation of Job; and his followers were likely enough on his ground to be as false accusers of others as he is. Their end would declare it, but he does not hesitate to speak plainly of what indeed must have been a terrible thing with him, to find those who were the fruit of his own labors thus carried off away from him. A very great length, it is evident, had things gone in Corinth; and even as yet there was not the thorough deliverance which he counted on for them.
6. He turns unwillingly once more to speak of himself. Fool as they thought him, even as a fool, they who were so wise might listen a little. Foolish indeed boasting was, yet it was a folly to which one might be compelled, -a sorrowful thing that they, of all people, should be compelling him to this. But in what, then, in comparison with others, did he fail? If they were Hebrews, so was he. If they were the seed of Abraham, so was he. Were they ministers of Christ? How thoroughly had he been proved as that! The abundance of his labors spoke for him, the sufferings that these ever brought him into, -stripes and imprisonments, death facing him in every form. The record follows here, a record which far exceeds such history as we have in the Acts, which was indeed but an example of much else. Perils he had met in every form, from enemies, from false brethren, from fellow-countrymen, from strangers, amid the concourse of men, in wilderness desolations, in perils from what men call accidents, amid labor and toil, in watchings, in fastings, in cold and nakedness. Amid all this there was that which, for such as he was, was a pressure beyond it all, the burden of all the assemblies. Who was there with whose weakness he did not sympathize? Who was there whose stumbling did not make him burn? But if he gloried, he would glory rather in that which showed him to be the helpless creature that he was, cared for of God as such, but still left to the realization of this helplessness. He mentions but one point here, the ignominious way in which he had to take flight from Damascus, the city being shut up with a garrison to apprehend him, he himself let down from a window in the wall, in a basket, to escape his persecutors, -no miracle intervening for him, as we see, no dignity imparted by such a manner of escape as this; yet how much comfort may we sometimes find in these glimpses of the condition in which might be found so great an apostle as was Paul!
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain (B) Chapters 10-13. St. Paul's Defence of his Ministry
(B) Chapters 10-13. St. Paul's Defence of his Ministry
As explained in the Introduction, this section is regarded as part of the intermediate letter, referred to in 2Co_2:3-4 and 2Co_7:8, in which the Apostle rebuked his converts, and sought to bring them to repentance. It is, therefore, to be taken as earlier in time than 2 Corinthians 1-9, which were written as the result of the Corinthians' reception of the intermediate or 'severe' letter.
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Here the Apostle answers the charges of weakness and cowardice that have been brought against him, defends his preaching and his independence, points to the proofs of his apostleship in suffering and service, and finally warns them against evil and exhorts them to live a pure and holy life.
(a) 10:1-18. Answer to the Charge of Feebleness and Cowardice
The Apostle beseeches the Corinthians to act in such a way that he will not need to resort to extreme measures on the occasion of his forthcoming visit. He points out that his purpose is to make every man's thoughts subject to the power of Christ, and that he will punish any who are rebellious when the Church as a whole shall have returned to its obedience. He goes on to say that those who have been accusing him of cowardice will soon find themselves mistaken. He will make no boast that his record cannot justify, and he will boast chiefly of his success in converting the Corinthians themselves. This was a field of labour the Apostle had made peculiarly his own; and he hoped for the assistance of the Church in carrying the gospel further west. But let them not forget that the only glorying that was safe was that which came through seeking the approval of the Lord.
1. Now I Paul] If this is not the beginning of the 'severe' letter, it is evidently the beginning of a new subject. Possibly one leaf of the MS containing this letter was lost at an early date; and this loss led to the remaining portion being attached in course of time to the longer Epistle consisting of 2 Corinthians 1-9. By the meekness and gentleness of Christ] cp. Php_2:1. He invokes Christ's meekness to indicate the spirit in which he wishes to deal with his opponents.
In presence am base, etc.] This was their story, by which they sought to prejudice him in the eyes of the Church.
2. According to the flesh] i.e. in a worldly spirit. His enemies declared that he was one who sought his own advantage and tried to gain popularity by whatever methods seemed best at the moment. When he was at a distance, he issued commands and declared his authority over the Church; but when he came they found him a poor creature who was overawed by the firmness of the Church against him.
3-6. Paraphrase. 'We live in the flesh, and are subject to its weaknesses and temptations, like others; but we are not prompted by fleshly motives, such as dread of giving offence, or desire of popularity. (4) For we fight not in our own strength, but in the strength of God, and this reliance upon Him enables us to prevail against all opposition and prejudice, however strong or deep-rooted. (5) In this strength we shatter the false reasonings and assertions of our opponents, and bring back your rebellious thoughts into obedience to Christ, (6) while after we secure your submission, we shall certainly punish any who may still resist His will.'
4. Carnal] RV 'of the flesh.' Through God] RV 'before God.'
5. Imaginations] the false reasonings of his enemies. Every high thing] All the pride and self-satisfaction and self-delusion which made the Corinthians rebel against him. Bringing into captivity] The Apostle describes the Corinthians in a metaphor as rebels in possession of a castle (2Co_10:4) with battlements and high towers, (2Co_10:5) which he must attack in order to capture the defenders.
6. Disobedience] There may be some contumacious to the bitter end.
7-10. Paraphrase. 'You are too much influenced by appearances. My opponents say that I do not act as an Apostle of Christ, do they? Be sure that I am just as devoted a servant of Christ as any who assert their superiority. (8) Even if I boasted of my authority which Christ has given me, I should still be justified. (9) I write this to show that I am not seeking to terrify you by empty threats, (10) for, according to my opponents, my presence among you and my appeals were alike ineffective.'
7. Do ye look, etc.] RV 'Ye look at the things that are before your face.' As he is Christ's, even so are we] St. Paul claims that his relation to Christ is as close as that of any of his opponents: cp. 2Co_13:3, 2Co_13:4. For the Christ party see Intro. 1 (b). Some think that the leaders of this party claimed to have known Christ during His earthly life.
10. His letters]. They had at this date received at least two from St. Paul, (1) that mentioned in 1Co_5:9, and (2) our First Epistle. His bodily presence is weak] i.e. his action is feeble when he is present. His speech contemptible] RV 'of no account'; i.e. produced no effect. Possibly the Apostle pleaded with them rather than asserted his authority. He was an eloquent speaker (Act_14:12). 11. Will we be] RV 'are we.'
12. We dare not] RV 'we are not bold': cp. 2Co_11:2. His confidence was not based on comparison with his opponents. Not wise] RV 'without understanding.' Such a method of self-commendation is useless and foolish.
13-18. Paraphrase. 'Others may boast without reason, but we will make no boast which cannot be justified by our work—a work which includes your conversion. (14) For in claiming you as our converts we are not making too great a boast. (15) And we are not taking credit for other men's labours as our opponents are for ours, but are rather hoping that as your faith increases so also will our influence, (16) that we may be aided to preach the gospel in districts beyond your city, and not seek, as some are doing, to claim credit for success where others have laboured before us. (17) The only safe rule about boasting of success is this: He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (18) For self-praise is no attestation of the work that is done; that attestation is only shown when God's blessing attends and prospers it.'
13. Without our measure] outside our province. He will only boast of work done by himself, and that included preaching the gospel in Corinth. The measure of the rule, etc.] RV 'The measure of the province which God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even unto you.' St. Paul's province was heathendom, and that included Corinth.
14. We are come] He was the first to preach Christ in Corinth.
15. Not boasting, etc.] RV 'not glorying beyond our measure, that is, in other men's labours; but having hope that as your faith groweth, we shall be magnified in you according to our province unto further abundance.' Of other men's labours] The suggestion is that his opponents do so. We shall be enlarged] As their faith increased and their Christian life became more manifest, his name would become better known, his influence would increase, and his sphere of service would be much extended, according to his rule of making a Church the starting-point for further efforts.
16. The regions beyond you] These chapters were written in Ephesus; hence this would refer to Rome, and perhaps Spain. Rome was already in his mind (Act_19:21), and soon after this date he wrote of going to Spain (Rom_15:24, Rom_15:28). Not to boast in another man's line of things made ready] RV 'not to glory in another's province in regard of. things ready.'
17. Cp. Jer_9:23; 1Co_1:31. In the Lord] The only boasting is to be of Him who gives the blessing.
18. Not he that commendeth himself] Contrast between himself and his accusers is implied. The true test is the success of the work, not the self-advertisement of the workers.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain [The two previous parts of this epistle have been…
[The two previous parts of this epistle have been mainly addressed to that portion of the congregation at Corinth which was loyal to the apostle. This third part, however, is especially addressed to his enemies, though he at times evidently speaks to his friends. The apostle in neither case formally indicated which party he was addressing, for he rightly assumed that each would wisely appropriate to itself the sentiments which properly belonged to it.] 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:
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain III. THE APOSTLE’S SELF-DEFENSE AND VINDICATION. Chapters 10-13
III. THE APOSTLE’S SELF-DEFENSE AND VINDICATION. Chapters 10-13
1. The Vindication of His Authority
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CHAPTER 10
The apostle now turns to vindicate the authority, which he had received from the Lord. This had been brought into question by the enemy. In doing this Satan aimed at three things: He attempted to discredit him as a true minister of God; he tried to damage the great truths the apostle preached, and he endeavored also to bring about a separation between the apostle and the Corinthians. Assuredly the great man of God was troubled and did not want to speak much of himself and his authority. But he was forced to do so in this epistle and also in the epistle to the Galatians, for the truth of God and the honor of the Lord were at stake. The defense of his apostolic authority stands in the foreground in Galatians; here he puts it at the close of his letter, for it was necessary to deal with other matters first, and to assure the Corinthians of his deep concern for them and thus pave the way for an answer to the accusations brought against him.
He begins by entreating them by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. The three words “Now I, Paul,” were to remind them of his own person. It was the Paul who had come amongst them to preach the gospel, and through his preaching wonderful results had been brought about. And now attacked and belittled among the same people, who, next to God, had to thank him for everything, he begins to entreat them and vindicate his authority and character. He states, “Who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you.” These words make partly reference to his personal appearance, which was not of a character which appealed to the Corinthians, who admired the athletic physique of the Greeks. Not alone was his outward form lowly, but he was equally so in his manner and conduct. From this we learn that his accusers, who tried to influence the Corinthians against him, had thrown contempt on his person and character. We shall find that he takes up repeatedly their false charges and insinuations, to meet and refute them. When he writes, “but being absent am bold toward you,” he has in mind what his enemies had said about the epistle he had written them; they belittled his personal appearance and his character, and sneeringly said, he is bold when he is absent; he knows how to write strong letters when he is away, but otherwise he is a coward. He answers by saying,
“But I beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present with the confidence with which I think to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walk according to the flesh.”
He beseeches them that he may not be obliged to use his authority as an apostle when among them, against those who had wronged him by their false charges. He had written in boldness, yet he could also act in boldness and with authority when he was present with them. They had accused him that he was walking on the same level with them, that is, “according to the flesh.” This he repudiates by saying that he walks in flesh, (note in the Greek the word flesh is without the definite article; not “in the flesh”, but “in flesh”), which is quite a different thing. He was a man like other men; but when it came to warfare, he waged no fleshly conflict. He acknowledges that he has no wisdom in himself; as to flesh he is powerless, he is cast upon God. How different from these false teachers, his accusers who walked in pride and boasted of wisdom and were governed by selfish motives. The weapons he used were not fleshly, but mighty through God; the weapons which the Holy Spirit supplies. And this spiritual warfare means “the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”
Well has it been said, “repression of the natural will, which is the seat and vehicle of Satan’s machinations, is the true aim of spiritual warfare.” Mere fleshly, independent “reasonings” and “imaginations” are inconsistent with a real subjection to God. The natural man thinks his own thoughts and follows his own imaginations, but not so the believer: he abandons his own thoughts and imaginations; he casts down all that exalteth itself against the true knowledge of God, and brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. The Corinthians had not done this; they walked in a carnal way and the enemy got an advantage over them. And so it is largely today among God’s people.
After stating that he was ready to avenge all disobedience, in virtue of his apostolic authority, when their obedience was fulfilled, he asks, “Do ye look on things after the outward appearance?” This is what they had done. “For his letters,” say they, “are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.” But he answers that just what he was in his letters when not with them, so would he also be when he is present with them, He speaks of his authority given to him by the lord for edification and not for their destruction; he wanted them to know that he was not terrifying them by his letters. He did not dare to do as others did, commending himself. Those who opposed him constantly measured themselves among themselves, and not in God’s presence. He acted differently. “But we will not boast of things without measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you.” He disavowed all connection and comparison with those whose glory was of themselves, and though he had greater gifts bestowed upon himself than others, yet he would not boast of it. The measure which God had given to him had reached unto the Corinthians, for they were the fruit of his labors. He did not boast of other men’s labors, and hoped that with an increase of their faith there would also be an increase of his labors even to the regions beyond.
“But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” If there is any glorying it must be in Him, who is the only proper object. He must be glorified by the true minister; He must be praised and exalted, and not the instrument. Self-praise and self-commendation do not mean approval from the Lord, but the opposite. “For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.” Self-commendation, the love of human praise in some form, disguised or undisguised, are prominent characteristics with many who preach and teach a great deal of truth in our days of boasting. Happy is the servant who hides himself, whose aim is to please the Lord and who looks to Him for approval.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Paul’s Apostolic Authority.
Paul’s Apostolic Authority.
Paul does not care to use his authority with severity:
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v. 1. Now I, Paul, myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but, being absent, am bold toward you;
v. 2. but I beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.
v. 3. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh,
v. 4. (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds,)
v. 5. casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ,
v. 6. and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
While Titus had brought encouraging news from Corinth with regard to the case of church discipline and the continued willingness of the Corinthian Christians to take part in the collection for the poor at Jerusalem, his report was less favorable in so far as it represented the Judaizing teachers, the opponents of Paul, still dangerously active. We find, therefore, that the tone of the apostle’s discourse is decidedly altered in this last section of his letter. While his devotion to the Corinthian congregation is still apparent, he finds himself compelled to resort to stern commands, not unmixed with irony and sarcasm. While he still shows the tendency to deal tenderly with the members of the congregation, he is determined to use all severity against those that attacked his authority.
It is an urgent appeal which Paul addresses to the Corinthians: I myself, Paul, entreat you, by the humility and gentleness of Christ. He places his person in the foreground, and deliberately so; he makes the authority which he has received the issue for which he is contending. Therefore he drops the plural number, in which he commonly included also his fellow-workers, and places himself, singly, in opposition to these false teachers. He still entreats or beseeches, though he might well have commanded. And he does so by the meekness, or humility, and by the gentleness, or lenity, of Christ. The spirit of Christ, which was always benign and gentle, slow to anger and eager to forgive, lived in the apostle and actuated him in this trying situation. With some tinge of sarcasm he includes the saying which the opponents had spread concerning him: Who, indeed, before your face am humble among you, but, being absent, am daring toward you. That was the sneering speech to which the Corinthians had given ear, since his personal enemies had construed the weakness with which he came to Corinth as cowardice, as a lack of confidence and courage, v. 10.
So Paul repeats his appeal: But I beg you, lest I, being present, show daring courage with the confidence with which I am minded to be bold against some that think of us as though we walked according to the flesh. By using the word "beg" or "pray" the apostle here indicates his growing earnestness; he pleads with them to consider well their course of thinking and acting. For if they continue to listen to the detractors of his good name, nothing will be left for him to do but to show courage and severity in dealing with the situation, on the basis of that confidence which seems required under the circumstances. He will find himself compelled to be resolute, to step forth boldly against certain men in their midst. These men he characterizes as calumniators, since they intimated, in giving their opinion of Paul and the other true teachers, that Paul’s behavior and course of conduct was not governed solely by spiritual considerations, but that weakness, fear of men, the desire to remain in the good graces of all men, and other carnal motives were the ruling factors.
Paul’s answer to these insinuations is brief, but emphatic: For though walking in the flesh, yet we do not wage war according to the flesh. Paul was indeed living here on earth, in the body of this weak flesh, with all the sinful infirmities with which this instrument is obliged to battle always. But his conduct as apostle is not according to the dictates of a weak and sinful nature. And, what is more, although he does indeed engage in a warfare, his whole ministry in its numerous conflicts with the various hostile powers being a battle against evil, yet he is not governed by fleshly considerations, as his enemies intimate, being themselves animated by them. The situation rather is this: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful through God for the destroying of fortifications. This is added by way of parenthesis, to explain the fact of waging war. In the spiritual warfare which must be carried on by the Church of Christ and by every believer, not only actual physical, political power is excluded, but incidentally every weapon which trusts in mere human ability, intellect, and power, and is actuated by any carnal motive, the love of honor, of riches, of influence, and others. Such weapons the Church of Christ and the individual preacher will never make use of; they do not belong to the armor of the soldiers of Christ. Our instruments of warfare are rather such as receive their extraordinary power from God, through His almighty strength, Eph 6:11-18. With these weapons, among which the Word of God stands first, as our armor, all the fortifications and strongholds of the adversaries, especially those that are intended to obstruct the progress of God’s cause and the work of salvation, are overthrown and utterly destroyed, such as heathen idolatry, Pharisaic self-righteousness and hypocrisy, Greek pride of wisdom, Rome’s many heresies, and the host of modern enemies of Bible-truth.
The apostle now continues the thought of v. 3: Casting down reasonings and every lofty wall erected against the knowledge of God, and leading captive every thought into the obedience of Christ. The reasonings of human wisdom are the very centers of the enemy’s force, because they are unalterably opposed to the revealed Word of God. The Gospel is not a summary of doctrines which can be reasoned out: although not an irrational system, it is above and beyond the capacity of human reason. Therefore all reasonable philosophies must be discarded if the Word of the Gospel is to find entrance into the heart. Thus, also, every high place, every human speculation, that is erected against the knowledge of God, as revealed in Scriptures, must be broken down and removed. Of the enemy’s wall one stone after the other must be pulled down, no matter how hard he strives to maintain his ground. The military figure of destroying prominent fortresses or strongholds, of razing the walls of hostile cities, is continued also in the words: And leading captive, subjecting, every thought into the obedience of Christ. Instead of permitting reason to usurp authority and to master the Word of God, the intellect, the reason of man must, in all things, be guided by the revealed truth of the Lord. It is only when human reason, through the power of the Spirit in the Word, is made subject to the obedience of Christ and defers in everything to revealed truth, that it in reality can apply its powers, chiefly in the service of Christ, direct or indirect. Reason, enlightened by the knowledge of God, does not attempt to penetrate into the secrets of God’s essence, finding its delight rather in unfolding the beauties and powers of the Gospel and of the revelation of God in all its particulars.
This demand, that all should be subject to the apostolic preaching, the apostle followed to that point that he held himself in readiness to avenge all disobedience when the obedience of the Corinthians would have been fulfilled. Not all the members of the Corinthian congregation were obedient to the Gospel as Paul wanted them to be; for the power of the Gospel is not that of an irresistible compulsion. But if there were such as persisted in their disobedience, Paul here declared himself ready to use the extreme measure of avenging the disobedience by excommunication. He expects the whole congregation to complete their obedience to Christ, to be firmly and finally established in their loyalty to the Lord. Should any be found still resisting when he came, their punishment would certainly follow in the way which the Church has ever employed in dealing with such as refused obedience to the Gospel by faith.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul shifts the subject from giving to affirming his authority to teach as he does.
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by the humility and gentleness of Christ
The word "humility" and "gentleness" are abstract nouns, and can be expressed in another way. AT: "I am humble and gentle as I do so, because Christ has made me that way" (See: Abstract Nouns)
who assume that
"who think that"
we are living according to the flesh
The word "flesh" is a metonym for sinful human nature. "we are acting from human motives" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Paul
humble
Christ
meek
bold
confidence
flesh
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 10:1–13:13 In this section, Paul defends his ministry as…
10:1–13:13 In this section, Paul defends his ministry as an apostle. • These chapters pose several problems arising from a distinct change of tone and style. Chapters 1–9 are full of joy stemming from the reconciliation of sinners with God and of the Corinthians with Paul. Yet from this point on, Paul is on the defensive. These chapters are full of harsh words, bitter recriminations, passionate irony, and rebuke. The remarkable break at 10:1 has inspired a number of explanations: (1) These chapters might be a separate letter, perhaps the “severe letter” sent earlier to Corinth (2:3-4; 7:8-9). (2) It might be that, while the majority of the church members were obedient to the appeal for reconciliation, there was still a rebellious minority to whom Paul addressed these four chapters. (3) More likely, a new situation had arisen since Titus first brought back his glowing report of restored harmony (7:5-16). In this scenario, some anti-Paul missionaries had arrived in Corinth and launched a virulent campaign against the apostolic message of good news (see 11:4, 13-15). They claimed that Paul was no real apostle or even a true Christian (10:7) and that he had no right to come to Corinth with the gospel message since it was territory that belonged to them (10:15-16). They brought an alien message (11:4) and exercised a domineering spirit. In short, they were doing Satan’s work (11:13-15). Paul, concerned upon hearing of this new situation, reasserts his apostolic authority and engages in a form of writing that is distasteful to him (11:1, 16-17; 12:1) by boasting of his weaknesses and trials. Paul’s apostolic authority is real and powerful, yet it is conditioned and controlled by the love exhibited by the crucified Jesus (10:1; 13:4-10).
10:1-6 Paul states his own clear intentions and sincerity by defending himself against the suspicion that he is acting from human motives.
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10:1 you think I am timid in person: See 10:10. Paul could write bold letters at a distance, but they mistook his personal gentleness and kindness as weakness. However, they forgot that he had the authority of Christ (12:19; 13:3-5, 7, 10; 1 Cor 4:21).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.