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2nd Corinthians 11.1-
February 17th 2019
Meat
So, this chapter is connected (generally) to the former except Paul gets a little less obscure and brings to the table some really interesting ideas that we ought to consider.
The object of chapter 10 and now 11, and then even 12, is for Paul to vindicate himself from the charges which had been brought against him in terms of his taking the Apostolic office.
So, let’s read starting at verse 1-4 where Paul continues on where he left of last week, but then quickly blossoms out in some unique directions.
After we cover 1-4 we’ll pick up another section and read and then cover it. Verse 1:
2nd Corinthians 11:1 Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.
2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
1 Would to God (says the KJV, better put for us might be, I really wish) ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.
The idea seems to be, “I know that boasting is generally foolish, and that it is not to be indulged in; and yet as boasting is an act of folly, these circumstances compel me to it, so I earnestly ask you to let me indulgence in it for a minute.”
There is a possibility that his accusers were critical of him and what can appear to be boasting at times.
It is possible also that his opponents accused him of folly in boasting so much of himself. So perhaps as a preemptive strike against more criticism he admits that what he is about to do is boasting – and for a purpose. He adds:
2. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
It seems that he begins to express his boastful nature or to even justify it by admitting his love for them.
I get this. When a person is overly consumed with the merits of others (their employees, their children or family, and in this case, the church at Corinth) there can be a tendency to boast.
It is possible that this is what he means because he directly ties the Folly of Boasting (in verse 1) to the love that he has for them – a love so strong that he says that he has godly jealousy over them.
The term translated jealousy (Dzlay-oh-oh) can mean that but it can also mean a disposition of warm love.
The word may denote the jealousy which is felt by an apprehension of departure from fidelity on the part of those whom we love; or it may denote a fervid and glowing attachment. The meaning here probably is, that Paul had a strong attachment to them.
In either sense – his love or jealousy over them – was predicated on the fear that they were going to be seduced from “the simplicity of the gospel.”
But Paul doesn’t just describe it as “jealousy or love” but godly jealousy or love, which means truly zealous affection.
Interestingly enough, and in contrast to what many people today believe, jealousy is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, God is called a jealous God in scripture.
Jealousy, as we discussed before, is an intense emotion toward something or someone that belongs to us.
We are jealous that our spouse is seeking the attentions of another.
Envy is when we have similar resentment but for something we do not possess but is in the possession of another.
God is a jealous God as He is the only God with which we should have to do. When other gods (or gospels or idols) step in and take or threaten to take us away, he is said to be righteously jealous.
This is what Paul is saying here. He feels this zealous Godly jealousy for the believers at Corinth and does not want to see them stolen away.
He gives his reason, saying:
For I have for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
The word here translated espouse best means to adapt, or to fit or join together. Therefore to join in wedlock or marry is entirely appropriate.
What Paul is saying is he joined the church at Corinth to Christ. Essentially he is saying that he was instrumental in uniting them to the Lord and Savior and having done that he felt a keen desire to ensure that the marriage lasted.
I get this. I have performed some marriages in my day and when I hear that the people I have married are getting divorced I can’t help but feel somehow responsible for trying to keep them together.
I feel this way toward anyone who is married and seeking divorce – especially when children are involved – but when I performed the ceremony there is a little bit deeper of a connection to the couple involved.
This example Paul uses is not out of the ordinary as the people of God in the Old Covenant were always seen as His bride and the church of the New Testament is often represented by marriage to as Ephesians 5:23 reads:
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”
One of the reasons that I believe that that church was Jesus bride and not us is because Revelation, which is a study of the end of that former age, is another book that describes them/then as the Bride of Christ.
So with this imagery in place, Paul writes that he has
espoused that church to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Others were attempting to court her, steal her away from His loving care, and as the one who joined them together Paul was finding himself jealous.
His job as an apostle was to keep the church-bride clean, pure safe, and undefiled.
This was the goal as the bride of Christ was not to be a whore. She was to be committed fully to her husband and the apostles job was to do all they could to ensure this – hence all of their warning, chidings, and exhortations beginning in Acts and pulsing all the way through almost every chapter in the New Testament.
According to New Testament scholar Doddridge, there was (and perhaps maybe still is) a custom among the Greeks “of having an officer whose business it was to educate and form young women, especially those of rank and figure, in preparation of marriage. Once they were ready they would present them to those who were to be their husbands and if this officer (by way of some negligence) permitted them to be corrupted between the espousals and the consummation of the marriage, great blame would fall upon him.”
Perhaps this was the responsibility Paul felt. And he adds (at verse 3)
3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Being that the Church was the bride and not the groom, then the comparison of her vulnerability was to Eve and not Adam.
Satan was alive and well in this age, in fact Revelation tells us that he knew his time was short and he was roaming about like a roaring lion seeking whomever he could devour.
To the bride, Paul says he was fearful that through any means, through some means or some sort, that just as the serpent beguiled Eve through subtilty, so their minds would be corrupted FROM the simplicity that was in Christ.
We will return to this concept of the simplicity that was in Christ in a minute, but let’s first address the fears Paul had.
The grounds of his fear were
(first) that Satan had seduced the first woman, thus demonstrating that the most holy and innocent, even those without sin and of the more innocent genders (typically) were in danger of being led astray by temptation; and
(second) that special efforts were being made by those in Satan’s service to seduce them from the faith.
All of the persuasive arts of the false teachers, the power of philosophy, and the attractive and corrupting influences of the world of Corinthian temple worship – all of this gave Paul reason to suppose that his little church could be seduce away from simple attachment to Christ.
In Milk we have started in on our study of Galatians and we find that they have been seduced away – by elements of the Law – and have, in fact, left their first love.
In terms of application I cannot suggest more strongly the reality of this very thing in our day and age -even though I am convinced that Satan has long left the building.
Far more powerful and in effect is simple darkness, which is the absence of light, the very thing that drew Satan away in the first place.
This absence of God or distance from God, made bigger and wider by the things that are not of Him –
All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life –
Are the foundations of all the things that serve to kill the light, and entertain, the dark.
James put it this way:
Jas 1:13 ¶ Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
I have seen dozens of men and women step from the Light, having one received it, and having been beguiled as easily as Eve, turn to the dark and never return.
I love them. I care for them. But the reality is it is a reality. I am certain that God has done all things for them through Christ, and the heavens will receive them, but that is another story.
Paul here knows that whomever is not part of the Bride-Church will not be saved from the coming destruction, and will not be part of the Bride Jesus promised to return and get.
So, his fears are justifiable. And the thing he fears is that
“as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
The word serpent here refers doubtless to Satan, who was the agent by whom Eve was beguiled.
I suggest that the means by which Satan worked is the same means we work on ourselves.
We have propensities, weaknesses, affinities and desires and we decide if we want to feed them with the dark or offset them with light.
Our own lust, as James said. Pauls’ point to them/then was that it was through subtilty that he took her and apparently this would be the same way they would fall.
And where we really don’t know how Satan used subtilty to get Eve to fall, the point is subtilty is what Paul says would get them to leave
The simplicity that is Christ.
One of the first things Satan promised Eve was the idea that she would not surely die (as God has said they would by eating the fruit of the Tree) and perhaps this was a direct temptation to the believers are Corinth:
You’re not gonna die if you to this or that, right?
It’s the simple twists on “simply Christ” that bring about abandoning the purity of the Gospel. A little flourish here, an extra insight there, something to add to Him and His work, something to take away, are the subtilties Paul mentions.
The Greek word implies shrewdness, cunning, and applied craft. We can justify and entertain almost any sort of thing if we are willing to manipulate the truth and then call it good.
In Paul’s example, we know that Eve was drawn away by what she saw and how it could benefit her in taste and in making her wise.
I’m sure that the very same principles were at play on the minds and hearts of the believers at Corinth, hence the comparison.
Whatever was drawing them toward an apparent corruption, Paul tells us that the corruption was going to result in them turning from the
“simplicity that is in Christ.”
How do we define the simplicity that is Christ?
One of the commentators I read listed 19 things, sort of defeating the point, right?
In Galatians, a false Gospel had been embraced by them. Perhaps it is simply taking the Good News and adding to it, or taking away.
That sounds reasonable to me.
Paul wrote in Colossians 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”
To me this suggests that in opposition to Christ and His simplicity stands
Philosophy
Vain Deceits
Traditions of Men
Which follow after the rudiments of the world, instead of after Him.
He adds later in Colossians 2:18 “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,”
So again, beware of
Voluntary humility
Worshipping of Angels
Visions of things not seen
Vain puffed up matters from fleshly minds
All of such things are far, far removed from the simple message that God so loved the world he gave us His Son that whosoever believes on Him has everlasting life.
Paul adds (verse 4)
4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
This is a difficult passage because of the last clause:
“Ye might bear with him.”
The first 85% of it make great sense but we have to try and figure out Paul’s intentions overall.
And there are disputes endless over how to see this. First of all, we must try to see if Paul is speaking seriously or sarcastically as this will determine meaning.
If he is serious, the sense will be,
“If someone comes forward and preaches a “superior” Jesus, Spirit, Gospel, receive him.”
In a sarcastic sense, he might be saying:
“I have come to you and shared Jesus and the Spirit and the Gospel but a false teacher comes and teaches a different Jesus Spirit and Gospel and you “will bear with him.”
But there is another possibility here.
The last word of the verse historically has been translated to “him” and sometimes “it” in the more modern translations. But the word can be translated to me.
If this is the case, then the passage would read:
“If you receive so readily one who preaches another gospel, one who comes with far less evidence that he is sent from God than I have, and if you show yourselves thus ready to fall in with any kind of teaching that may be brought to you, you might at least bear with me also.”
Amidst all of these choices it is no simple task understanding what this verse means.
So, let’s remember that Paul has been worried that they were going to be beguiled from the simplicity that is Christ.
I’m gonna go with the idea that he is being sarcastic. In other words he is saying,
I have brought you the simplicity of the Gospel, the truth of the Spirit, the best version of Jesus possible. I have given you the true with a capital T and if anyone comes along . . .
“preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.”
Of course, this would not be possible, and that is the point.
Paul uses similar words to the church at Galatia – but there says that if anyone comes and preaches another gospel let them be accursed.
This is a different take on the whole matter of OTHER Saviors, OTHER spirits and OTHER Gospels.
Interestingly enough, many people believe that they could author a better plan, a better spirit behind the plan, and a better savior.
Of course they are lacking insight of all factors beginning to end, and elements of goodness, justice, freedom and the like, and so when I meet such it makes me laugh a little as I trust the wisdom of God.
Alright, at verse 5, Paul returns to defending himself as an apostle. And says (lets read starting at verse 5)
5 For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.
6 But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things.
7 Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?
8 I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.
9 And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.
10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
11 Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth.
So, moving back to verse 5
For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.
In the miracles which I performed; in the abundance of my labors, and in my success, I suppose that I did not fall behind any of them.
6 But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things.
Interestingly enough, the word translated “rude” here best means a private citizen, in opposition to one in a public station; then a plebeian, or one unlettered or unlearned, in opposition to one of more elevated rank, or one who is learned.
This makes sense among that culture of Greek orators. Paul says, I may be of private citizen speech, he says, “but not in knowledge.”
He refuses false humility and will not admit that he was ignorant of the faith which I professed to teach.
Of course, it does not seem that Paul is ever criticized for failing in knowledge. Instead they pick on his delivery, and personal appearance.
But Paul reminds them clearly that while he may not stand above them with the physique of Zeus and tongue of Pericles, he was sound in knowledge and adds that “but we have been thoroughly made manifest among you.”
You have known all about me. I have concealed nothing from you, and you have had ample opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with me. Verse 7:
7 Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?
Have I done wrong, or better in the Greek, “Have I committed a sin.”
There is here a somewhat abrupt transition from the previous verse here and a direct connection is not very apparent.
Perhaps he is saying:
“I admit my inferiority with regard to my manner of speaking. But this does not interfere with my full understanding of the doctrines which I preach, nor does it interfere with the numerous evidences which I have furnished that I am called to the office of an apostle. Where then is the ground of offence? In what area have I erred or sinned? Where have I shown you that I was not qualified to be an apostle?
7 Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?
When he speaks of abasing myself that they might be exalted, it seems to me he is talking about laboring with his own hands as a means to preach to them the gospel freely.
Got that, because it leads us to understanding verse 8 better where he now says to them:
8 I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.
Now . . . in our day and age there is a difference between the words stole, thieved and robbed.
Stole and thieved means to take without confrontation typically but ROBBED means to stick em up in the literal sense of the words.
We cannot believe that Paul is saying that he actually robbed other churches.
(And this is a GREAT KJ Only biblical literalist passage, by the way).
The point Paul is making begins at verse 7.
He begins by asking “Have I committed an offence in abasing myself (through working with my hands) that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?
And then he admits
“I robbed other churches for you!”
What this means is that the churches of Macedonia and elsewhere had probably ministered to his wants financially. It seems he most likely means the church at Philippi as we read Paul say in Philippians 4:15-16:
“Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity.”
So, perhaps the church at Philippi and/or others seem to have done more than almost any other church toward his support.
By the use of the word “robbed” here, Paul does not mean that he had obtained anything from them in a violent or illegal
Way or that they were forced to give.
The idea of Paul seems to be that he, as it were, robbed them, because he did not render an equivalent service to them for what they gave him. Instead, their donations were supporting the believers at Corinth who had taken more than they had ever given.
Which is why he says:
8 I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.
So, in the worst sense, Paul could be admitting that he plundered the welfare given him of the other churches as a means to serve the believers at Corinth.
(Verse 9 adds even more clarity to the passage as he says)
9 And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: (and when I was present with you all in Corinth I took from no man) for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.
In other word, relative to the Church at Corinth, Paul says: “In all respects I have carefully kept myself from being a burden on the church.”
At verse 10 Paul returns to the topic of boasting, which he was all over in chapter 10, and after saying all this to them about support, adds
10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
What boasting?
As the truth of Christ is in him, he says,
no body would stop him of THIS boasting in the regions of Achaia (of which Corinth was the capital).
The idea seems to be that Paul was solemnly determined that the same thing should continue. He had not been burdensome to most and he was resolved that he would not be.
Rather than be burdensome he had labored with his own hands, and he meant to do it still, and no man in all of Achaia would ever have areason to say otherwise.
11 Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth.
In other words he is asking:
Is all this because I do not love you? God knows, meaning God knows my heart.
We will stop there for today.
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