BIG IDEA:
(BASIS FOR HIS BOASTING IN HIS AUTHORITY = THE MARKS OF HIS APOSTLESHIP)
HUMILITY IN MINISTRY (DEMONSTRATED HERE BY PREACHING THE TRUTH WITHOUT CHARGE) DIFFERENTIATES THE TRUE FROM THE FALSE APOSTLE
INTRODUCTION:
John MacArthur: Beginning in chapter 11, Paul confronted the false apostles. Reluctantly, he compared himself to them so the Corinthians could distinguish a true messenger of God from false ones. As he began to confront the false apostles, Paul revealed that his motive for doing so was to call the Corinthians back to loyalty. He began by expressing his wish that they would bear with him in his defense of himself, which the apostle referred to as a little foolishness. He was about to answer fools as their folly deserved (Prov. 26:5). In reality, he would have preferred not to write this section, but the Corinthians’ folly left him no choice. The apostle softened his blow by acknowledging that they were indeed … bearing with him, an affirmation of their positive response to his prior correction of them (2 Cor. 2:1–4; 7:6–11; 1 Corinthians). Paul asked for the same favorable response as he defended himself against the false teachers’ attacks and the Corinthians’ own foolish disloyalty. . .
Sadly, lack of discernment had created havoc in the Corinthian church. False teachers were seeking to seduce the Corinthians and lead them “astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3). As a vigilant shepherd, Paul warned his flock of the danger they posed; in fact, this entire epistle is an antidote to their poisonous lies. In chapters 10–13 in particular, Paul directly confronted the false teachers.
This passage presents in stark terms the contrast between Paul, who lovingly, humbly proclaimed the truth, and the false teachers, who deceptively abused the Corinthians. The specific point at issue was money, always a prime motivation for false teachers (Rom. 16:18; 1 Tim. 6:5; Titus 1:11; 2 Peter 2:3, 14; Jude 11; cf. 1 Tim. 3:3; Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 5:3). The greedy false apostles took money from the Corinthians; Paul did not.
As he approached the distasteful task of making the comparison between himself and the false apostles, Paul listed three marks of a true apostle (humility, truth, and love) and three corresponding marks of a false apostle (pride, deception, and abuse). The same criteria may be used today to distinguish true men of God from false teachers.
George Shillington:
- Paul opens the speech with an image of himself as a father protecting his betrothed virgin-daughter community until her eschatological marriage.
- He fights against the cunning seduction of satanic deceivers appearing as super-apostles (11:1-5).
- Out of love, he has declined taking money from the Corinthians, unlike the so-called ministers of righteousness (11:7-15).
Raymond Collins: Chiastic Structure
A The Serpent and the Superapostles (vv. 1–4)
B Response to an Accusation (vv. 5–6)
B′ Response to an Accusation (vv. 7–12)
A′ Satan and the False Apostles (vv. 13–15)
Eric Mason: Main Idea: Do not be deceived by Satan or anything that would lead you away from Jesus.
- God’s People Reject Anything That Devours Their Commitment to Jesus (11:1-6).
- Godly Leaders Are Willing to Make Significant Sacrifices to Promote the Gospel (11:7-9).
- Satan Always Makes Deception Look, Feel, and Seem Convincing (11:10-15).
I. (:1-4) REALITY CHECK –
DISCERNMENT SHOULD ANCHOR BELIEVERS IN THEIR DEVOTION TO CHRIST
A. (:1-2) Paul’s Appeal Springs From Godly Jealousy Not Personal Pride
- (:1) He Deserves a Fair Hearing
“I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness;
but indeed you are bearing with me.”
Robert Hughes: What makes something foolish is not the truth or falsity of the boast but the self-serving attitude motivating it. Paul clarified that even his foolishness was an act (for example, 11:16-18) and exposed the behind-the-scenes truth (12:19). He desired edification, not self-exaltation. But, for the present, he asked their indulgence and was confident that he would have it.
R. Kent Hughes: However, now (unthinkably to Paul) he realizes that he must engage in the boasting he so abominates. The reason that Paul must indulge in boasting is that his opponents’ boasting has made such deep inroads in the Corinthian church that their deadly teaching has gained a hearing. Thus Paul will be compelled to boast “as a fool” — “like a madman” as he will describe it (11: 21-23). But first he must prepare his readers for his stooping to such distasteful foolishness. So in verses 1-15 Paul lays out the justification for his participation in boasting. Paul’s reticence is obvious in his opening request: “I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me!” (v. 1). “Bear with me as I play the fool so I can expose the foolishness of my opponents.”
- (:2) His Passion is for Their Faithfulness to Christ
“For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to
one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.”
Robert Gromacki: A person should be jealous when he sees a loved one being turned away from obedient faith by false attractions.
Eric Mason: Jealousy in the Bible is God saying, “The glory and devotion that are rightly mine should be given to me and not anyone else.” That means God has the right to continue to challenge you when you put your family above him. He has the right to challenge you when you work so hard that you don’t have the energy to spend time with him. God has the right to reprimand you about anything that obstructs the depth of intimacy he has called you to because what’s rightfully his is being given to someone or something else.
That’s why Paul says, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy” (v. 2). He offers a cultural and spiritual analogy: “Because I have promised you in marriage to one husband—to present a pure virgin to Christ” (v. 2). He’s using rabbinic history, the way the Hebrew culture did marriage. You couldn’t just walk up on a little honey that you liked. Fathers were big in their daughters’ lives. A father would always have to know where his daughter was. He oversaw her sexuality and fought for her to remain a virgin because her lack of virginity could bring shame to the family. He could get less money through the betrothal, which points to her worth.
Frank Matera: The imagery that Paul employs here presupposes three stages in the life of the Corinthian community.
- The first was the betrothal of the community to Christ when Paul established the church at Corinth.
- The second is the period of betrothal or engagement in which the church now finds itself as it awaits the parousia.
- The third will occur at the parousia when Paul will finally “present” the church “as a chaste virgin to Christ.”
To summarize, Paul asks the Corinthians to bear with him because he has a unique relationship to their community that the intruding apostles cannot claim. By founding the church, he betrothed it to Christ and now guards it with a “jealousy” akin to God’s “jealousy” for his covenant people, so that he may present the church “as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Because Paul must protect his “virgin” for Christ, he will engage in foolish and dangerous boasting.
B. (:3) Paul’s Concern is that the Corinthians Have Proven Susceptible to Deception
“But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness,
your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”
Ray Stedman: You can lose it in the pressures of daily living. You can get so busy and so worried and so anxious about yourself and the things that are happening to you that you lose the sense that Christ is with you and he is adequate. This is the beautiful, “simplicity that is in Jesus.” Here in Corinth they were assaulted with these teachers who were exposing them to things that caught their attention, but they were drifting from that central point. They were involved with fascinating philosophies based on the Word of God, but which went off on side tracks and rabbit paths of thought. They were being challenged with certain ego-appealing experiences which if they could just grasp would make them feel so great, so wonderful, so God-possessed — just like people today who are invited to explore strange and wonderful mysteries all involved with Christian faith — but which tend to move them away from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Eric Mason: Paul doesn’t want us to be led astray from sincerity. Some translate it “simplicity.” Now simplicity doesn’t mean simplistic. Rather, it means having things uncluttered, so that you can clearly see and experience Jesus Christ. In your walk with Christ, there must be a level of sincerity and commitment, purity and devotion to him. So we don’t follow the advances of the enemy; we submit to the glory of the one who saved us by his mercy and grace and gave us the strength to follow him.
John MacArthur: Ever since Satan deceived Eve, false teachers, following his pattern, have portrayed the truth as error and then offered error as the truth.
Paul feared that Satan’s emissaries, using the same craftiness (cf. 2 Cor. 11:13–15) by which their evil master deceived Eve, would lead the Corinthians’ minds (the Greek word could also be translated “thoughts”) astray, thus corrupting or ruining them (the Greek term also has those connotations). Lack of discernment is a major problem for the church (cf. Eph. 4:14), because the spiritual battle is an ideological one. The church’s willingness to tolerate error in the name of unity, coupled with a lack of biblical and doctrinal knowledge, has crippled its ability to discern. As a result, it is too often easy prey for the ravenous, savage wolves of whom both Jesus and Paul warned (Matt. 7:15; Acts 20:29), who wound it and sap its power and testimony.
The essence of the Christian life is simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. To the Philippians Paul wrote, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21; cf. Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:4). To not love Him supremely as Savior and Lord is an act of disloyalty. The danger false teachers pose is that they shift the focus off Jesus Christ and onto rituals, ceremonies, good works, miracles, emotional experiences, psychology, entertainment, political and social causes, and anything else that will distract people.
Loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ is nonnegotiable in the Christian life—so much so that Scripture declares, “If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed” (1 Cor. 16:22).
C. (:4) Paul’s Sarcasm Highlights Their Lack of Discernment –
3 Christian Fundamentals:
“For if one comes and . . . you bear this beautifully”
- Truth about Jesus –
“preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached”
Allon – another of the same kind – Why does he use this word here?
David Garland: “Another Jesus” refers to a different interpretation of Jesus that is not congruent with the facts of Jesus’s life and death. Paul’s emphasis in 13:4, that Christ was “crucified in weakness,” suggests that the rivals presented a Jesus who was not “weak, suffering or humiliated.” They may talk about Christ, but Christ crucified is not the heart of their gospel, nor does it influence the way they live. In contrast to his attack on the Judaizers who infiltrated the Galatians, Paul does not single out any some false doctrinal assertions in condemning these Corinthian rivals. We may infer from this fact that it is primarily their haughty manner and actions that expose their faulty theological doctrine. They are self-seeking, not self-denying.
- Truth about the Holy Spirit –
“or you receive a different Spirit which you have not received”
Heteron — Another of a different kind
- Truth about the Gospel –
“or a different gospel which you have not accepted”
Heteron – Another of a different kind
Paul Barnett: It is clear from this passage that the pure gospel alone joins us to, and keeps us in a right relationship with, Christ. A sincere devotion to Christ is possible only where the true and authentic gospel of Christ is taught and heard (3). Christians need to think about what they are being taught rather than being impressed by who is teaching them, however winsome he or she may be. . .
In these verses (:2-5) Paul gives three reasons why the Corinthians should ‘put up with him’, each introduced in the Greek by ‘for’, which the niv translates only once.
- First, as apostle and evangelist he feels divine jealousy for the Corinthians at this time of spiritual danger for them (2–3).
- Second, the Corinthians are vulnerable to falling away from Christ through their interest in an untrue gospel (4).
- Third, Paul states that he is in no way inferior to these ‘super-apostles’ (5).
David Garland: What are the criteria for identifying that someone is preaching a false Jesus, Spirit, and gospel as opposed to the genuine Jesus, Spirit, and gospel? For the Corinthians, the “other Jesus” is one Paul did not preach. The Jesus Paul preached is Jesus Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23) and Jesus Christ as Lord (4:5). Jesus as Lord requires humble submission to the one who makes absolute moral demands on our lives. Any gospel that has no moral core, inspires boasting, and soft-pedals self-sacrifice is no gospel. The problem, however, does not only lie with the false preachers. The hearers are also responsible, and they are culpable when they do “not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear” (2 Tim 4:3).
Scott Hafemann: It is therefore important to keep the three issues of 11:4 together. The proper understanding of the mission of Jesus, the proper understanding of the role of the Spirit (not simply a human “spirit,” contra the NIV13), and the proper understanding of the relationship between the gospel of the new covenant and the role of the old are inextricably linked together. The central question is what Jesus accomplished in his ministry, how one receives and grows in the Spirit as a result, and what the conditions are for belonging fully to the people of God. In short, the issue is “what constitutes a proper manifestation of the Spirit in the ministry of the gospel. A mistaken emphasis on the miraculous by these so-called super-apostles (11:5) resulted in a construal of the Spirit as a wonder-worker rather than a guarantor of the kerygma.”
II. (:5-12) COUNTERFEIT TEST –
HUMILITY IN MINISTRY (DEMONSTRATED HERE BY PREACHING THE TRUTH WITHOUT CHARGE) CANNOT BE COUNTERFEITED
A. (:5-6) Make Substance the Benchmark – Not Style
- (:5) No Inferiority Complex … No False Humility
“For I consider myself not in the least inferior
to the most eminent apostles.”
R. Kent Hughes: His opponents called themselves “apostles,” but Paul contemptuously called them “super-apostles” because they arrogated themselves over him, the Apostle to the Gentiles.
David Garland: The battle lines are drawn between Paul, the weak but true apostle authorized by God, and the super but false apostles working under Satan. The difference between Paul and the rivals is that Paul admits that what he is doing foolish. They do not, which makes their boasting an easier target to chip away at through irony. He does not boast only about his glorious heritage and accomplishments, as they had, but also recounts a string of demeaning experiences and boldly contends that he is a better servant of Christ because of them (11:23). He is “a better” servant of Christ because “his suffering and weakness is the vehicle for the mediation and embodiment of the gospel and the character of the crucified Jesus despite its negative connotations.” He is governed by “a contrary set of values grounded in the story of Jesus and renounces those that are equated with status and power in Corinth.” . . .
In 11:2–6 he gives three reasons for this proposed foolishness and why they should at least humor him.
(1) His zeal for the church whom he betrothed to Christ compels him to try to protect them from being seduced and defiled by the double agents of Satan (11:2–3).
(2) The community’s readiness to put up with a false gospel from almost anyone who shows up should dispose them to listen again to him, fool that he is (11:4; see 11:19, they “gladly put up with fools”).
(3) He is convinced that he is not in the least inferior to his opponents who so enchant them with their glitzier oral performances (11:5–6).
- (:6) Excelling in Knowledge (and Christian graces) vs. Oratory
“But even if I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not so in knowledge;
in fact in every way we have made this evident to you in all things.”
David Garland: Paul is therefore more interested in proclaiming the power of the cross that will summon faith than in turning a sparkling phrase that will rouse applause. He is not out to amuse or to induce faith with clever arguments but to proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ that confronts his listeners with a life-and-death decision. He may grant their negative judgment about his eloquence, but their evaluation is based on presuppositions he did not share. The reason he is not expert in rhetorical adornment is that such expertise inhibits rather than releases the power of the cross. He does not want to be the equal of his rival braggarts in speech. Their preaching is deceptive (11:3) and robs the cross of its power by making their brilliant eloquence the center of attention rather than what God has done in Christ. Paul “believes that unadorned speech is more appropriate for conveying the ‘folly’ of the cross, in the very weakness of which God’s power is disclosed.”
Robert Hughes: Was Paul really “unskilled in speech” (11:6)? He may simply have been granting it for the sake of argument, to get on the important issue of his superiority in knowledge. Paul hit at the root of the Corinthians’ gullibility: inability to see the crucial difference between medium and message, content and manner. The deceivers spoke with flair and literacy and captivated the hearers. Paul, ever the bearer of glory in an earthen vessel, reminded them that knowledge is much more important than form, content than cover. “In fact, in every way we have made this evident to you in all things” (11:6). The words were emphatic: “in fact,” “in every way,” “in all things.” Did the Corinthians want rhetoric or redemptive truth? Obviously, they did not know for certain, because they were dazzled by the bravura of the false apostles.
Richard Pratt: The Corinthians should not have doubted Paul’s insight into truth. He had made this perfectly clear… in every way. He had taught the Corinthians, written to them about complex theological issues, and led them into the mysteries of God. His great knowledge in the Christian faith that he had demonstrated time and again made up for his less impressive qualities.
B. (:7-9) Appreciate the Extent of His Humility in Ministry
- (:7) Thesis expressed with Sarcasm
“Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted,
because I preached the gospel of God to you without charge?”
Scott Hafemann: His point is that his willing practice of self-support (i.e., his lowering himself), which his opponents consider a “sin,” is in reality the very means God has used to manifest himself to the Corinthians. Paul’s lowering himself has led to his elevating the Corinthians because of his love for them (11:7, 11; cf. 1 Cor. 4:8–15; 9:12–23).
- (:8-9) Humility Demonstrated in Allowing Other Churches to Support Work in Corinth
“I robbed other churches, taking wages from them to serve you;
and when I was in need, I was not a burden to anyone;
for when the brethren came from Macedonia,
they fully supplied my need, and in everything I kept myself
from being a burden to you, and will continue to do so.”
Homer Kent: The figure of robbing other churches is, of course, hyperbole. It was robbery only in the sense that the churches who gave to Paul’s support were not presently receiving the benefits and hence had no direct obligation to give.
David Garland: Given the elaborate social protocol regarding how gratitude was to be expressed, if Paul accepted the Corinthians’ gifts, he could only return the favor by heaping honor and praise upon them. In the process he would become their social inferior — something he was not prepared to do as their apostle. He cannot be free to preach the gospel with boldness if he is having to run around kissing men’s hands, sending them gifts, groveling before them, and slavishly flattering them. He is a slave of Christ, not a slave of fashion or of his sponsors. He understands himself as bound to all (12:14–15) and a slave to all (4:5; see 1 Cor 9:19), not just to the wealthy movers and shakers in the church who treat their impoverished brethren with contempt (1 Cor 11:17–22). Consequently, “Paul tried to distance himself from a burdensome web of social obligations that would hinder his apostleship, smack of favoritism, and introduce among his communities volatile strife over honor and ambitious claims to authority.” Financial dependence would mean he was socially inferior and obligated to them. He would be less independent and less free to teach what needed to be taught, to admonish those who needed it, and to do what God led him to do. In a church riven by disputes, if he accepted gifts from one party, he would be socially obligated to become their advocate and would no longer be viewed as an impartial arbiter.
Eric Mason: If you have leaders that don’t ever sacrifice, or people who are never willing to make a sacrifice so that the gospel’s hearable to you, but they’re always emphasizing what you must give to them, you’re under false leadership.
C. (:10-12) Understand the Motivation for His Humility in Ministry
- (:10) Humility is Grounds for Boasting!
“As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be stopped
in the regions of Achaia.”
Paul Barnett: Paul does not give his reasons for declining to accept financial support in Corinth. One likely consideration in his mind may have been that Corinth, due to its position and wealth, was plagued with visiting money-hungry prophets and philosophers. In provincial, unsophisticated Macedonia the apostle could perhaps accept support without compromising the gospel, but not in the regions of Achaia (10).
John MacArthur: Paul was a man of impeccable integrity, completely faithful to his convictions, which were based on God’s revelation. He typifies all true men of God who demonstrate selfless humility, and whose lives reflect an unwavering devotion to the truth that they proclaim.
- (:11) Humility Motivated by Love
“Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!”
John MacArthur: That God knows their hearts is the ultimate refuge and comfort for believers when they are falsely accused (cf. 11:31; 12:2–3). Because he ministered in the sight of God (2:17; 4:2; 8:21; 12:19), Paul could appeal to Him with a clear conscience (1:12).
Richard Pratt: Anticipating a negative response from his readers, Paul raised the question he expected them to ask. Did he insist on this course of action because he did not love the Corinthians? Was he causing them this pain because he was callous toward them? Not at all. In the spirit of an oath, he swore, God knows I do! Some in the church must have questioned whether Paul’s love was genuine because he did not accept the “super-apostles” who were so important to the Corinthian believers. Paul insisted in the strongest terms that he loved the church.
- (:12) Humility = Distinguishing Mark of Genuine Apostleship
“But what I am doing, I will continue to do, that I may cut off
opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as
we are in the matter about which they are boasting.”
David Garland: Paul offers another motive for refusing their financial support. He wants to cut the ground out from under his opponents, who claim to be his equals. He has only hinted that they are boasters in 10:13, 15, and now he says so explicitly. They boast that they are just like him. The opponents have set out to gain the support of the Corinthians at the expense of Paul. They wanted the Corinthians to withdraw their affection for Paul and exclude him from any support, which was how the nasty game of politics worked in this era. “Show your support for me by joining me against my enemies or rivals.”
The rivals sought to hoist themselves up to the same apostolic status as Paul. Paul undercuts their boast by serving the church without accepting their money. If they want to attain Paul’s status, then they need to adopt his position on boasting. If they want to operate on his level of ministry, they need to abandon their self-serving ways and take the humble role of a slave (4:5). Unless they adopt his practice of preaching for nothing, they cannot class themselves with him. Barrett concludes, “The real point is that the requirement of self-sacrifice . . . marks out the true apostle from the false.” Would they be willing to give up financial support and humble themselves with work to further the gospel? Paul thinks it unlikely. Their conceited boasting and self-centered ministry style expose them as false apostles. They are not apostles living out their calling in service to others but self-absorbed careerists serving their own private ends. Neither are they the parents of this community who “will most gladly spend and be spent for” them. Only Paul is (12:14–15). They are parasites who expect the church sacrificially to spend funds on them.
Scott Hafemann: Paul’s preaching for free makes it impossible for his opponents to compare their missionary practice favorably with his own. In so doing, it removes their “ground” (11:12, aphorme, a military term referring to the base from which an attack can be launched). Indeed, that Paul willingly suffers like Christ for the sake of others calls into question the dictum of the health and wealth gospel that Christ has suffered so that his people need not do so. That is why the opponents are denigrating Paul; they realize that his practice of self-support calls their own ministry into question. His refusing support as evidence of his love for the church destroys his opponents’ ability to demand support under the pretense of claiming to be the ones who really love the Corinthians.
III. (:13-15) DECEITFUL DISGUISE –
FALSE APOSTLES MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO LOOK LIKE THE REAL THING
John MacArthur: These three verses form the heart of this section. Paul denounced the false apostles in strong, forceful language because the truth was at stake. Unlike many today, Paul was not willing to sacrifice truth for unity. Throughout this epistle, he had alluded to the false apostles, referring to them obliquely as the “many” who were guilty of “peddling the word of God” (2:17); as “some, who regard us as if we walked according to the flesh” (10:2); as “those who commend themselves” (10:12); as those who preach “another Jesus” and “a different gospel” (11:4); and, sarcastically, as “the most eminent apostles” (11:5). But now the time had come to bluntly and directly expose them.
A. (:13) Exposing the Counterfeits
“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers,
disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.”
Robert Hughes: Paul’s direct, no-holds-barred exposure of his enemies is contained in 11:13-15. They were clearly boasting about being apostles of Christ. But why did Paul not come out with this exposure at the very beginning of the letter and say, “Corinthians, why are you troubling me and aligning yourselves with ministers of Satan?” Because Paul was always equally as interested in process as in result. He knew that to attack his opponents head-on would have been premature. The Corinthians needed some preliminary truth: how to recognize boasting in appearance versus boasting in heart (chaps. 1-5), the strong exhortation to purity of affections (chaps. 6-7), and the encouragement and confidence that pervades the whole letter. But now, with such instruction behind and his third visit ahead, Paul had to make a final attempt to capture them from Satan and for Christ.
Paul then gave a threefold description of his enemies (11:13).
- “False apostles” described them; they were counterfeits.
- “Deceitful workers” defined the nature of their work. It was motivated by and resulted in deception. They had made this same accusation against Paul (4:2; 12:16).
- “Disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” fully described why they were false and deceitful. Their false front of apostleship was only their means of deceiving their listeners’ minds (11:3).
R. Kent Hughes: The deceit of the false apostles was fully volitional; they disguised themselves or masqueraded as apostles of Christ. The term normally means physical transformation (cf. Philippians 3:21) — “to transform, to change the outward appearance of a person or thing, to disguise.” . . . it was the false apostles’ deceit that was intentional and thoroughgoing.
B. (:14-15a) Explaining Their Craftiness
“And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves
as servants of righteousness”
Robert Hughes: In 11:14-15 Paul elaborates the theme of satanic masquerade. Satan is behind the disguises of the false apostles. “An angel of light” goes back to Paul’s exhortation to separation in 6:14: “What fellowship has light with darkness?” From creation to Corinth to the present, Satan has been the father of all deception and darkness. Satan appears as light, but he actually encourages fellowship with darkness. The subtleties of those false workers ought not to have been underestimated. Paul was not speaking to those who were promoting gross immorality or overtly anti-Christian teachings. They were not moving from white to black. But they were subtly involved with the grays of life. As a result, however, they were bringing the Corinthians into fellowship with darkness.
George Shillington: The idea of disguise points immediately to the master of disguise in Paul’s thought world: Satan. “According to some Jewish traditions, Satan disguised himself as an angel of light to seduce Eve” (Furnish, 1984:510; Life of Adam and Eve 9:1, 3; 12:1; Apoc. Mos. 17:1). By portraying his enemies as ministers of Satan, Paul puts the ultimate insult on his opponents. As Paul sees it, their play-acting as apostles of Christ betrays their real allegiance, not to Christ at all, but to his archenemy, who disguises himself as an angel of light and fools them (2 Cor. 11:14). Yet veiled behind the undiluted polemic of 11:15 is a faint image of Christian ministers from some quarter, having come to Corinth with a message of justice or righteousness. However skillfully they may have expressed their message, however convincing their words in the name of Christ, Paul brands their preaching as the work of Satan’s ministers masquerading as ministers of righteousness.
The full scope of their message is difficult to reconstruct with any certainty from Paul’s rhetoric. One has to assume, however, from the consistent theme of weakness throughout the Fool’s Speech that one of the main features of their message contains some kind of power theology, whether eloquence, spiritual ecstasy, visions, miracles, or the like.
C. (:15b) Emphasizing Their Condemnation
“whose end shall be according to their deeds.”
* * * * * * * * * *
PREACHING CHRIST:
1) In what specific ways did Christ humble Himself and prove a model for genuine spiritual ministry?
2) How deserving is Christ of our total faithfulness in our marriage relationship with Him as His bride?
3) Examine the ministry of Christ to highlight His emphasis on truth, light and righteousness – areas where the false apostles fall short when examined on the basis of their deeds.
4) How is the Jesus preached by Paul and the genuine apostles different from the Jesus preached by the counterfeit apostles?