Describing his life and ministry, Paul says that he has more grounds for boasting and self-assertion than most of those who think themselves entitled to boast and assert themselves at the expense...
Describing his life and ministry, Paul says that he has more grounds for boasting and self-assertion than most of those who think themselves entitled to boast and assert themselves at the expense of the Corinthian Christians. Indeed, for the Church, for genuine witness to Christ and to the Kingdom, Paul did more than any of those in Corinth who claimed the title of teachers and apostles and, on that basis, demanded respect, honor, and material support for themselves. Moreover, judging from the apostle's words, their demands at times took rather crude forms, and in dealing with the brothers they could be quite arrogant.
Plainly, these people really imagined themselves to be teachers and apostles, and at the same time were certain that such a status gave them certain special rights in the church community, rights they had no intention of neglecting. For Paul, however, this behavior was evidence precisely that they had no understanding of Christian life, because Jesus told His disciples more than once that in the Kingdom the highest and most important place belongs to the one who bears the most difficult and responsible ministries, the one on whom greater responsibility rests.
The measure of responsibility, not status, determines a person's rights and possibilities in the Kingdom, and therefore in the Church. If the situation in a particular church community turns out otherwise, then one has to speak of the "folly" of its members, who tolerate such "teachers" and "apostles" and give them places of honor and power over themselves.
This, of course, is not some lack of sense in the everyday meaning of the word; by the standards of this world the Corinthian situation was quite understandable and sensible. It is a failure by the members of the Corinthian church community to understand the fundamental laws of spiritual life in general and Christian life in particular. Otherwise it is impossible to explain why they allowed their teachers and mentors to "enslave" them, "devour" them, "take advantage" of them, and "strike them in the face."
Even if we suppose that Paul is exaggerating somewhat and speaking figuratively, the situation still becomes clear enough: the Corinthian Christians evidently think that their "teachers" have the right to treat them this way because they are "teachers." But precisely this attitude toward their teachers and mentors testifies to the spiritual "folly" of the Corinthian Christians, to their failure to understand what relationships in the Church should be like, if we are speaking of the Church with a capital C.
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11:16 I say again - He premises a new apology to this new commendation of himself. Let no man think me a fool - Let none think I do this without the utmost necessity. But if any do think me foolish herein, yet bear with my folly.
11:17 I speak not after the Lord - Not by an express command from him; though still under the direction of his Spirit. But as it were foolishly - In such a manner as many may think foolish.
11:18 After the flesh - That is, in external things.
11:19 Being wise - A beautiful irony.
11:20 For ye suffer - Not only the folly, but the gross abuses, of those false apostles. If a man enslave you - Lord it over you in the most arbitrary manner. If he devour you - By his exorbitant demands; not - withstanding his boast ofnot being burdensome. If he take from you - By open violence.If he exalt himself - By the most unbounded self - commendation.If he smite you on the face - (A very possible case,) under pretence of divine zeal.
11:21 I speak with regard to reproach, as though we had been weak - I say, "Bear with me," even on supposition that the weakness be real which they reproach me with.
11:22 Are they Hebrews, Israelites, the seed of Abraham - These were the heads on which they boasted.
11:23 I am more so than they. In deaths often - Surrounding me in the most dreadful forms.
11:24 Five times I received from the Jews forty stripes save one - Which was the utmost that the law allowed. With the Romans he sometimes pleaded his privilege as a Roman; but from the Jews he suffered all things.
11:25 Thrice I have been shipwrecked - Before his voyage to Rome. In the deep - Probably floating on some part of the vessel.
11:27 In cold and nakedness - Having no place where to lay my head; no convenient raiment to cover me; yet appearing before noble - men, governors, kings; and not being ashamed.
11:28 Beside the things which are from without - Which I suffer on the account of others; namely, the care of all the churches - A more modest expression than if he had said, the care of the whole church. All - Even those I have not seen in the flesh. St. Peter himself could not have said this in so strong a sense.
11:29 Who - So he had not only the care of the churches, but of every person therein. Is weak, and I am not weak - By sympathy, as well as by condescension. Who is offended - Hindered in, or turned out of, the good way. And I burnnot - Being pained as though I had fire in my bosom.
11:30 I will glory of the things that concern my infirmities - Of what shows my weakness, rather than my strength.
11:32 The governor under Aretas - King of Arabia and Syria of which Damascus was a chief city, willing to oblige the Jews, kept the city - Setting guards at all the gates day and night.
11:33 Through a window - Of an house which stood on the city wall.