2 Corinthians 11:22-26 ~ 20201122 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org
11/22_2 Corinthians 11:22-26; Superior Inferiority; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20201122_2cor11_22-26.mp3
Paul is exposing the false teachers in Corinth. He has called them out in chapter 11 as phony apostles who preach another Jesus, a different spirit and a different gospel. He calls them ‘deceitful workmen,’ servants of Satan.
And he holds the church responsible for putting up with them, for being deceived, for being unfaithful, for being led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. They ought to know better.
He holds up the character of these false apostles as a rebuke to the church. They enslave you, devour you, take advantage of you, exalt themselves among you, even strike you in the face, and you put up with it!
Because the Corinthians are so enamored with these false teachers, Paul feels the only way to get them to listen to him is to come out and meet them on their turf, boasting like they do. But he warns them that what he is about to do is foolishness. He is about to answer fools according to their folly. He, a lamb, dons a wolf disguise to get them to listen, because they like to listen to wolves. He does it so that he can expose the wolves among them who disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. But he quickly turns the tables and pulls back his own disguise to reveal his scars.
Fool’s Boasting
In 11:20, Paul says the church gladly puts up with fools, being so wise. They put up with abusive leaders. ‘You bear with it if someone enslaves you, if someone devours, if someone takes, if someone self-exalts, if someone strikes your face.’ But Paul bears their shame himself and boasts in his weakness. With biting irony, he responds
2 Corinthians 11:21 To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that! ...
Paul is using sarcasm and irony to get them to see that weakness is the way; he holds up humility; the ‘meekness and gentleness of Christ’ (10:1) as genuine ideals of Christlike leadership. But first he launches into some foolish boasting.
2 Corinthians 11:21 ...But whatever anyone else dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that.
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Ἑβραῖοί εἰσιν; κἀγώ
Are they Israelites? So am I. Ἰσραηλῖταί εἰσιν; κἀγώ.
Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ εἰσιν; κἀγώ.
23 Are they servants of Christ? διάκονοι Χριστοῦ εἰσιν;
—I am talking like a madman— παραφρονῶν λαλῶ,
I am a better one ὑπὲρ ἐγώ·
Paul meets them on their turf and says that he is ‘not in the least inferior to these ‘super-apostles’ (11:5).
If they claim ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage as ‘Hebrews’, Paul say ‘Me too.’
If they claim to possess the hopes and privileges of Israel, God’s chosen people, Paul says ‘Me too.’
If they trace their biological ancestry back to Abraham and claim to be heirs of the promise and channels of blessing to the world, Paul says ‘Me too.’
The Foolishness of Fleshly Credentials
This sounds very similar to what he said to the Philippian church, when he was warning them against ‘the dogs, the evildoers, the circumcision, those who put their confidence in the flesh’. He says, we in contrast:
Philippians 3:3 ...worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
If anyone has grounds for boasting in genetics, ethnic heritage, or scrupulous religious observance, Paul says ‘I have more.’
Philippians 3:7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Those things that many count advantages, he credits as damages or disadvantages; a penalty or a fine. He considers it all refuse – garbage or excrement, sewage, in order to be found in Christ. He counts his ethnic and cultural heritage and record of religious observance as a liability rather than an asset because there is a tendency to trust in it rather than turn from it and cling only to Christ, boast only in Christ.
He possesses the credentials, but considers it folly to depend on or boast in those credentials.
Out of My Mind ‘Super-Ego’
With his fourth question, ‘Are they servants of Christ?’ he breaks the rhythm and interjects ‘I am talking like a madman’.
23 Are they servants of Christ? διάκονοι Χριστοῦ εἰσιν;
—I am talking like a madman— παραφρονῶν λαλῶ,
I am a better one ὑπὲρ ἐγώ·
Paul uses the root word ‘thinking’ or ‘mind’ repeatedly in this passage. In verse 19, the word ‘wise’ is the word ‘thoughtful’ or ‘thinking’, and the word for ‘fools’ in 19, as well as in 17 and twice in 16, and again in 21 adds the negative prefix; ‘without thinking’. We could translate verse 19 ‘you gladly bear with the un-thoughtful, being thoughtful yourselves’. But here in verse 23 he changes the negative prefix to a prefix that means ‘beside’ or ‘out of’; I am out of my mind; beside myself in my thinking.
Are they servants of Christ? Instead of answering ‘Me too’, he answers ‘I more;’ ‘super-me’. He is unwilling to concede that they are genuine servants of Christ. Back in verse 5 he called the false apostles ‘super-apostles’, and now he uses this same word ‘super’ or ‘hyper’ to refer to his being a servant of Christ. I’m talking like I’m out of my mind; me superior.
Superior Hardships (v.23)
In the coming verses he boasts of how he is superior, but he turns this comparative boasting on its head by boasting in his weakness. As Jesus said:
Matthew 20:26 ...But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Servants of Christ serve Christ. Servants serve. Followers of Jesus follow Jesus. Jesus said:
Matthew 23:11 The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Those who lift themselves up will be brought low. So Paul gives a staccato list of his credentials: ‘In toils, abundantly; in prisons, abundantly; in wounds, surpassingly; in deaths, frequently.
2 Corinthians 11:23 …
with far greater labors, ἐν κόποις περισσοτέρως,
far more imprisonments, ἐν φυλακαῖς περισσοτέρως,
with countless beatings, ἐν πληγαῖς ὑπερβαλλόντως,
and often near death. ἐν θανάτοις πολλάκις·
Back in 1 Corinthians 4 he said:
1 Corinthians 4:11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor [κοπιῶμεν], working with our own hands. ...
The Corinthians had a problem with their apostle doing manual labor. But he refused to burden them in any way (11:7-11). As Christ’s servant, he served. In toils abundantly.
In prisons abundantly. The writing of this letter falls somewhere around Acts 20:2. Thus far Acts records only one imprisonment in the Macedonian town of Philippi (Acts 16); shortly before traveling to Corinth. But as we will see from this passage, Luke must leave out a lot, because Paul says he has already experienced imprisonments abundantly.
In wounds surpassingly. Here again, as we will see from the coming verses, Luke’s account in Acts leaves out many of these beatings; only the beating in Philippi is mentioned.
In deaths, frequently. This does not mean that Paul died multiple times, but he faced death regularly. Speaking in chapter 1 of his affliction in Asia, he said:
2 Corinthians 1:8 ...we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us...’
In chapter 4, he described himself as a fragile clay pot:
2 Corinthians 4:10 always carrying in the body the death [dying] of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.
Specific Trials (24-25)
He gets more specific in verse 24;
2 Corinthians 11:
24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods.
Once I was stoned.
Three times I was shipwrecked;
a night and a day I was adrift at sea;
The 39 lashes was a specifically Jewish synagogue punishment, based on Deuteronomy 25. It was to be in proportion to the crime, but not more than 40, ‘lest ...your brother be degraded in your sight’. In New Testament times, the prisoner was bound between two pillars face up, and a scourge of three long leather straps was used to administer one third of the stripes to his chest, then he was turned face down and the rest were applied to his back. Such flogging could kill a man [Carson, p.119]. In bitter irony, this is something Paul likely recalled dealing out in his pre-Christian persecutor days.
If Paul experienced the full legal amount of blows, it means that his crime was severe, likely an accusation of blasphemy for proclaiming that Jesus is YHWH God. The fact that this happened five times by this time in his ministry is testimony to his persistent determination to reach his fellow Israelites with the good news of Jesus (cf.Rom.9:1-3).
Beating with rods was a severe Roman punishment. We have record of one of the three beatings in Philippi, prior to being imprisoned.
Acts 16:22 ...the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. 23 And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely.
There was no limit to how many blows they could inflict. It was not legal to beat a Roman citizen, although this was frequently violated by local magistrates. The next day, when they sent word to release them,
Acts 16:37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out.” 38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. 39 So they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city.
Writing later to the Thessalonians (1Thes.2:2) he recalls being shamefully treated at Philippi. Later in Acts 22 in Jerusalem, Paul narrowly avoids another beating by appealing to his Roman citizenship.
Acts 14 recalls his one stoning in Lystra. Stoning was a Jewish form of execution, but in this instance it is more an act of mob violence. After healing a crippled man, the crowds thought Paul was the god Hermes and Barnabas was Zeus and attempted to worship them.
Acts 14:19 But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. 20 But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.
His three shipwrecks mentioned here do not include the one detailed at length in Acts 27. Again we see Luke did not intend to give a comprehensive history. One of these earlier shipwrecks left him clinging to floating debris for a full 24 hours. In his stoning and in each of his shipwrecks, beatings, and lashings he was brought face to face with death.
Sam Storms [p.175] writes: “Only in our day would anyone dare ask the scurrilous question, ‘Where was Paul’s faith? Had he sinned? Was he guilty of a negative confession? Surely this is no way for God to treat one of his most honored and precious servants!’” But it seems in Paul’s own day the false apostles were proclaiming a gospel devoid of the cross, a false form of Christianity in which suffering and trials were indicators that one was missing out on God’s blessing, God’s best. This is far from the Christianity that says:
Philippians 1:29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Danger Everywhere from Everyone
He goes on to catalog his accomplishments:
2 Corinthians 11:
26 on frequent journeys, ὁδοιπορίαις πολλάκις,
in danger from rivers, κινδύνοις ποταμῶν,
danger from robbers, κινδύνοις λῃστῶν,
danger from my own people, κινδύνοις ἐκ γένους,
danger from Gentiles, κινδύνοις ἐξ ἐθνῶν,
danger in the city, κινδύνοις ἐν πόλει,
danger in the wilderness, κινδύνοις ἐν ἐρημίᾳ,
danger at sea, κινδύνοις ἐν θαλάσσῃ,
danger from false brothers; κινδύνοις ἐν ψευδαδέλφοις,
Travel in the ancient world was fraught with danger. And Paul’s service to Christ took him on many journeys. Bridges were rare, and fording a river was risky. Bands of robbers (or pirates) were a very real danger to travel, especially when he was transporting large sums of money as gifts for the poor.
He lists two personal sources of danger; His own people proved to be some of his most persistent enemies, pursuing him from city to city, inciting the crowds against him, laying in wait to kill him. They couldn’t swallow his message of a suffering and crucified Messiah.
But neither was he safe with the Gentiles; Paul was an equal opportunity offender, calling pagans to leave their worthless gods and turn to the one true God. This often threatened their livelihood, as in Ephesus.
He lists three locations of danger; the city, the wilderness, and the sea. Each had its own distinct danger. There was no place that Paul was safe.
He concludes this section of his list with what he considered the greatest danger; danger from false brothers. All the others were dangers to his own life and personal safety, but this was touching those he loved. All the other dangers were temporary; this was eternal. False brothers in Galatia:
Galatians 2:4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
Now there were false apostles in Corinth, claiming to be brothers, but in reality servants of Satan posing as servants of righteousness, proclaiming another Jesus, a different spirit, a different gospel, seeking to lead the church astray from a sincere and pure devotion to the crucified and risen Christ.
Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one.
Galatians 6:17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org