Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 2 Corinthians 10:13

"But we will not glory beyond [our] measure, but according to the measure of the province which God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even unto you." — 2 Corinthians 10:13 (ASV)

Unlike his adversaries, Paul refuses to boast of what has occurred beyond the limits of his own ministry as the apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; Galatians 2:9). In boasting about his special “field” at Corinth and appealing by implication to the existence of the Corinthian church as a vindication of his apostleship (cf. 3:2–3), he is not overstepping his limits, since historically his God-ordained field included Corinth. In fact, he had been the first to reach the Corinthians with the Gospel of Christ (v.14b; cf. 1 Corinthians 3:6, 10).

It was the activity of the false apostles from Palestine at Corinth that encroached on Paul’s legitimate “field” because it violated the concordat of Gal 2:1–10, which predated their arrival at Corinth (see comments in the introduction, sec. 5). Even if these opponents had no relationship with the Jerusalem church, they must have been aware of the agreement of Gal 2, particularly that the Jerusalem apostles recognized that Paul had been entrusted with special responsibility for propagating the Gospel among the Gentiles or uncircumcised (Galatians 2:7–9). True, their presence at Corinth was not technically an infringement on any precisely defined apostolic “treaty,” but it amounted at least to a repudiation of the spirit of this agreement concerning apostolic “division of labor,” for they were not in Corinth to aid Paul (as Apollos had been, 1 Corinthians 3:5–6) but to supplant him.