Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 2 Corinthians 11

Paul has firmly stated that self-praise is inadmissible and worthless (cf. 3:1; 5:12; 10:12), but he realizes that the present situation demands it if his converts at Corinth are to be preserved intact for Christ (v.2). His antagonists were indulging in self-praise (5:12; 10:7, 12–18) and the Corinthians were evidently sympathetic to that.

Consequently his hand was forced (12:11); he must indulge in foolish boasting in order to win the Corinthians’ attention and gain a fair hearing. Reluctantly, he decides to employ his opponents’ methods; but unlike theirs, his motive is not personal gain but the Corinthians’ welfare (v.2). He goes on to supply three grounds for his appeal to the Corinthians to bear with him: (1) his divine jealousy for them especially when they were endangered (vv.2–3); (2) their willingness to put up with rivals who presented an adulterated message (v.4); and (3) his claim not to be in the least inferior to the “super-apostles” (v.5).

With a “jealousy” (GK 2419) that sprang from God and was like God’s own jealousy for his people (e.g., Hosea 2:19–20; 4:12; 6:4; 11:8), Paul was jealous for his converts’ undivided loyalty to Christ in the interval between their conversion (= betrothal to Christ) and their glorification (= presentation to Christ). He pictures himself as the father of the bride (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:15; 2 Corinthians 12:14), whose ultimate goal was to present “the church of God in Corinth” (1:1) as a pure virgin to her husband at his appearance (cf. 4:14; Ephesians 5:27). Human jealousy is a vice, but to share divine jealousy is a virtue. There is a place for a spiritual father’s passionate concern for the exclusive and pure devotion to Christ of his spiritual children (11:29).

Prompting Paul’s jealousy for Corinthian fidelity was his fear, based on disturbing evidence (v.4), that their minds and affections might be corrupted so that they would lose their single-minded faithfulness to Christ. He recognized the false apostles as Satan’s agents (v.15), capable of repeating at Corinth what Satan had successfully achieved in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:13; 1 Timothy 2:14). The danger was intellectual deception leading to apostasy.

Paul’s fear had a foundation in fact; the “if” as used here denotes an actual, not a hypothetical, situation (i.e., “if, as has happened, someone comes”). In justifying his plea for the Corinthians’ tolerance of his enforced boasting (v.1), Paul ironically appeals to the ready welcome they gave visitors who came proclaiming a message other than the Gospel that they had embraced and that had brought them salvation. Surely they ought to show their father in the faith the same degree of tolerance they showed a newcomer preaching a different faith!

It is impossible to reconstruct the precise content of what these false apostles said; it is also uncertain whether “spirit” here alludes to the Holy Spirit or to a spirit of fear and slavery (Romans 8:15; 2 Timothy 1:7). What seems clear, however, is that the willingness of the Corinthian believers to entertain the eloquent preacher of an adulterated gospel (cf. Galatians 1:6–9) that added human merit to divine grace illustrated their tendency to look “only on the surface of things” (10:7; cf. 1 Corinthians 1:17; 2:1, 4–5; 2 Corinthians 10:10).

The third justification for the request of v.1 now appears (see comment). Still engaging in his “senseless” but pardonable self-praise, Paul maintains that he is in no way inferior to the “super-apostles.” This expression is either the description of the Twelve used by Paul’s opponents and here (see comment) quoted by Paul, or the apostle’s ironical description of the exalted view of the Twelve held by the “false apostles.” In this verse, Paul claims to be in no respect inferior to the original apostles (see 1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:5–8, 10) with whom he was being unfavorably compared and whose authority his adversaries illegitimately invoked in support of their Judaizing program at Corinth.