John Calvin Commentary 2 Corinthians 10:2

"yea, I beseech you, that I may not when present show courage with the confidence wherewith I count to be bold against some, who count of us as if we walked according to the flesh." — 2 Corinthians 10:2 (ASV)

I beseech you, that I may not be bold, when I am present. Some think that the discourse is incomplete, and that he does not express the matter of his request. It is rather my opinion, however, that what was lacking in the former clause is here completed, so that it is a general exhortation.

“Show yourselves docile and tractable towards me, that I may not be constrained to be more severe.” It is the duty of a good pastor to draw his sheep peacefully and kindly, so that they may allow themselves to be governed, rather than to constrain them by violence. Severity, it is true, is—I acknowledge—sometimes necessary, but we must always set out with gentleness, and persevere in it, as long as the hearer shows himself tractable.

Severity must be the last resort. “We must,” he says, “try all methods before resorting to rigor; furthermore, let us never be rigorous unless we are constrained to it.” Meanwhile, as for their considering him pusillanimous and timid when he had to confront them directly, he indicates they were mistaken about this, declaring that he will stoutly resist the contumacious face to face. “They despise me,” he says, “as if I were a pusillanimous person, but they will find that I am braver and more courageous than they could have wished when they come to contend in earnest.”

From this we see when it is time to act with severity: after we have found, through trial, that persuasion and mildness have no good effect. “I shall do it with reluctance,” says Paul, “but still I have determined to do it.” Here is an admirable balance; for as we must, as far as we can, draw men rather than drive them, so, when mildness has no effect in dealing with those that are stern and refractory, rigor must necessarily be used. Otherwise, it will not be moderation or evenness of temper, but criminal cowardice.

Who account of us. Erasmus renders it — “Those who think that we walk, as it were, according to the flesh.” The Old Interpreter, in my opinion, came nearer to Paul’s true meaning — “Qui nos arbitrantur, tanquam secundum carnem ambulemus;” (“Those who think of us as though we walked according to the flesh; ”) though, at the same time, the phrase is not exactly in accordance with the Latin idiom, nor does it altogether bring out the Apostle’s full meaning. For λογίζεσθαι is taken here to mean — reckoning or esteeming. “They think of us,” says Paul, “or they take this view of us, as though we walked according to the flesh.”

Chrysostom explains To walk according to the flesh to mean — acting unfaithfully, or conducting oneself improperly in his office; and certainly, it is taken in this sense in various instances in Paul’s writings. However, I rather understand the term flesh to mean — outward pomp or show, by which alone the false Apostles are accustomed to recommend themselves.

Paul, therefore, complains of the unreasonableness of those who looked for nothing in him except the flesh—that is, visible appearance, so to speak, or in the usual manner of persons who devote all their efforts to ambition. For as Paul did not by any means excel in such endowments that ordinarily procure praise or reputation among the children of this world (Luke 16:8), he was despised as though he had been one of the common herd. But by whom? Certainly, by the ambitious, who estimated him from mere appearance, while they paid no regard to what lay concealed within.