The Way - Day 089 (2 Corinthians 11)

Pastor Tom's Journal on Today's Reading:
2 Corinthians 11
Beginning in 2 Corinthians 10, Paul changed his tone and wrote directly to those in Corinth who were still questioning his apostolic authority.  The false teachers in Corinth had led many in the church to reject the teachings of Paul causing them to be disloyal to him.  Paul loved the Corinthians and was not willing to allow the false teachers to deceive them any longer so he wrote in defense of the authority which had been given to him by God (2 Corinthians 10:1-18).  Paul's desire was to present the church of Corinth to Christ as pure and holy (11:1-2), but their minds were being corrupted by erroneous doctrine (11:3); in fact, he compares their being deceived with the deception Eve experienced in the garden of Eden (11:3).  Paul makes it very clear that the Corinthian church must reject anyone who preaches another Jesus or a different gospel than he had preached to them (11:4).  Failure to turn from these false teachings would certainly invite God's judgment upon them.

In the next few verses, Paul defends his conduct as an apostle.  The false teachers had questioned Paul's apostleship saying that he was not associated with the twelve apostles (11:5-6) and that he was not a trained speaker worthy of pay (11:7-9); however, Paul denied both of these accusations by explaining that he had humbled himself in order to more effectively minister to the believers at Corinth (11:10-12).  These deceptive teachers had attempted to destroy Paul's ministry with the Corinthians, but he exposed these teachers as "false apostles" and "deceitful workers" who had transformed themselves into the "apostles of Christ" (11:13).  The reason they appeared to be apostles of Christ is because they were associated with Satan, who also knows how to disguise lies as the truth (11:14-15).

Although Paul's defense of his apostleship may have sounded arrogant or foolish to the Corinthians, their disloyalty had forced him to defend his God-given authority (11:16-21).  He had suffered frequent imprisonment (11:23), beatings (11:24-25a), stonings (11:25b), peril in travels (11:25c-26), extreme hunger and thirst (11:27), and numerous other hardships all for the sake of taking the gospel to those who needed hope (11:22-33).  The Corinthians could not question Paul's motivation because no one would continually expose themselves to that much suffering without being absolutely convinced that they were walking in the truth.  A decision had to be made by those Corinthians who were still questioning Paul's apostolic authority.  Would they fall prey to the deceptive words of the false teachers or would they turn their loyalty back to Paul, who had suffered much to bring them the gospel?

Dear God, protect people from the lies of Satan, who attempts to disguise lies as the truth.