VINDICATION OF HIS APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY AGAINST TRADUCERS. The tone of these concluding Chapter s is so very different from that of all that precedes them, that though it is impossible to doubt that both came from the same pen (only two or three of the wildest critics have ever alleged the contrary),... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:1. NOW I PAUL MYSELF: ‘Hitherto I have addressed you for the most part as associated with others in the work of the Lord; but understand me now as speaking exclusively in my own person' ENTREAT YOU BY THE MEEKNESS AND GENTLENESS OF CHRIST. These words convey merely different shades... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:2. YES, I BESEECH YOU, THAT I MAY NOT WHEN PRESENT SHEW COURAGE WITH THE CONFIDENCE WHEREWITH I RECKON TO BE BOLD AGAINST SOME, WHICH RECKON OF US AS IF WE WALKED ACCORDING TO THE FLESH. The sense, here touchingly and delicately expressed, is this: ‘By that meekness and gentleness o... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:3-4 . FOR THOUGH WE WALK IN THE FLESH, WE DO NOT WAR ACCORDING TO THE FLESH (FOR THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE ARE NOT OF THE FLESH, BUT MIGHTY BEFORE GOD (in God's estimation) TO THE CASTING DOWN OF STRONGHOLDS): [1] ‘Because our weapons are not carnal, they are despised by carnal men... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:5. CASTING DOWN IMAGINATIONS (or ‘reasonings'), AND EVERY HIGH THING THAT IS EXALTED (or ‘exalteth itself) AGAINST THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, AND BRINGING EVERY THOUGHT INTO CAPTIVITY TO THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. The reference here is to the pride of human reason, which takes upon itself... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:6. AND BEING IN READINESS TO AVENGE ALL DISOBEDIENCE, WHEN YOUR OBEDIENCE IS FULFILLED. The sound and healthy party in the church whom the apostle identifies with the church itself are here distinguished from the refractory spirits who required stringent measures of repression. But... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:7. DO YE LOOK AT THINGS AFTER THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE? (The _interrogative_ form of this clause is, we think, with Meyer, Alford, etc., more natural and lively than the _indicative,_ as Calvin, Stanley, Plumptre, and others take it.) IF ANY MAN TRUSTETH IN HIMSELF THAT HE IS CHRIST... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:8. FOR THOUGH I SHOULD GLORY SOMEWHAT MORE ABUNDANTLY OF OUR AUTHORITY, WHICH THE LORD (the Lord Christ, Ephesians 3:7-11) GAVE FOR BUILDING YOU UP, AND NOT FOR CASTING YOU DOWN, I SHALL NOT BE PUT TO SHAME. Two reasons are given for this: it was an authority gifted by the Lord of t... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:9. THAT I MAY NOT SEEM AS IF I WOULD TERRIFY YOU BY MY LETTERS that is, ‘by my letters only, and at a distance:' ‘Some seem to think that though I can write terrifying letters, I will be as mild as when I was formerly with you; but they shall find it otherwise, if necessity for acti... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:10. FOR, HIS LETTERS, THEY SAY, ARE WEIGHTY AND STRONG, BUT HIS BODILY PRESENCE IS WEAK, AND HIS SPEECH OF NO ACCOUNT. That the weakness here ascribed to his “bodily presence” refers to his physical weakness, which Plumptre thinks obvious, is far from clear to critics quite as acute... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:11. LET SUCH AN ONE RECKON THIS, THAT WHAT... IN WORD BY LETTERS WHEN... ABSENT, SUCH _ARE WE _ ALSO INDEED WHEN... ABSENT ‘that our words are no idle threats.'... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:12. FOR WE ARE NOT BOLD TO NUMBER OR COMPARE OURSELVES WITH CERTAIN OF THEM THAT COMMEND THEMSELVES: BUT t HEY THEMSELVES MEASURING THEMSELVES BY THEMSELVES, AND COMPARING THEMSELVES WITH THEMSELVES, ARE NOT WISE. The sense of this somewhat obscure verse which contains a kind of pla... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:13. BUT (unlike all these) WE WILL NOT GLORY BEYOND _OUR_ MEASURE, BUT (only) ACCORDING TO THE MEASURE OF THE RULE WHICH GOD APPORTIONED TO US AS A MEASURE, TO REACH EVEN TO YOU: ‘We go simply by the line of action divinely assigned to us, and not beyond it.' As the apostleship of t... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:15. NOT GLORYING... IN OTHER MEN'S LABOURS, BUT HAVING HOPE THAT, AS YOUR FAITH GROWETH, WE SHALL BE MAGNIFIED IN YOU... UNTO FURTHER ABUNDANCE ‘be encouraged by our success with you to extend our labours,' SO AS TO PREACH THE GOSPEL EVEN UNTO THE PARTS BEYOND YOU, AND NOT TO GLORY... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:17. BUT HE THAT GLORIETH, LET HIM GLORY IN THE LORD. So often had he to speak of “glorying” (sixteen times, says Stanley, in this section), that he here finds it needful to remind his readers and himself that the one object of all legitimate glorying is “the Lord” (Jer 9:24; 1 Corin... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 10:18. FOR NOT HE THAT COMMENDETH HIMSELF IS APPROVED, BUT HE WHOM THE LORD COMMENDETH. This addition is intended for the opponents he has had in view throughout all this chapter. No wonder that this chapter begins with an apology for indulging in self-commendation, since the former o... [ Continue Reading ]