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Reading 2 Corinthians 11:21-23 where the Apostle Paul continues to lay out how he has suffered for the gospel of Christ, for our benefit. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Paul went through all kinds of beating for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we too will be persecuted. You don't even have to mention the gospel, just because you want godliness, people will hate you. When we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.
Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 2 Corinthians chapter 11. If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there, Paul is boasting about himself in this section, doing so to win the Corinthians back from the false teachers that they have been listening to.
I'm going to start reading in verse 18 and go through verse, we'll say verse 28. This is out of the Legacy Standard Bible. The Word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth.
Since many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also. For you, being so wise, are bearing the foolish gladly. For you bear it if anyone enslaves you, anyone devours you, anyone takes advantage of you, anyone exalts himself, anyone hits you in the face.
To my shame, I must say that we have been weak by comparison, but in whatever respect anyone else is daring, I speak in foolishness. I am just as daring myself. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites?
So am I. Are they Abraham's seed? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as if insane, I more so. In far more labors, in far more imprisonments, in beatings without number, in frequent danger of death.
Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the desolate places, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brothers.
I have been in labor and hardship, in many sleepless nights, in starvation and thirst, often hungry, in cold, and without enough clothing. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.
Let's come back to verse 20. This was a verse that we looked at yesterday where Paul says, well, first of all, verse 19, he says, for you being so wise are bearing the foolish gladly. He's being very sarcastic there.
The Corinthians are not being wise, but they pretend as if they know better than Paul when they go after these false teachers. These guys are more convincing than Paul is. They must be more authentic than Paul.
So Paul says, so you being so wise, you bear the foolish gladly, the foolish being those false teachers. Then in verse 20, he says, you bear it if anyone enslaves you, if anyone devours you, if anyone takes advantage of you, exalts himself or hits you in the face.
And we looked at this yesterday about how this is characteristic of all the false teachers. They enslave with their false teaching. They devour others. They take advantage of people to benefit themselves and they exalt themselves.
And then they'll also smack you in the face, insult you. Well, the reason why my teaching isn't working for you is your fault. It's not my fault. On Sunday, Pastor Tom Buck preached from Psalm 14. And I was reminded there in that Psalm of how the wicked devour.
Psalm 14, verse four, do all the workers of wickedness not know these who eat up my people, they devour my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the Lord. There they are in great dread for God is with the righteous generation.
You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, but the Lord is his refuge. So those who do wicked, those who are the workers of wickedness, those who take counsel with the wicked, they devour the people of God.
They would attempt to lead us astray with their false teaching. You know, Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24, they would attempt to lead astray if possible, even the elect. So those who are truly in Christ Jesus will not be led away by these false teachers.
Paul is making this appeal here to the Corinthians that they would not be led away from the false teachers, those who are genuine, who are truly in Christ. They will be convicted by the Holy Spirit and they will turn from those false teachers back to the truth of the gospel.
But those who never truly believed in the first place, they just had a passing opinion. They did not really turn from sin or from idols to worship the true and living God. They will continue to follow after the false teachers because those false teachers are just telling them what they wanted to hear in their flesh anyway.
So Paul says, these people, these false teachers, they enslave you, they devour you, they take advantage of you. In verse 21, he says, to my shame, I must say that we have been weak by comparison. And who is he making the comparison with?
I don't think it's necessarily the false teachers. It could be those Corinthians that he has said are so wise, like you seem just so much wiser than we are. We're weak by comparison to you. But in whatever respect anyone else is daring, I speak in foolishness.
I am just as daring myself. Are they daring to boast about themselves? Then I'm going to be daring to boast about myself. And here is where Paul goes next, laying out his resume, not just in those things that he's done or what he has accomplished, but even with regards to who he is as a Jew born in the line of Benjamin, of the seed of Abraham.
So he says in verse 22, are they Hebrews? So am I. Who's the they he's talking about? He's talking about the false teachers, those super apostles, the most eminent apostles who believe themselves to be superior to Paul and and even some of the Corinthians believing to be more authentic than Paul.
Are they Hebrews? Because all of the apostles were Hebrews. They were all Jews. Even the apostle Paul. Now, Paul had a Roman citizenship, so he had this dual citizenship. He was an Israelite, but he was also a citizen of Rome.
And he was born into that citizenship, according to something he says about his lineage in the book of Acts. So he was he was born a Roman citizen and God used his Roman citizenship to be able to appear before kings and use his rights as a Roman to accomplish the spreading of the gospel.
He used the rights that he had as a Roman citizen to preach the gospel to others. If you live in a nation or a country where you enjoy freedom of religion, I would hope that you would do as Paul did and use the freedom that you have to share the gospel with others to do that very thing.
Use your freedom that others may know the good news of Jesus Christ, which is true freedom, not as any earthly government can give, but as only Christ can give. So that was Paul's Roman citizenship. But by birth, he was still a Jew.
He says in verse 22, are they Hebrews? Where are these super apostles, Hebrews, because you have to be Hebrew to be a true apostle. So am I, Paul says, are they Israelites? And I kind of have to wonder if they're letters of authentication, the certified letters that they had when they came to Corinth.
Paul referred to this back in the first chapter. You are our letters of commendation, he says to the Corinthians with these false teachers. They came with these letters as if to say, this is who we are authentically.
Look at these letters so you know that we are the genuine article. And I just have to wonder if those letters had on them that they were Hebrews, they were Israelites, they are Abraham's seed. This is the true genuine article.
If they can be Hebrews and Israelites and Abraham's seed, Paul says, well, me too. Are they Abraham's seed? Are they descended from Abraham? So am I. So which one of us is greater than the other? If I am born of that line, as they are born of that line, why are they better than I am?
So he goes on in verse 23, are they ministers of Christ? Again, asking about these false teachers. And he says, I speak as if insane. He doesn't want to have to boast in himself over these things. As I mentioned yesterday, it should be already obvious to the Corinthians who is a true apostle and who is not.
When we get to chapter 12, verse 12, Paul says, the signs of a true apostle were worked out among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles. You know who the genuine article is. These guys, these false teachers, they've never produced any kind of miracles.
So it's insane that I have to boast in myself. I actually have to say to you, I am a true apostle of Jesus Christ and they are not, that they're false teachers. So he says, I speak as if insane, that I'm going mad, boasting in myself.
Are they ministers of Christ? I more so. In far more labors, in far more imprisonments, in beatings without number, in frequent danger of death. Now, as Paul is laying that out, he's inviting the Corinthians to do a comparison here.
What have those false apostles done? What have they done? Have they, what have been their accomplishments? They don't boast about being beaten or thrown in prison for the gospel of Christ. No, they say that they are above that.
We get a kind of a hint of this in Philippians, as a matter of fact, because it's there in Philippians where the Philippians had sent a gift to Paul who had been put in prison in Rome. The Philippians had heard about these preachers that were making things difficult on Paul.
And what seems to be the case from what we read about in Philippians chapter one, these preachers were saying that if Paul was thrown in prison, he must have done something to be put there. People who are the genuine article in Christ Jesus, they don't get arrested for what they preach and thrown in prison.
So Paul really must have done something wrong. So we're not associated with the apostle Paul. Now the Philippians were really burdened by that. They were vexed to hear that. So they took up an offering for Paul and had it sent with Epaphroditus, who went to Paul in Rome to give him money to help him with his ministry.
Now Paul says to them, I didn't need your money, but I'm accepting it and I'm thanking you for it because it gives you the opportunity to bless me. And then I am blessed because the Lord has blessed you.
So in that first chapter there, he says that even though there are some who are going to preach Christ from envy and strife and others do it from goodwill, I nonetheless rejoice even though they're preaching Christ out of selfish ambition in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ has proclaimed it in this, I will rejoice.
So, yeah, they're trying to be combative, they're trying to squabble, to cause disunity and things like that, but at least the gospel is being proclaimed and it's going out to more places. And in that case, Paul says, I will rejoice.
But later on in Philippians in chapter three, he says the following. He says, if anyone has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. I was circumcised on the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to the righteousness, which is the law found blameless.
But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. So Paul lays out his resume there also in Philippians chapter three. But he doesn't rely on that resume as anything to boast about.
Instead, it's that very thing he has all set aside and counted as rubbish so that he may exalt Christ. So he's got a pretty impressive resume. He could have laid out all of those things and all those accomplishments with the Corinthians, but that's not where it was that he went.
He said, are they ministers of Christ? I more so. And what have I been through for Christ? I've been through far more labors, far more imprisonments in beatings without number in frequent danger of death.
There are going to be those teachers that were competing with Paul, and they would proclaim themselves as being innocent because they've never been thrown in prison. But a true apostle of Jesus Christ is going to be persecuted for the cause of Christ.
Jesus said to his disciples, they will hate you because they hated me first. If you were of the world, they would love you. But because you are not of the world, they hate you. That's what Jesus said to his disciples.
And the same will be said of us as well. There are people who will hate us because we desire godliness. You don't even have to preach the gospel to them. You don't even have to say you're a sinner, repent or the judgment of God is going to come upon you.
Here's your sins that you need to repent of, pursue the holiness of Christ. You don't even need to say that. You don't have to preach Christ crucified. You just desire godliness. You just desire to live your life in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.
They will hate you just for that. In 2nd Timothy 3, 12, Paul said, indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
You just want godliness. The world will hate you for that. You don't even have to profess yourself as a Christian. You just say, I hate abortion. It's the murder of children. The world's going to hate you for that.
You say, I hate pride month because God hates pride. He hates homosexuality and he is going to judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. The world's going to hate you for that. Right. And here I am, I'm, I'm tacking on what God says with regards to those things.
You just say that homosexuality is unnatural. You just say that they'll hate you for that. You just say that abortion is the murder of unborn children. They'll hate you for that. You don't even yet have to bring God into the matter, even though you believe those things, because you desire the righteousness of God.
They will hate you just because you want God's way instead of the world's way. Consider what Jesus said in the sermon on the Mount in the beatitudes, Matthew chapter five, verses 10 and 12, 10 through 12, blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me, they will slander you. They will say these things falsely rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great for in the same way.
They persecuted the prophets who were before you. And so here we are again, back to second Corinthians chapter 11 and Paul talking about all the ways that he has been persecuted for the gospel. This is, this authenticates that what Paul has been preaching, what he has been doing is genuine, and it should also demonstrate by comparison, by contrast, that what these false teachers are doing is not of Christ.
They're not being persecuted for what they preach. People love them. People all over Corinth love them. Why is that? Because what they're preaching appeals to the world. It is not preaching the message of Christ to the people of God.
So if what they're saying is worldly and worldly people love it, then of course they are not of Christ. They are of the world. Paul said this to the Thessalonians, second Thessalonians chapter one, beginning in verse three, we ought always to give thanks to God for you brothers, as his only fitting, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of each one of you all toward one another increases all the more so that we ourselves boast about you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions, which you endure.
Listen to this. This is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which indeed you are suffering. The fact that the Thessalonians were being persecuted for what it was that they believe it is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment because those who love God and love his word and have loved his gospel, the true gospel, they will be persecuted by people in the world.
We will be persecuted. There are people who will hate us just because we love godliness, but do not lose heart. As Jesus said to his disciples in this world, you will have trouble. You will have tribulation, but take hard for I have overcome the world.
Consider the words of Peter, first Peter chapter four, verse 12 beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you for your testing as though some strange thing were happening to you, but to the degree that you are sharing the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing so that also at the revelation of his glory, you may rejoice with exaltation.
And so here Paul talks about being persecuted, all the, the troubles and the hardships and everything that he has gone through for the gospel. It demonstrates by contrast, he is truly preaching the gospel in these false teachers are not.
I have been in far more labors, far more imprisonments in beatings without number in frequent danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews, 40 lashes, less one, which would be 200, uh, minus one, five times, 195 doing that math in my head.
He was lashed on his back a hundred and 95 times. There would be 195 stripes on his back. What he had endured the punishment that he had endured for the gospel. And yet he did not stop and continued to preach even coming to Corinth.
So they would hear the truth of the gospel and believe how many of those false teachers, how many lashes are on their backs for preaching the gospel. And would they even continue to preach the way that they are preaching?
If somebody were to lash them on the back, even once, this is the contrast that Paul is making here. And he's doing this for their sake. So the Corinthians would not go after the false teachers, but listen to the truth.
He goes on to say three times. I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned three times. I was shipwrecked a night and a day I have spent in the deep. And we're going to come back and read some of those things and hopefully finish up the rest of chapter 11 tomorrow.
But considering Paul's occasions when he was stoned, when he was shipwrecked and some of these other things that he mentions frequent journeys, danger from rivers, robbers, my own countrymen, and even the Gentiles dangers from false brothers.
And yet he has endured to preach the gospel so that we today who hear the gospel of Christ have also come to know this and believe because of what the apostles went through for our benefit, for our sake, to the glory of God who is in heaven.
Heavenly father, we thank you that there was somebody was sent to us to preach the gospel so that we would know our sin and our wickedness. And we would repent of it and come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ through the true gospel that was proclaimed to us, help us to not just be hearers of the word, but to do what the word says.
And we rejoice when we suffer, not complain about it, not, uh, not raise our fist to heaven saying, God, why would you allow me to go through something like this? This is for our testing that we would know.
We love God even more than the comfort of the world itself. Deliver us out of this world into your eternal kingdom, Lord Jesus. We pray these things in your name. Amen.
Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.
Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.