I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing. I persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a true apostle, including signs, wonders and miracles. How were you inferior to the other churches, except that I was never a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!
Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less? Be that as it may, I have not been a burden to you. Yet, crafty fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery! Did I exploit you through any of the men I sent to you? I urged Titus to go to you and I sent our brother with him. Titus did not exploit you, did he? Did we not walk in the same footsteps by the same Spirit?
Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged. (
Ever since chapter 10 of 2 Corinthians, Paul has been defending his ministry. And now in this passage, Paul rests his case. He feels like he has been a fool, defending himself, boasting even. But he claims that the Corinthians have driven him to it. Paul should not have needed to defend himself. He should not have had to boast. The Corinthians should have been boasting about him. After all, he started their church. But from their very narrow and limited perspective, the Corinthians thought that Paul did not measure up to the other so-called super-apostles in their midst.
In response, Paul says in effect, “Look, I am nothing. But if there is any question about Christ working in me and through me, then look at the signs of Christ’s work.” Paul says, “I persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a true apostle, including signs, wonders and miracles.”
So, that’s the first thing to notice in this passage—what Paul gave. Paul gave evidence of being an apostle.
But before we look at the evidence, let’s be reminded of what an apostle is or was. The word apostle occurs 80 times in the New Testament. At its most basic level it means “one who is sent”. Jesus’ first twelve disciples were called apostles because he sent them forth to proclaim the Gospel and to heal in his name.
In Acts 1, a replacement apostle is chosen to fill the place vacated by Judas Iscariot. And what were the qualifications necessary to fill that position? Peter tells us…
Therefore, it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection. (Acts 1:21-22)
So, the qualifications for being an apostle, at that point in time, were two in number. An apostle had to be one of the companions of the Lord Jesus during his earthly ministry. And secondly, an apostle had to be a witness of the resurrection.
In Acts 5:12 we read that the apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. But then in Acts 14:14, Luke refers to Barnabas and Paul as apostles. How does Paul count as an apostle when he clearly was not a companion of Jesus during his earthly ministry?
Paul was an apostle, first, because he was a witness of the risen Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Secondly, Paul was an apostle because he was sent by the Lord Jesus to preach the good news to the Gentiles. (Acts 26:17) But also, thirdly, Paul was an apostle because he demonstrated the marks of a true apostle.
And what are those marks? Paul mentions three: signs, wonders, and miracles.
The word “signs” is used to refer to Jesus’ miracles in the Gospel of John. And what is a sign? A sign points to something else. Jesus’ signs pointed people to the realm of God. His signs signified, they confirmed, that he was sent by God. So also with Paul, the signs that he performed confirmed that he was sent by God. Paul performed signs not to draw people’s attention to himself, but to draw their attention to Jesus.
Secondly, Paul says he performed wonders. This word is used sixteen times in the New Testament. A wonder is something miraculous; it is performed to elicit a reaction from onlookers—a reaction of wonder or awe. A wonder is an extraordinary event that has a supernatural effect upon all witnessing it. A wonder is a portent from heaven to earth.
Thirdly, Paul says he performed miracles. The word in Greek is one we have encountered before in the Corinthian correspondence. It is the Greek word dunamis from which we get our English word dynamite. The kind of miracle Paul is talking about is a demonstration of the dynamic power of God.
All three of these words (signs, wonders, miracles) probably all refer to the same thing. They probably all refer to Paul’s God-given power to heal people. This was a gift that Jesus had in supreme evidence. Jesus gave this power to the twelve. And thereafter, it became one of the marks of being an apostle.
But there is one more point that I want to make before we leave this topic of apostleship. That is that you and I are also called to be apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You say, “Well how can that be? I have never performed any signs, wonders, or miracles.” That may be. I do not claim that there are any successors to the first apostles in our day. The twelve, and Paul, and perhaps some others in the first century, were part of the foundation of the church. We are simply building on that foundation.
But there is a third sense in which the word “apostle” is used in the New Testament. First, it is used of the twelve disciples of Jesus. Second, it is used of people like Paul who had a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ. But thirdly, the word apostle is used in a broader sense to refer to all those who are called and sent by the Lord Jesus Christ. I am thinking of such passages as in Luke 10 where Jesus sends out seventy-two others to the towns he is about to visit. Are we among those others that Jesus is sending out today? I believe so.
As many of you know, I worked for a brief time alongside the Latin American evangelist, Luis Palau. Before Luis felt called to the ministry, his mother felt that Luis was called. She kept telling Luis, “You should go and preach in such and such a place.”
But every time Luis’ mother said this to him, he responded, “But Mama, I’m waiting for the call.”
Luis’ mother pled with him repeatedly, but his answer was always the same until the day that Luis said for the last time, “But Mama, I’m waiting for the call,” and his mother said, “Luis, the call went out 2000 years ago. God is waiting for the answer.”
At that point, Luis got the message. He began preaching in the streets, then in stadiums, and eventually God used him to reach hundreds of thousands of people around the world with the good news of Jesus Christ.
If you are waiting for the call, you need to realize that the call went out 2000 years ago. God is waiting for you to answer the call.
So, the first thing we see in this passage is what Paul gave. He gave evidence of being an apostle. But secondly, we see What Paul Didn’t Do. Paul did not take anything from the Corinthians.
Once again, we can read between the lines and sort of figure out what the Corinthians must have been saying about Paul. Apparently, they were surprised that he didn’t charge them for his teaching. After all, that’s what all the professional orators did. Thus, the Corinthians concluded that Paul was an amateur.
But, on the other hand, some of the Corinthians were thinking that maybe Paul was sneaky. He said he was taking up a collection for the poor of Jerusalem. But maybe, they suggested, he was stealing out of the offering bag.
Sometimes, as the saying goes, “you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t”. That seemed to be the way of it for Paul. And thus, Paul had to answer the charges of the Corinthians and tell them straight out, “Look, I didn’t take your money directly, or indirectly through the collection for the poor of Jerusalem. I don’t want your money; I want you.”
Paul’s statement reminds me of what C. S. Lewis says about Jesus in Mere Christianity…
Christ says “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”[1]
So, remember that. Jesus doesn’t want your money. He wants you… all of you!
What’s your defense?
Paul’s defense of his ministry raises some questions for me. First, if we had to give a defense of the fact that we are Christians, would there be enough evidence to convict us?
Of course, what others think of us matters very little; what God thinks of us matters much. I wonder, does God see evidence in our lives of being Christian? If he is living inside us by his Holy Spirit, then there will be evidence.
I think most people who believe in God at all want to have God on their side. But I think Abraham Lincoln had the better perspective when he said, “What I am worried about is, not if God is on our side, but if we are on God’s side.”
This leads me to the question: How will God evaluate our lives? Paul talks about speaking in the sight of God. Do we speak in the sight of God? Do we even think about the fact that God can hear everything we say?
Paul also says that he does everything for the strengthening of others. Do we do everything for the strengthening of others? Or, by contrast, do we actually have in our lives one or more of the vices Paul lists?
Paul is famous for lists like this. Here he mentions 11 vices. The first one is discord. This word denotes rivalry and competition. This is what happens when people are focused on pride of place, on prestige. When we act like this, we have forgotten that only the person who humbles themselves will be exalted.
The second vice Paul mentions is jealousy. When we fail to be humble that leads to jealousy. We start comparing ourselves to others. We start wanting what others have, instead of being content with what God has given us, being content with the unique person God has created and called us to be.
The third vice is translated as “fits of rage”. The word in Greek denotes the kind of anger that quickly fires up and then dies down. But even though it is over quickly, it can do great damage. As John Maxwell says, everyone walks around with a bucket in each hand. One has water, and the other has gasoline. What do you throw on the fires of anger you find in yourself and others?
The fourth vice is selfish ambition. This word denotes the kind of person who works only for what they can get out of something, not with any attitude of wanting to serve others or serve the Lord.
The fifth vice is slander. This word indicates a loud-mouthed attack.
The sixth vice is gossip. By contrast to slander, which is loud, direct, and obvious, gossip has to do with whispering behind someone’s back.
The seventh vice is arrogance. If we want to know whether we are arrogant or not, we might ask ourselves the question: do we live for God’s glory or our own?
The eighth vice is disorder. This word refers to anarchy. Do we try to function independently as Christians or interdependently? When we try to function independently it can lead to disorder, but when we realize we are part of a covenant community, and we seek to live interdependently then disorder is diminished.
The ninth vice is impurity. If we want to examine ourselves for purity in our lives, we might ask ourselves: are we muddied by the ways of the world?
The tenth vice is translated as “sexual sin” by the New International Version of the Bible.However, as we have seen before in our study of Corinthians, the Greek word is “porneia” and refers literally to prostitution, which was a huge problem in Corinth as it continues to be in our world today.
The eleventh vice is debauchery. This is not a word one hears much anymore. It does not refer primarily to sexual sin but to the kind of life that does not submit to any discipline. In many ways, we live in a very undisciplined age.
Unfortunately, no matter how long we have tried to live as followers of Jesus, we may still see traces of these vices in our lives. My friend, Tim Hansel, once asked a mature Christian friend of his, “If I have been crucified with Christ, why is my sin nature still moving?” Tim’s friend answered, “Crucifixion is a slow death.” In Romans 12, Paul calls us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord. But the problem with a living sacrifice is that it has a tendency to wiggle off the altar.
So, how are we to counteract the vices that Paul lists here? The only way I know to do it is by an equal and opposite pressure from inside our souls to counteract the pressure from the outside. We are given such a power and pressure through the Holy Spirit. The way to counteract Paul’s vice list in 2 Corinthians 12 is with another famous list of his in Galatians 5 where he writes,
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
If we have invited the Holy Spirit to live in our lives then the fruit of the Spirit, which is one fruit with many parts, has been planted in our hearts. We just have to give that fruit room to grow.
Paul uses a different metaphor when he says, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” Keeping in step with the Spirit is key. And when we fall down, we must, by the power of the Holy Spirit, get back up on our feet and keep walking with the Spirit.
I have shared with you before my favorite C. S. Lewis quote. It is my favorite because it gives me such encouragement in my everyday walk with the Lord. Lewis once wrote this to a former student whom he had led to Christ…
I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience etc doesn’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be v. muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, & the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the v. sign of His presence.[2]
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