2 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 12
What Paul Expects of the Corinthians. 2 Cor. 12, 11–21
Their love should have commended him in his love for them: V.11. I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me; for I ought to have been commended of you; for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. V.12. Truly, the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. V.13. For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong! V.14. Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you; for I seek not yours; but you; for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
Paul here turns the fact of his boasting against the Corinthians, to their reproach, saying that his becoming foolish in that way, in a manner which he personally considers scandalous, was occasioned by their having omitted commendation of him: For I should have been commended, praised, of you; for in nothing do I fall behind those superfine, those very superior, apostles to whom you have yielded obedience so readily, - that is, the Judaizing teachers, the false prophets who had disturbed the Corinthians.
And this in spite of the fact that, in the low estimate which he places upon himself, he is nothing, just as he calls himself the least of the apostles, 1 Cor. 15, 9. He realized fully that he was nothing, that nothing depended upon his person, upon his ability, upon his talents, that he was not indispensable to the work, that he was merely an instrument of grace in the hands of his Lord, that Christ was all in all.
But so far as the false apostles are concerned, against whom the present passage is directed, he will not for one moment admit their superiority: The signs of an apostle indeed were wrought among you in all patience, by signs as well as by wonders and powers. The special indications of his apostolic authority, the signs which marked him at once as an apostle of the Lord, the miracles and powers which had been given to the Lord’s servants as a seal of their calling, Mark 16, 17. 18, had been wrought in Corinth through his agency. What greater proof did they desire? Why did they withhold from him the proper acknowledgment?