Ambrosiaster — Commentary on Scripture

2 Corinthians 11:2

Paul is making it clear that what he is about to say he will say out of love for them, so that it may be conducive to their progress as much as to his praise and that they may learn from it how to do a favor to their father in the gospel. For to speak ill of a father harms the sons, and the praise of sons is a father’s glory.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:3

Paul is saying that glory has been given to him not so that he might praise himself but so that he might cast blame on those who, in the name of Christ, were preaching against Christ and by whom the Corinthians were being seduced.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:5

Paul does not think that he is inferior to the other apostles because he has taught the same things and done the same miracles.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:6

This does not refer to the apostles, who were unlettered men of no eloquence, but to the false teachers whose rhetorical skill the Corinthians preferred. Paul did not mean by this that he did not know how to speak but that commendation did not depend on mere eloquence. A person of little eloquence is not guilty before God, but someone who does not know God is liable to be charged with ignorance, because it was a sin to be ignorant of what is conducive to salvation. It was not eloquence which would commend Paul’s message but the power to save which accompanied it.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:7

Paul refused payment for two reasons. He would not resemble the false apostles who were preaching for their own advantage and not for the glory of God, nor would he allow the vigor of his message to become sluggish. For the person who accepts payment from sinners loses the authority to censor them.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:8

Paul makes it clear that not only did other churches encourage him in his ministry to the Corinthians but also that they gave him significant financial support.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:9

Paul accepted contributions from the Macedonians because they corrected their faults. But he refused anything from the Corinthians because they were less ready to correct theirs.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:10

Paul urges the whole of Achaia to give aid to the saints, but at the same time he refuses to take anything for himself from any of them.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:11

Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand that his love for them was beneficial, not harmful.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:15

The servants of righteousness are the apostles, whose associates these people falsely pretended to be, so as to deceive their hearers.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:16

Paul returns here to what he said at the beginning of the chapter. What he is about to say is true, though it may make him appear to be foolish, because these truths redound to his praise. Paul is not really boasting but merely wants to show that others who boast have nothing more to show for themselves than he has, so that if they are worthy of praise so is he.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:17

God does not approve of boasting, so this mode of speaking does not come from him. But the content of what he is saying is still true.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:18

Paul is saying this because some Jewish believers were claiming superiority as children of Israel. To glorify oneself according to the flesh is to claim nobility of the flesh. The Jews claimed this because they are the children of Abraham, who believed in God. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.

2 Corinthians 11:19

Paul gives the name of fools to those who prided themselves in the circumcision of the flesh. It was because these people were accepted by the Corinthians that Paul wants them to recognize that he too can boast of this. But he does not glorify himself as a result. On the contrary, he points out that such boasting is foolish and worldly.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:20

Paul is referring to certain Jews who were maltreating them because they were uncircumcised. They were claiming high rank for themselves and humiliating everyone else.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:22

Paul is making it clear that he is the equal of the men to whom he referred above. His purpose was to show that the disparaging opinions by which they were judging him were false.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:23

The other apostles labored, but not as much as Paul. He used to earn his living with his own hands, from early morning until about eleven o’clock, and from then until four in the afternoon he would engage in public disputation with such energy that he would usually persuade those who spoke in opposition to him.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:25

Paul suffered the beating with rods at the hands of Gentiles. He was stoned by the Jews in a city of Lycaonia. Someone who sailed as much as he did would easily have been shipwrecked three times. He was adrift at sea on his journey to Rome, when he had appealed to Caesar..

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:26

Paul was in danger from rivers in winter, when there was constant rain and rivers often overflowed their banks. The danger at sea which he is alluding to here was the danger that in a shipwreck the soldiers guarding prisoners on board would kill them all rather than risk letting them swim to safety..

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

2 Corinthians 11:27

Some of Paul’s sleepless nights were voluntary, but others were forced on him. When he was in dire straits, he had to stay awake and seek God’s help. Furthermore he taught not only in the daytime but at night as well. He was cold and exposed when he was shipwrecked on the island of Malta, where the local people came to his rescue..

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES