In our Bibles now, if you will,
to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Tonight, we're going to be looking
at verses 8 through 18. It's been three weeks. It's been three weeks since we
studied from the first seven verses in this chapter. And I
would remind us of what all the old writers They all agreed that
Paul's tone changed in verse 1 of this chapter. His tone. It seems that most believe that
he had been writing especially to the believers in the church
at Corinth. And now he takes on the false
teachers who had come to Corinth and maybe some of those who had
taken in their teaching. And his tone completely changes
in this chapter on to the end of the letter of 2nd Corinthians. But tonight we're going to go
through these verses one at a time, the Lord willing. Verse 8, for
though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which
the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction,
I should not be ashamed. I pointed this out to us, I believe
we all recognize that the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ were
given authority or power that came along with their office. And the apostle Paul, we have
seen, was determined to use his power that was given unto him
as an apostle to straighten out the wrong in this church. He
was determined that he would only use this power, this authority,
after every other means that he had, had failed. And in this
verse we just read, he begins by stating that his authority
as an apostle, his authority was even greater than what he
had stated. Notice how he says that, for
though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which
the Lord had given us. His authority was greater than
what he had stated. Now the grace of the Holy Spirit
given to an apostle, think about this, an apostle like Paul and
all the other apostles, it made them infallible. The only infallible
men have been those that God gave the grace of the Holy Spirit
to, to write the epistles to complete the Word of God. Now that authority was not given
to just anyone like Timothy or Titus or any of those men, but
to the Apostles. That's the reason when the Canon
of Scriptures was put together that every letter, every book
in the New Testament It had to either be written by an apostle
or someone who was associated with an apostle of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So that was one part of the power,
the authority. Paul said, I haven't even told
you the authority that I have. It's much greater than I've stated
to you before. not only made him infallible
as a teacher, but it gave him supernatural power. I would encourage
you to read through the book of Acts. And I know that people
like to say that miracles were being worked by everyone in the
New Testament church. But I challenge you to begin
in Acts chapter 1 and read through the book of Acts, which is the
history of the early church, and see if there is not an apostle
somehow associated with every miracle recorded in the book
of Acts. The apostle Paul had this authority. We know that he caused that one
man, through his word, to become blind. And another man, he healed,
I believe at Lystra, you remember. He was preaching there and there
was this man who was lame. And the Apostle Paul spoke healing
to him. And his authorities also pointed
out to us when he wrote the first letter of Corinthians and told
them concerning that man who was in their midst, and they
had not dealt with him, Paul said, you do this. When you're
gathered together and my spirit is with you, this is what you
are to do. They had an authority that ministers,
preachers, pastors today that we do not have. It's good for
us to learn from this passage that when God calls a man, to
whatever office it is. When God calls a man, He gives
him the appropriate gifts for that office. Look with me to
this passage in Ephesians chapter 4. In Ephesians chapter 4, where we are told of the Lord
ascending on high and giving gifts unto men, verse 11. The Lord Jesus Christ, verse
8, it says, when He ascended up on high, He led captivity
captive and gave gifts unto men. Now, skip over that parentheses
and look in verse 11. And here are the gifts, and He
gave some apostles. and some prophets and some evangelists
and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ. When the Lord calls a man and
puts that man in an office, he gives him the appropriate gifts
to work and serve him in that office. Along with that gift,
along with that call, goes a certain amount of authority. A certain amount of authority
goes with the office. But the authority that a pastor
teacher receives is not for his own self-aggrandizement. It's
given for the good of the church. It's given for the edification. Any authority that any preacher
is given, any pastor is given, by God the Holy Spirit who calls
him and qualifies him to that office, that authority, is to
be used for the good of the church, not for his own self-aggrandizement
or for his own good, but for the good of the church. If you
turn over to 1st Peter, 1st Peter chapter 5, the apostle speaks
of the elders, which were pastors of course, the elders which are among you,
1st Peter chapter 1, I exhort who am also an elder, and a witness
of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory
that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God which is
among you. That's a primary office, a primary
work of the pastor, isn't it? Is to feed the flock of God,
the flock that he has purchased with his own blood. Feed the
flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof. not by constraint, but willingly,
not for money, for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. Now notice
this, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being
examples to the flock. What Paul is saying in our text
and in this chapter in 2 Corinthians is the power, the authority that
he had been given was not for destruction, but it was rather
for edification. It's given to comfort the church
of God. Remember what God told Isaiah? Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith the Lord. It's to comfort the people of
God, to feed the church of God, which He's purchased with His
own blood. As a pastor, my ministry, it
is to build up, it's to unify, and it's certainly not to destroy
the flock of God. You know, it's easy to tear something
up. It really is. That's not the part of a pastor.
That's not my part. It's not to tear down, it's to
build up. I know in one sense of the word,
sometimes we have to be torn down. Jeremiah, he was given
a commission like that. And if we're talking about self-righteousness,
a person needs to be brought down that he might see his need
of Christ, but what I'm talking about is in the church, the family
of God, the ministry of a pastor is to build up, to edify. Now, Paul tells these false teachers
and the church there at Corinth, for though I should boast somewhat
more, I could boast more of my authority. That's what he's saying. I have the authority. which the
Lord hath given us, but notice, for edification." Not for destruction,
but for edification. And he said, I wouldn't be ashamed. I wouldn't be ashamed if I told
you more of the authority which I have, because I have that authority. That's what he's saying. I wouldn't
be boasting of some gifts or some power, some authority which
I don't have. Because, Paul says, I do have
that authority. Now, the next two verses, let's
take together verses 9 and 10. That I may not seem as if I would
terrify you by letters, for his letters, say they, are weighty,
powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible. Now, in these verses, you see,
we have what the false teachers said about Paul. This is what
they said about him. They said his letters, when he
writes a letter, he does so with great authority, great power,
and he does so just to frighten you, just to terrify you. But in reality, in reality, when
he's here with you, his bodily presence is weak, and his speech
is contemptible. Now that's what they said about
him. Keep that in mind. That's what the false teacher
said about Paul, that his bodily presence is weak and his speech
is contemptible. Now that verse there has allowed
some to teach something that I do not believe can be supported
from the word of God. And that is, some have taught
that Paul was a man who was very small in stature. He may have
been, may not have been. This verse is not saying that
he was. But people have taught that,
and somehow they get that from his name, the name he chose,
Paul. And they teach that he was very
small, he was a very weak person, and he was very unattractive
in personal appearance. But there's really very little
to support that teaching. These words here apply more to
his conduct than his appearance. More to his deportment, how he
deported himself. They accused him of writing boldly,
but really, in actions, he's very feeble. That's what they
accused him of. When they picked up the letter,
1 Corinthians, and read the letter, boy, it sounded like a giant
of a man writing with authority, with power. But when he comes
among us, and he only does that to scare you, that's what the
false teachers were saying. But when he comes here among
us, he's weak, he's feeble, he's contemptible. When you look,
When you look at what is recorded about the Apostle Paul's ministry,
there's no way that he was a man who was weak in constitution. That just could not be. He labored. Remember he said in one place,
he labored more abundantly than they all, the other apostles.
But he was quick to add, yet not I, but the grace of God. But he labored unceasingly. He
journeyed constantly and he suffered. He sustained all kinds of bodily
deprivation and sufferings. Now in the next chapter, and
let's look over there in chapter 11, in the next chapter he's
going to name some of these things. He feels like they've caused
him and I believe he's going to say that he speaks foolishly
in naming these things. But my point tonight, look in
verse 23. The only point I have in having
us turn here is to show that the man who did this was not
a weak individual. That just could not be so. Are
they ministers? Verse 23. Are they ministers
of Christ? I speak as a fool. Now he's going
to bag on himself, if you please. He's going to tell what he's
gone through. But he prefaces it with, I speak
as a fool. I speak as a fool when I do this,
but you've compelled me to do so. I am more in labors, more abundant. in stripes above measure. I was telling the young people's
class I taught a few weeks ago about the law. You could beat a man 39 with
40 stripes, rather, 40 stripes. And if you went up for 40 stripes,
then the one you were beating, according to Roman law, then
he had the right to take the whip and beat you. And that's
the reason they always stop one stripe short. They went, one,
two, and when they got to 39, just in case they had made a
mistake, they stopped. Paul went through this several
times. He said, in stripes above measure,
in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft he was close to death,
or some believe he actually did die when he was stoned there
at Lystra. Of the Jews, five times received
I forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods.
Now, from what I've read, very few people survived a beating
with rods. That was so severe that very
few men survived that. Thrice was I beaten with rods,
once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day
I have been in the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of water, in
perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils
by the heathen, and perils in the city, and perils in the wilderness,
and perils in the sea, and perils among false brethren, and weariness,
and painfulness, and watchings often, and hunger, and thirst,
and fastings often, and cold, and nakedness, and besides all
these things," that's enough, isn't it? Besides all these things,
that which cometh upon me daily, the care, the burden, of all
the churches. This was not a weak man. When they say his bodily presence
is weak, his speech is contemptible, that's what they were saying
about him. But the truth is, he had a constitution. He was
a strong man. And I mentioned this last week
from verse 1. If you look back to verse 1 in our text tonight, chapter
10 and verse 1, Now I, Paul, myself, beseech you by the meekness
and gentleness of Christ. Shouldn't a follower, a minister
of Christ, deport himself, conduct himself as his Lord in meekness
and gentleness? Shouldn't he? The false teachers,
Paul says, who judge me by my appearance and conduct and come
to think that I am not an apostle with authority, they will see,
they will see that as they say I am when I'm absent, they say
he's strong when he's absent, when I come, they're going to
find me to be like I am, like they say I am when I'm absent. There comes a time, there comes
a time when disobedience must be dealt with forcefully. And
that's what the Apostle Paul would do when he came to Carth. If this had not been straightened
out, this matter, these false teachers, if they continue to
have a hearing there, then Paul would deal with that when he
came to Carth. Now verse 12, For we dare not make ourselves
of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves,
but they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves
among themselves, they're not wise. They're not wise. His acts would correspond to
his words. For Paul was not like those who
have nothing to commend them, but they commend themselves anyway. The method that these false teachers
used to evaluate their ministry was, as Paul said, it's not wise. That's not wise, to compare yourself
with yourself, to commend yourself by yourself. This method is not
wise because Listen, because it will always bring you to the
wrong conclusion. Men were talking about this in
my office a few Sunday nights ago before prayer. And they were
talking about this in a different context, but how that when we
judge ourselves by other people, they become our standard. We
always choose someone. We always choose someone that
we know, when the judgment's made, we're going to come up
a little bit ahead of them. That's just human nature. If
we really, in that context, speaking about righteousness before God,
if we really would judge ourselves by some other person, that other
person must be the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, compare yourself
to Him. Compare yourself to Him. If you
want to compare yourself with another human being, compare
yourselves to Christ. He never had an evil thought.
He never spoke an unkind or harsh or critical word. He always,
the scripture says, He went about doing good. Now, when you put
him, if you will, in the scale on this side and you put yourself
over here, how is it going to turn out? Paul said men who commend themselves
and compare themselves with other men, that's not wise. That's
not the way to do it. I thought about the fact, if
I went into a kindergarten class and I compared my height With
all the children, I might come out of that class thinking, I'm
the tallest man in the world. But if I went out here to a Rockets
basketball game and walked out on the court with those basketball
players, I'd probably think, I must be the shortest man on
the face of the earth. We compare ourselves with others. We're not wise. We've got a standard. We've got a rule. And that is
the Word of God. Verse 13. But we will not boast of things
without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which
God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you. Now beginning with this verse,
and I think once in verse 12, we have the English word measure
several times. Three times in this verse, verse
13. And I looked at the Greek words
from which this English word is translated, and they're two
different Greek words. They have two different meanings,
somewhat different meanings. The first time that it is used
in this verse, but we will not boast of things without or above
our measure. The first time it is used, Paul
says that he will not boast immeasurably as the false teachers did. But
then the next few times, this is what was interesting to me,
it refers to certain limits. You notice that if you have a
marginal reading before the word rule, and you look in the margin,
it's the word line. In other words, what Paul is
saying is that these false teachers went beyond the bounds or the
sphere of service that God had appointed them. The false teachers
boasted of gifts they did not have and they entered into and
took to themselves the fruits of the labors of other men. Now
Paul determined to preach the gospel where Christ had not been
named and not built on another man's foundation. Thus he regarded
Corinth as the measure, the spear, the bounds that God had assigned
to him. God's measure for Paul, God's
line for Paul, he said, reaches even unto you, to Corinth. God sent him to Carth, and he
laid the foundation of the church which was in Carth. Certain bounds,
certain measures, or certain territory, I might use that word. And Paul, if you notice in verse
14, Paul, for we stretched not ourselves beyond our measure,
as though we reached not unto you. For we are come as far as
to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ." Paul declares
that he had not gone beyond the bounds, the sphere of service
that God had appointed for him. That it was God's providence
that brought him to Corinth and God spoke to him. in Corinth
and caused him to remain there. If you look back to Acts chapter
18, just a moment. In Acts chapter 18 and verse
1, he said, after these things,
Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth. Now he was directed. God's providence brought him
to this city. to preach the gospel. And down
in verse 9, it says, Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night
by vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace,
for I am with thee. I sent you here. That's what
he's saying, isn't it? Be not afraid, for I am with
thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have
much people in this city. And he continued there a year
and six months, teaching the Word of God among them. Back in our chapter, verses 15
and 16, he said, not boasting of things without our measure. We're not boasting of works beyond
the sphere that God assigned to us. That is of other men's
labors, but having hope when your faith is increased that
we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly to preach
the gospel in the regions beyond you and not to boast in another
man's line or spear or measure of things made ready to our hand. When Paul rejoiced in the Corinthians
as those that were the fruit of his ministry, he was not taking
credit for the labors of other men, but these false teachers. When they came to Corinth, they
didn't find a city unevangelized like Paul did. They didn't find
a city where the gospel had never been preached. When they came
to Corinth, they found there was a church already there gathered
already there planted. There was believers already there. Yet they now claim these Corinthians
as their own, as their own, as though the ministry of themselves
had produced the church in Corinth. And they began to belittle the
Apostle Paul. In other words, to lift themselves
up, they began to speak evil of Paul. And in this verse we
just read Paul, you see Paul's desire was that the church at
Corinth be established and grounded in the truth. And he said this
would result in his measure, in his sphere of service, in
his place of labor being enlarged. And it would be enlarged to the
point that Paul would be preaching the gospel in the regions beyond. In other words, where the name
of Christ had never been proclaimed. Now the lesson, I'm going to
say just a few words about 17 and 18, but before we do, the
lesson, you say, well what is all this to do with us? The lesson
for all of us is if we are God's children, And we are in the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are if we are His children.
And we are to find the place where God would have us to labor
and be busy in serving Him. Find what our place is and what
our ministry is. And be faithful in that ministry,
in that work. That's just true for me, it's
true for you, it's true for all of us. That if we're in the body
of Christ, just like our physical bodies, every member has a function,
doesn't it? We may not, the doctors, they
may not even know what it serves. But we know that the members
of this body, this physical body, they all have a function. And
so we have a picture of the body of Christ. He's the head. And
we're members of his body. And we all have a function. We all have a ministry. And as believers, it's our responsibility
to find that place and to be faithful, faithful in that place
of serving him. Now, let's just read these last
two verses. But he that glorieth, let him
glory in the Lord. For not he that commendeth himself
is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth. In church planning,
in evangelization, and spiritual growth, none of us have anything
in which to glory. Paul planted, Apollos watered,
What? God gave the increase. God gave
the increase. If God would be so gracious,
if He would be so gracious to use any of us in any way to serve
Him, we can only thank Him and praise Him that He would use
such a vessel. Self-praise, self-commendation,
is less than nothing. Instead of lifting us up, it
actually lowers us in the side of true believers. You see a
believer, and I've known some preachers, we've all known some,
and they're all about lifting themselves up, all about self-aggrandizement. But what happens? when in their attempt to lift
themselves up in the eyes of true believers they actually
lower themselves and nauseous in the sight of God Almighty.
Well I pray the Lord would bless this study this evening and I
encourage all of us to be faithful and I thank you for your faithfulness
and the ministry that God's given you, whatever it is. And every
member of this church has a ministry of something. And be faithful,
that's the main thing.