9. Note the master hand wherewith Paul portrays the character of false
teachers, showing how they betray their avarice and ambition. First,
they permit true teachers to lay the foundation and perform the labor;
then they come and desire to do the work over, to reap the honors and
the benefits. They bring about that the name and the work of the true
teachers receive no regard and credit; what they themselves have
brought--that is the thing. They make the poor, simple-minded people
to stare open-mouthed while they win them with flowery words and
seduce them with fair speeches, as mentioned in Romans 16, 18. These
are the idle drones that consume the honey they will not and cannot
make. That this was the condition of affairs at Corinth is very clear
from this epistle--indeed, from both epistles. Paul continually refers
to others having followed him and built upon the foundation he has
laid. Messengers of the devil, he terms them.
10. And such false teachers have the good fortune that all their folly
is tolerated, even though the people realize how these act the fool,
and rather rudely at that. They have success with it all, and people
bear with them. But no patience is to be exercised toward true
teachers! Their words and their works are watched with the intent of
entrapping them, as complained of in Psalm 17, 9 and elsewhere. When
only apparently a mote is found, it is exaggerated to a very great
beam. No toleration is granted. There is only judgment, condemnation
and scorn. Hence the office of preaching is a grievous one. He who has
not for his sole motive the benefit of his neighbor and the glory of
God, cannot continue therein. The true teacher must labor, and permit
others to have the honor and profit of his efforts, while he receives
injury and derision for his reward. Here the saying holds true: "To
love without guerdon, nor wearying of the burden." Only the Spirit of
God can inspire such love. To flesh and blood it is impossible. Paul
here scores the false prophets when he says, "Ye suffer fools gladly";
in other words, "I know the false preachers often act as fools, nor
can they help it, because their teaching is false; yet ye excuse
them."
11. In the second place such teachers are disposed to bring the people
into downright bondage and to bind their conscience by forcing laws
upon them and teaching work-righteousness. The effect is that fear
impels them to do what has been pounded into them, as if they were
bond-slaves, while their teachers command fear and attention. But the
true teachers, they who give us freedom of conscience and create us
lords, we soon forget, even despise. The dominion of false teachers is
willingly tolerated and patiently endured; indeed, it is given high
repute. All those conditions are punishments sent by God upon them who
do not receive the Gospel with love and gratitude. Christ says (Jn 5,
43): "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another
shall come in his own name, him ye shall receive." The Pope, with his
spiritual office, became our lord, and we became his captives, through
his doctrine of human works. And our present-day schismatics pursue
the same object with their fanciful doctrine concerning their works.
12. In the third place, false teachers flay their disciples to the
bone, and cut them out of house and home, but even this is taken and
endured. Such, I opine, has been our experience under the Papacy. But
true preachers are even denied their bread. Yet this all perfectly
squares with justice! For, since men fail to give unto those from whom
they receive the Word of God, and permit the latter to serve them at
their own expense, it is but fair they should give the more unto
preachers of lies, whose instruction redounds to their injury. What is
withheld from Christ must be given in tenfold proportion to the devil.
They who refuse to give the servant of the truth a single thread, must
be oppressed by liars.
13. Fourth, false apostles forcibly take more than is given them. They
seize whatever and whenever they can, thus enhancing their insatiable
avarice. This, too, is excused in them. Thus, the great establishments
of the Pope did not suffice for him; with various artifices, bulls,
laws and indulgences, he has brought under his power land and people
and all they possess, exhausting the world by usury. And so it should
be, for this state of affairs was richly deserved by men for despising
the Gospel and its preachers.
14. Fifth, these deceitful teachers, not satisfied with having
acquired our property, must exalt themselves above us and lord it over
us. Not only do they possess all property, but they must for that very
reason become our superiors; must have precedence and receive honor.
We bow our knees before them, worship them and kiss their feet. And we
suffer it all, yes, with fearful reverence regard it just and right.
And it is just and right, for why did we not honor the Gospel by
accepting and preserving it?
15. Sixth, our false apostles justly reward us by smiting us in the
face. That is, they consider us inferior to dogs; they abuse us, and
treat us as foot-rags. I venture to say we became sensible of such
treatment when, under the Papacy, we were readily put in the van,
cursed, condemned and delivered to the devil. We endured it all,
suffered most patiently, and yielded up property, honor, body and
soul. Fault in a sincere teacher, however, could by no means be
tolerated. Very well, then; God is just, and it is his judgment that
we must honor the messengers of Satan a thousand times more than his
own, and do and suffer everything.
"I speak by way of disparagement [speak as concerning reproach], as
though we had been weak."
16. There are two ways of interpreting this sentence: First, as
meaning: "I speak as one of the weak whose folly you must endure; for
which I deserve reproach, since I ought to bear with you." From such
meaning I to this day have seen no cause to swerve. The other
interpretation is: "I speak as one reproached--after the manner of the
weak." Or, more fully expressed: "I can speak in two ways of myself
and my class: First, with honor, because of our strength in the sight
of God and the spiritually-minded, worthy of honor, noble; not weak
but strong, able. But I will not at present employ this way, for we
are now despised; we are not known as honorable. And all because of
the false prophets. I will, then, present myself in the other light,
as I am regarded--despised, held in reproach and disrespect, weak and
incapable. But even this condition shall be an occasion of glory for
me; my reproach and weakness is more honorable than their honor, power
and strength. What would my glory be should my actual strength inspire
my speech!" "Weakness," according to Paul's own later interpretation,
implies being regarded worthless, unfit, a failure. The apostle's
meaning, then, is: "I, too, will be one of the boasting fools. You
will excuse it in me for I speak from the standpoint of my critics,
that of a man contemptible, foolish, incompetent. Before God, however,
I feel that I am a quite different being."
17. And recollect, Paul says, "Because ye are wise, ye suffer fools
gladly," implying that one fool cannot tolerate another. The saying
is, "Two fools in one house will not do." Reason and wisdom are
required, to bear with another's infirmities and to excuse them.
"Yet whereinsoever any is bold."
18. That is, in whatever the false apostles can boast, I can likewise
glory. Here we are shown what is the ground of the false apostles'
boasting: their outward respectability--being of Abraham's seed,
children of Israel, Christ's preachers. Therein they think to far
excel the Corinthians, claiming their doctrine and works to be of
greater weight because they have Moses and the prophets for their
teachers. But they failed to perceive that their boast is of mere
externals, that render no one righteous or better before God. The
majority of the Hebrews, of the Israelites, of the seed of Abraham,
and of the preachers of Christ are lost. Names are of no consequence;
they only make a fine show and serve to seduce the simple-minded. Paul
boasts of his origin and yet derides his boasting, calling it fool's
work. His object is to destroy the boasting of the false prophets,
that the people might not be deceived.
19. Note how, even in Paul's time, great men erred concerning the true
sense of the Gospel, and many noble preachers would have estimated
Christian life by a merely external appearance and name. The true
spiritual preachers must have been few. Should it be strange, then,
that in our time sincere preachers are not numerous, and that the
majority of ministers riot in what they themselves seem and do? It
cannot and shall not be otherwise. The thievish drones, which are
prone to riot, let them riot! We will resist to the utmost of our
power, commending the matter to God, who doubtless will grant us
sufficient honor and profit, both temporally and eternally, though we
must labor gratuitously, accepting injury and derision as our reward.
Our adversaries will not long continue their persecutions, for, as
Paul says just preceding our lesson, they will eventually receive
their deserts.
20. Again, Paul boasts of certain temporal afflictions wherein he
excels the false apostles, who suffer nothing, for the sake of either
the word or of souls, but only boast of name and person. Among the
afflictions he mentions, he names having been a night and a day in the
deep. Some refer this allusion to the voyage of which Luke writes
(Acts 27, 20-21), when for fourteen days Paul and his companions ate
nothing and saw never a star, being day and night continually covered
by the surges and waves of the sea. Others think Paul was, like Jonah,
personally sunk into the deep sea, though but for a day and a night.
Such is the clear meaning of the text. Yet others interpret it as
having reference to a prison or dungeon, because the Greek text makes
no mention of the sea--simply "the deep."
"Who is weak, and I am not weak?"
21. Of external afflictions affecting not his own person, but
distressing others, Paul mentions two: he is weak if another is weak,
and burns if another is offended. Thereby he plainly portrays the
ardor of his heart--how full of love he is; the defects and sorrows of
others pain him as his own. By "weakness," I imagine, he means, not
bodily infirmity, but weakness of faith. He refers to those who, young
in the faith, have a tender and frail conscience, thereby betokening
immaturity and feebleness of faith. He says (Rom 14, 2), "He that is
weak eateth herbs"; and in First Corinthians 8, 12, that we sin
against Christ if we wound a weak conscience. These weak ones Paul
does not reject. He receives them and conducts himself as if he, too,
were weak. He asserts (1 Cor 9, 22), "To the weak I became weak, that
I might gain the weak."
22. This interpretation of the sentence is borne out in his allusion
to "that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches."
Paul would say: "I exert myself, I have a continual care, I urge and
admonish constantly, that offenses and false doctrine may not invade
and destroy my planting; may not violate and ruin the weak
consciences." As seen in his epistle to the Corinthians, directed
against the false apostles, and in that to the Thessalonians, such is
his vigilant anxiety to guard them from the tempter that he sends them
a special messenger, and he exultingly declares it is life to him to
learn of their steadfastness.
23. Likewise, by the assertion that he burns, we are to understand
that he is exceedingly grieved and pained if one is offended; that is,
if through misleading doctrines or examples one in any wise falls from
the faith. Of the offense to faith, he says much in Romans 14. Not
desiring to be offended with the offended, as he became weak with the
weak, he says: "I burn and sorrow for them."
"I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago."
24. Of the translation of Paul into the third heaven many have
written, perplexing themselves over what constituted the first, second
and third heavens, and the paradise. Paul himself, who had the
experience, does not tell, and declares no man can tell, for none may
utter the words he heard. Therefore, we must humbly acknowledge we do
not know the nature of these things. And it matters not. Paul does not
boast of his experience for the purpose of imparting knowledge to us
or of enabling us to duplicate it. The purpose of his boasting is
simply to stop the mouths of the fanatics and to show how paltry was
their glory in comparison with his own. Certain it is, however, that
Paul was ravished from this life into a life ineffable; otherwise his
expression would be meaningless.