Paul is in the situation of having to assert his claim to spiritual authority over and against certain false apostles in the Corinthian church. The task is distasteful to him, and he sees it as something of a necessary evil. It is interesting though to see what he appeals to as his qualifications. He focuses on his sufferings for the gospel. False prophets and false apostles have selfish motives ultimately for winning people over. If Paul was selfish, he would not have taken up this ministry at all. Paul’s ministry had not only gained him nothing (from a worldly point of view) but had instead brought him untold suffering and hardship. Why would he exercise his role as an apostle if not called and compelled by God? When people question the testimony about Jesus in the gospels saying that it was made up by people for their own purposes I often appeal to the suffering and persecution of those who bore this testimony. Why would they lie about this? Certainly, people can be deluded into dying for false causes, but not for causes that they themselves knowingly falsify. The apostles who founded the church endured their suffering because they would not and could not deny what they had seen and heard. The New Testament is a reliable testimony. It is a gateway to life and truth. It is a pathway to God, laid down at the cost of many lives, not to mention that of the Son of God himself. The apostles open up for us, in these writings, a window to heaven and we should never tire of looking through it.
Consider the witness and suffering of the early apostles and your own testimony and witness.
Read 2 Corinthians 11:16-33
