2. Disobedience versus Discipline
2
Disobedience versus Discipline
An Appeal for Obedient Faith
1By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” when away! 2I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. 3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.
2 Corinthians 10:1–6
These opening six verses introduce us to several of the themes found in the ensuing four chapters: the charge that Paul is inconsistent, bold when absent and timid when present; the fundamental misunderstanding of Paul’s ministry still entertained by the Corinthians; the implicit threat bound up with Paul’s impending visit. But above all, these verses present a sharp contrast between the actual situation in the Corinthian church, and what Paul insists should dominate the church. It is the contrast between discipline and disobedience, and, Paul implies, if the discipline has not been reestablished by the time he arrives, he will use his spiritual weapons to impose it. For the moment, he makes a preliminary appeal for obedient faith.
A. An Ironical Prelude (v. 1)
In an abrupt fashion, Paul addresses the entire church at Corinth: the plural “you” (“I appeal to you”) forbids us from thinking Paul is addressing only one schismatic part, perhaps the lunatic fringe. Both usage (compare “you” in 2 Cor. 12:19 and 13:11–13) and the context (see my comments on 10:6) make it clear that Paul is writing to the Corinthian church as a whole. This writing is an appeal: “I appeal to you,” he says. But the content of that appeal awaits verse 2. Before unveiling that content, Paul opens up with this ironical prelude (v. 1).
The irony turns on two factors. First, despite the fact that the Corinthians have charged Paul with being bold and strong only in his letters (2 Cor. 10:1, 10), Paul in writing this letter refuses to rise to the bait and blast his readers with an apostolic command. Rather, he appeals to them: the verb suggests he urges them, beseeches them. The language is emotional, betraying deep conviction coupled with a profound desire to be heard and understood: literally rendered, the text reads “I, Paul, I myself, appeal to you.” No longer does Paul associate Timothy with him in his appeal (as in 2 Cor. 1:1). Rather, he speaks and writes alone, urgently, personally, and intensely appealing to the Corinthians instead of standing aloof and presenting a severe front. In the only other places where Paul piles these words together—“I, Paul, I myself” (Gal. 5:2; 1 Thess. 2:18)—he is equally intense and personal.
The second ironical feature about this prelude is Paul’s careful identification of that by which he makes his appeal: “By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you.” He might have said, “As an apostle of the risen and sovereign Christ I command you”; or “By the authority of the sovereign Lord who has commissioned me as his apostle, I order you”; but instead he writes, “By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you.” In this way Paul simultaneously provides a counterexample to the charge that his letters are invariably bold, weighty, and forceful (2 Cor. 10:1, 10), and reminds his readers that if he, Paul, is sometimes charged with timidity in his personal dealings, he is merely following the example of the Lord Jesus himself. Could not Jesus during the days of his earthly ministry openly testify, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matt. 11:29)? True, Paul could be very stern both in letter and in person. On another occasion, he wrote, “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?” (1 Cor. 4:21). But then again, Jesus himself could present a stern face, not only in public denunciation of religious leaders (Matt. 23) but also in strategic actions such as the cleansing of the temple (21:12–13 and parallels). Although different situations may call forth from wise leaders very different responses, Paul understands that what was characteristic of Jesus’s public ministry was meekness and gentleness; and he believes the same characteristics must stamp his own ministry. In Jesus’s case, this fundamental attitude of self-emptying achieved its most magnificent splendor in the breathtaking descent from the glory the Son shared with his Father (John 17:5) to the ignominy, shame, and rejection of the cross—a theme celebrated by Paul elsewhere (Phil. 2:6–8). Small wonder each of Jesus’s followers must take up his own cross (Mark 8:34–38) if he expects to be called a disciple at all, and not forfeit his soul.
Few people understand this essential ingredient of Christianity better than Paul. Not only does meekness appear as a recurring virtue in his letters (Gal. 5:23; 6:1; Col. 3:12), but entire paragraphs from his pen demonstrate how his theological reflections and his lifestyle supported and confirmed each other. Several of the most moving of these paragraphs are directed to the Corinthians, almost as if they were in need of perpetual reminders of this essential element in the faith they professed. In his first canonical epistle to them, Paul wrote, “For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. . . . To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world” (1 Cor. 4:9, 11–13). The same attitude of service and commitment is now repeated in Paul’s second canonical epistle to the Corinthians: “we put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Cor. 6:3–10). These same attitudes Paul wisely nurtures in the younger men he trains, as a careful reading of the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Tim. and Titus) quickly shows.
Meekness and gentleness (the last word might be rendered “forebearance”—the same term occurs in Phil. 4:5), taken together, suggest that the person characterized by such virtues will be generous in his estimates of others, slow to take offense, well able to bear reproach, consistently above mere self-interest. By such meekness and gentleness, characteristics of Christ himself, Paul makes his appeal. But although the language is deeply ironical, it is not manipulative. In other words, Paul does not choose an ironical way of expressing himself for no other reason than to get himself out of a tough situation, taking irony in his hands as a flexible tool to shame his readers. The situation is far more serious than that. Paul’s language is steeped in irony because the concrete situation he faces is ironical: the Corinthians are confusing meekness with weakness, gentleness with servility, and utterly ignoring the dominant characteristics of the Redeemer they claim to acknowledge as Lord. If the irony of Paul’s language shames the Corinthians, it is because the Corinthians ought to be ashamed.
The level of the Corinthians’ misunderstanding is pretty basic. Not only do they charge Paul with inconsistency—they say he is timid when present and bold when absent and writing letters—they do not have a grasp of fundamental Christian virtues. The word rendered “timid” (2 Cor. 10:1) is customarily translated “humble”; but they see in this humbleness not a grace but a weakness. To the devout and mature Christian, the word “humble” has positive connotations; in the mind of the Corinthians, it has negative overtones. Perhaps they adopt the same usage found in passages like the following from Xenophon (who ascribes the words to Socrates): “Moreover, nobility and dignity, self-abasement and servility, prudence and understanding, insolence and vulgarity, are reflected in the face and in the attitudes of the body whether still or in motion” (Memorabilia III.10.5). In this quotation, self-abasement (the same word rendered “timid” in 2 Cor. 10:1) is coupled with servility; and together they stand over against nobility and dignity. This kind of humbleness is ignoble; it cringes from confrontation, sidles up to money and power and influence with the phony humility of an unprincipled politician, and acts forceful and strong only when it appears safe to do so. In short, the Corinthians said that “when Paul was there, he was a Uriah Heep, very humble and cringing and artful; and when he was away from them, he could pluck up his courage and be very resolute—on paper” (Plummer). Like many today, the Corinthians embraced an essentially triumphalistic understanding of greatness; and therefore they were ill prepared to consider an apostle great if he contravened that mold. The dimensions of their triumphalism will become increasingly apparent. What is already clear in this ironical prelude is that Paul responds not in terms of one-upmanship (for then he would be succumbing to the set of values espoused by the Corinthians) but in terms of the character and teaching of Christ. At stake is much more than party allegiance. The differences between Paul and the Corinthians turn on a clash of worldviews, on a fundamental disjunction of values, on profound disagreement regarding that which Christians should pursue.
B. The Appeal (v. 2)
After administering in the prelude a small dose of shock treatment by establishing a framework of values vastly different from those espoused by the Corinthians, Paul comes to the appeal itself. “I beg you” (2 Cor. 10:2) is probably not greatly different in this context from “I appeal to you” (10:1): in both instances Paul puts himself in the place of a supplicant. The essence of the appeal is that he may not have to be as “bold” (as strong and severe) toward the Corinthians as he himself fully expects to be toward “some people.” This is a gentle way of asking the Corinthians to change before it is too late. Once Paul arrives, he will have to take strong action: so in advance of his arrival he appeals to the Corinthians to change their patterns of conduct so that the threatened sternness may be avoided.
Four observations enable us to grasp the force of this appeal a little better. The first is that the precise nature of Paul’s threat is progressively unveiled farther on in the text. A hint of what is to come crops up in 2 Corinthians 10:6: “And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once our obedience is complete.” The threat of apostolic chastisement is real (cf. 13:2); but it is up to the Corinthians to respond in such a way that Paul’s visit will be “in love and with a gentle spirit” and not with “a whip” (1 Cor. 4:21). Mistaking humility for servility, the Corinthians have accused him of being timid and weak in person; but unless certain unspecified things change in the church, they will discover just how stern the apostle Paul can be. Is that what they really want?
On the other hand, severity is not the face Paul would like to wear; for in the second place, Paul speaks of this severity as something he would “dare” to use, as if it is not his normal stance. More literally translated, verse 2 reads, “I beg you that when I come I may not have to display that confident boldness that I reckon I shall dare to use against some people.” It is as if Paul recognizes that the prime purpose of the authority the Lord has entrusted to him is to build people up, not tear them down (2 Cor. 10:8); and therefore if the situation he confronts demands the sterner course, he is uncomfortable and grieved. Doubtless he will take the remedial steps necessary; but far from flaunting his authority by rushing into disciplinary action, Paul envisions the prospect as a dare that cannot be avoided, not a challenge to be encountered with relish. His normal stance, his preferred posture before his converts, is “the meekness and gentleness of Christ.”
The third thing to observe is that the “some people” whom Paul expects to confront are probably not the Corinthians themselves, or some part of them. Paul does not say he expects to be bold toward “some of you” but toward “some people.” Not only is there a good clue supporting this distinction in verse 6, but the same distinction between the Corinthians and the “some people” who constitute Paul’s primary opposition at Corinth is maintained throughout these chapters. For instance, in 2 Corinthians 12:11 it is clear that those addressed as “you Corinthians!” should have defended Paul against the “super-apostles.” But if this is the case, then the force of Paul’s appeal in 10:2 is that the Corinthians themselves should take decisive action against the intruders, so that Paul will not have to do so when he arrives. The Corinthians are currently being duped by those whom Paul sees as dangerous impostors; and Paul is therefore appealing to his converts to exercise the discernment and discipline necessary to avoid a later showdown between the apostolic “whip” and the intruders.
Fourth, the nature of the differences between Paul and the interlopers now begins to surface. Paul expects he will have to be bold toward “some people” who think that Paul lives “by the standards of this world.” The original might be literally translated, “according to the flesh”: i.e., Paul is accused of living according to the flesh. What exactly does that mean?
In Pauline usage, “flesh” can refer to the physical substance that drapes our bones. When compounded in an expression such as “flesh and blood,” it means something like “humanity” or “human nature and mortality.” But characteristically Paul uses “flesh” to denote fallen human nature, man in sin and rebellion against God, human beings mired in egocentricity and thereby shoving God out to the periphery—if there is any place left for him at all. But in the context of 2 Corinthians 10–13, it is unlikely that Paul’s opponents are accusing him of being essentially sinful in the exercise of his apostleship. Rather, they are accusing him of being an ineffective leader, given to excessive timidity, capable of not more than third-rate preaching, and having too little background in spiritual and visionary experiences to claim the allegiance of the Corinthians. It is in this sense that Paul, in their judgment, lives “according to the flesh” or “by the standards of the world”: he does not attain the high standards of spirituality and leadership that they claim for themselves! He lives and serves at the lowly level of this world, of flesh; they minister as dynamic, spiritual leaders whose spiritual experiences attest their superiority, and whose rhetoric demonstrates their God-given graces.
Paul’s language is gently ironic. He has spoken of the confident boldness that he reckons he shall dare to use; now he refers to these unnamed “some people” who reckon that Paul lives by the standards of the world. At bottom is the question of evaluation: Paul’s opponents have evaluated him in a certain light and dismissed him as inferior, and in the process they have attempted to capture the allegiance of an entire church. Paul evaluates them in a different light and insists they are impostors (2 Cor. 11:13–15) who are preaching another Jesus (v. 4), and reckons he will dare to confront them with apostolic authority when he finally arrives in Corinth. The pair of evaluations—Paul’s evaluation of the intruders, theirs of him—are fundamentally opposed.
But we must hasten to add that the differences between the two evaluations do not spring from personal animosity or pretentious pique. The root of the differences in evaluation is the disjunction between the sets of criteria that the two parties use. Doubtless the intruders think of themselves as gifted and spiritual; but their criteria for assessing both themselves and Paul have received their imprint from Judaizing Christianity, from Hellenistic standards of rhetoric and leadership, and from visionary enthusiasm. Paul responds by insisting in effect that when these perspectives dominate, the resulting judgments are sub-Christian. Judaizers will seek to prove their spiritual superiority by making much of their racial and covenantal pedigree (2 Cor. 11:21a–22); sophists will judge a person’s right to lead by the competence or otherwise of his rhetoric (v. 6) and by his ability to command a considerable income (v. 7); and visionary enthusiasts will judge a potential leader by the number and vividness of his alleged spiritual experiences (12:1–10). But all such criteria, Paul perceives, depreciate Christ. If an essential element of true spirituality is race, then it is not Christ’s cross-work and our consequent relationship to him that are determinative; if standards of rhetoric and the ability to command a purse are prime conditions for leadership in the church, then a servant mentality is depreciated (even though Christ himself displayed just such an attitude), and culturally bound standards of oratory usurp the place of unchanging and culture-transcendent truth; and if a display of the visionary’s enthusiasm is the sine qua non for advanced leadership, not only is the church vulnerable to fraudulent claims, but the claimants themselves are likely to glory more and more in the esoteric, and not in the sufficiency of the grace of Christ.
The heart of the intruders’ criteria is triumphalism; and in each case the criterion is grounded on something neither good nor evil in itself, but that is fundamentally evil when it serves to display Christ or camouflage the true characteristics of spiritual leadership. In this sense, the criteria of evaluation proposed by the intruders were essentially non-Christian. Principally, they were pagan. The clash between Paul and the intruders was a clash of worldviews. Paul’s worldview was shaped by the gospel; theirs took its form from what was praised in the segments of society whose honor they cherished. Ironically, they were charging Paul with living according to worldly standards that were not up to their own level of spiritual worth, whereas in reality they had so misunderstood the gospel that their own values were truly worldly, according to the “flesh” in the customary Pauline sense—egocentric, sinful, rebellious against God and the revelation he had graciously provided.
This deep clash may seem strange to our society, for two reasons. First, we live in an age of deeply ingrained subjectivism. We have been taught to think that it is somehow wrong, even evil, to say that another’s value system is false. The only absolute judgment widely endorsed by our society is that no absolute judgment is permissible. What suffers in this climate is truth—or, more precisely, the possibility of affirming the existence of any absolute truth. But conversely, if the gospel of Jesus Christ—all it provides and teaches and demands—is true, then that which opposes it is to that extent false. Truth is exclusive of error and falsehood. Paul does not bother to dispute anyone’s prerogative to teach some system contrary to the gospel; but he does dispute their right to do so in the church, passing off the error as if it were gospel truth.
The second reason why our society may at first react negatively to the clash between Paul and the intruders is that, in addition to the problem of our unscrutinized subjectivism, we inhabit a place and time in history dominated by cultural diversity. In a sense, this is a very healthy thing, for it enlarges our horizons and in some cases increases our narrow tolerances. Indeed, at certain levels Paul himself was surely one of the most culturally flexible missionaries who ever lived. He writes, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Cor. 9:20–22). There lies extravagant and Christ-honoring flexibility.
Yet at the same time, regardless of the race and culture he was serving at the time, Paul recognized that the gospel itself is nonnegotiable. In most societies relatively few individuals are willing to concede the moral limitations of their inherited values and learn to interpret them by an outside standard and if necessary curtail or abandon them. We find it easier to interpret the gospel in terms of our received culture than the other way around. Biblically speaking, however, all races and cultures are infected with sin. To the extent that the gospel clashes with any one of them, to that extent people who spring from such races and cultures and who profess faith in and allegiance to Jesus Christ must regard the good news of Jesus Christ as the controlling factor. The gospel will purify and transform any culture; or, more accurately, the gospel will purify and transform the people from any cultural heritage who bow unreservedly to Jesus Christ. By this means it will modify or eliminate many of the culturally transmitted values of those new Christians; and they in turn may in some measure influence their culture and society as salt exerts its influence in food (cf. Matt. 5:13). But there will always be some who are controlled by a lightly “Christianized” version of their own culture: i.e., their controlling values spring from the inherited culture, even when such values are deeply pagan and not Christian. Christian language may be there; yet the control lies, not with the gospel, but with the pervasive values of the surrounding society and heritage. At that point Paul is inflexible.
As far as Christians are concerned, wherever there is a clash between a cherished inherited culture and the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the former that must give way and accept modification and transformation. Failure at this point calls in question one’s allegiance to the gospel. Unreserved commitment to the priorities of the inherited culture, with select elements of Christianity being merely tacked on, brings with it Paul’s inevitable conclusion that the Jesus being preached is “another Jesus,” the gospel being proclaimed is a “different gospel,” and those who proclaim such an Evangel are “deceitful workmen masquerading as apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:4, 13). Moreover, those professing Christians who, like the Corinthians, show themselves to be profoundly sympathetic to this non-Christian orientation of values must at very least examine themselves again to see if they really are in the faith (13:5).
The full force of Paul’s appeal to the Corinthians is now apparent. He begs them to reevaluate these intruders, for he does not want to be as bold toward them as he expects to be. In effect, he appeals to the Corinthians to return to the truth of the gospel and the teaching and example of Christ Jesus, and thereby see the contours of the intruders’ doctrines for what they are. And meanwhile, Paul strongly insists that, contrary to the charges leveled against him by the intruders, he has never as a Christian lived “by the standards of the world” (2 Cor. 10:2) nor fought his spiritual battle using “the weapons of the world” (v. 4).
C. Paul Denies That His Warfare Is Worldly (10:3–4a)
Paul concedes, of course, that the world is his sphere of activity; but that does not mean the world dictates the agenda, still less that it provides the tools for the job. “For though we live in the world,” Paul writes, “we do not wage war as the world does” (2 Cor. 10:3). And then, lest any reader has failed to grasp the force of what he has said, he reiterates, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world” (10:4a).
The NIV provides as accurate and free-flowing a translation of Paul’s Greek idiom as might be hoped; but it is worth reflecting a little further on Paul’s exact choice of words.
Two words deserve mention. First, the expression “we live,” both in 2 Corinthians 10:2 and 10:3a, might more literally be rendered “we walk.” The context of this word, both here and elsewhere in Paul, unambiguously shows that the apostle is thinking about something more than literal walking; and NIV’s “we live” isn’t bad. But perhaps it is a shade too passive: the force of Paul’s “to walk” is not so narrow as “to live” but more like “to conduct one’s life.” Paul is not simply saying that the sphere of his existence is the world (though elsewhere he says this), but that the sphere where he conducts his life—where he lives out and discharges his responsibilities as an apostle—is this world. Yet even so, he insists, the weapons of his apostleship are not “of the world.”
More importantly, Paul continues to use the word “flesh” or “fleshly” (see above). Paul conducts his life, literally, “in the flesh”; but he does not wage war according to the flesh, for the weapons of his warfare are not fleshly. We have already seen (2 Cor. 10:2) that “flesh” can mean different things in Paul’s usage: on the one hand, Paul can say Christians are no longer “in the flesh” (Rom. 8:9 RSV), meaning that they no longer live by the biases of fallen, self-centered, and sinful human nature; and on the other hand, he admits he lives “in the flesh” (Gal. 2:20 RSV), meaning that he lives in his body, in the physical world. Meanwhile, his opponents, as we have seen, have accused him of conducting his life according to the flesh (2 Cor. 10:2), meaning that he falls short of the high, spiritual standards they claim for themselves. Thus, we have found three principle meanings for “flesh” so far:
The question is, What does Paul mean by his use of the term in its two occurrences in 10:3?
At one level, the question is easy to answer. In the first part of verse 3, Paul concedes that he conducts his life in the flesh, adopting meaning number 2. In the second part of verse 3, and the first part of verse 4, Paul insists he does not wage war according to the flesh—doubtless denying simultaneously any association with “flesh” according to meanings 1 and 3.
Yet at a deeper level, Paul’s answer turns on a profound grasp of eschatology, and introduces us to much that he will say to the Corinthians in the ensuing chapters. The New Testament writers, and not least Paul, understand that Jesus Christ, by his death, resurrection, ascension, and exaltation to the right hand of the majesty on high, has already introduced the messianic kingdom long promised by the prophets and expected by the spiritually discerning among God’s people. God has already rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves (Col. 1:13). At the same time, the kingdom has not dawned in its fullness: it will not be consummated until the Lord Jesus returns, when the whole creation will be renewed (Rom. 8:19–21). In one sense, therefore, the church lives in a remarkable tension between what is “already” and what is “not yet”: Christians already enjoy something of the kingdom’s benefits—acquittal before God, possession of eternal life, the presence of the Holy Spirit as the down payment of the final inheritance, the forgiveness of their sins, deep fellowship with other children of God, assurance that their risen Savior and Lord is already reigning with all of his Father’s authority; yet Christians do not yet enjoy all the blessings that will one day be theirs—the abolition of death, the utter destruction of the power of sin, possession of resurrection bodies, free scope in a new heaven and a new earth, untarnished worship of the triune God, the bliss of undiluted love and unblemished holiness, the perfection of fellowship. Thus, New Testament eschatology is not a restricted focus on the last things but includes the wonderful news that the last things have in certain respects already arrived. New Testament eschatology deals alternately with what is yet to come and with what has shatteringly, unexpectedly, magnificently arrived. In other words, New Testament eschatology is simultaneously futuristic and realized.
Failure to keep the balance breeds not only theological error but also moral and lifestyle problems of considerable severity. Overemphasis on the futuristic aspects of eschatology, e.g., at the expense of the realized aspects, may foster unhealthy speculation regarding what God has not revealed, date-setting as to when Christ will return, a denial of the graces and benefits we have already received, and a depreciation of the importance of living together as Christians who constitute a kind of outpost of the new heaven and new earth. The opposite imbalance may prompt us to neglect the promises the Bible gives us regarding the future, to forget to live lives that look forward to and long for Christ’s return, and to act as if the fullness of all Christ provided by his cross-work is already our due.
Unfortunately, throughout their recorded spiritual pilgrimage, the Corinthians were prone to the second error, what some have called an overrealized eschatology. They rightly understood that the salvation Christ provides exalts poor sinners to become priests and kings; but they so emphasized these themes that they started to strut like peacocks, forgetting that until the parousia the church is also called to suffering witness (1 Cor. 4:8–13). The Corinthians were inclined to stress their freedom in Christ (chap. 8); but they overlooked the fact that perfect freedom is possible only where there is perfect goodness—and the church has not yet reached that point. Freedom must therefore be expressed—and curbed!—by loving self-denial; but of this, the Corinthians had learned little. They were avid followers of spiritual gifts, and especially cherished those spiritual gifts that fed inflated egos (chaps. 12, 14). Extravagant displays in their view prove how spiritual a person is, how much he has appropriated of all the blessings Jesus Christ has already provided. This pathetic spiritual one-upmanship was doubtless part of the cause of the party spirit that wracked the church (1:12); for somehow they had never learned to follow “the most excellent way” (12:3b–13:13), the way of self-giving love best exemplified in Jesus’s earthly mission. In short, the Corinthians were quick to seize every emphasis in Christianity that spoke (or seemed to speak) of spiritual power, of exaltation with Christ, of freedom, of triumph, of victorious Christian living, of leadership, of religious success; but they neglected or suppressed those accents in Christianity that stressed meekness, servanthood, obedience, humility, and the need to follow Christ in his suffering if one is to follow him in his crown. They glimpsed what Christ had done, yet failed to contemplate what remains to be done; they understood that D-day had arrived, but mistook it for V-day. They loved Christian triumphalism, but they did not know how to live under the sign of the cross.
In this light, Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 10:3 takes on new depths. Paul does not merely concede but actually insists that he lives in the world, that he conducts his life in the flesh; for the Corinthians were disposed to think of themselves as so spiritual that fleshly or worldly matters were of little concern to them. Apparently the intruders told many stories of their ecstatic and visionary experiences, and by this means greatly enhanced their credibility (see 12:1–10); but if Paul in one remarkable vision does not know whether he is in the body or out of the body (12:2–3), he is quite certain that his normal sphere of operation is in the body, in the flesh, in the world. He may on occasion have deep desires to depart this world, quit the body and be with Christ (Phil. 1:21–23); but he understands that remaining in this world and in the body is what enables him to be so fruitful a servant of the churches (1:24). At the same time, Paul insists with no less vehemence that, however much he may live in the world, his weapons are not of the world. If Paul is right on this point, then not only are his detractors wrong, but even their ability to distinguish spiritual realities is called into question. They judge Paul’s weapons to be worldly, and he claims the opposite: the division between Paul and the intruders is not only clear-cut but fundamental.
It thus becomes obvious that Paul does not see the issues before him as nothing more than a personality conflict, an unpleasant and dirty little power grab. The orientation of the triumphalists’ entire value system is inverted: they claim to be spiritual in precisely those areas where Paul claims he is in the world, and they accuse Paul of being worldly in precisely those areas where Paul insists his weapons are spiritual! This entails a disturbingly distorted eschatology: the intruders foster an over-realized eschatology when they overlook the elementary truth that Christians still conduct their lives in the world. Yet when it comes to genuine spiritual discernment, the intruders show themselves to be virtually bankrupt as they assess Paul’s gifts by the fleeting standards of contemporary rhetoric or seek to establish a preacher’s credentials by the size of his following or the wealth in his wallet.
We may marvel that professing Christians—leaders, at that—can be so deeply wrong, so profoundly misguided. But before we think of modern parallels, and reflect on how to apply Paul’s defense to our own day, perhaps we should first take note of his counterclaim.
D. Paul’s Specifications of the Nature and Purpose of His Weapons (10:4b–5)
Not only does 2 Corinthians 10:4a reiterate and reinforce verse 3, it also prepares for Paul’s positive claim: accusations to the contrary, Paul’s weapons “have divine power to demolish strongholds.” By this short sentence Paul makes two crucial statements. He specifies the nature of his weapons, and he stipulates their purpose. Verse 5 is further elaboration of these points.
Paul’s weapons “have divine power.” The Greek is slightly ambiguous, but the main point is clear: Paul’s weapons are powerful because they are related to God. Far from being fleshly or of the world, they are spiritual, and therefore they have power (Lietzmann).
The contrast Paul is drawing must not be overlooked. He is not comparing, say, tanks, rifles, and missiles with prayer, fasting, and preaching. The fleshly or worldly side of the contrast depends on the interpretation of 2 Corinthians 10:3–4a: worldly weapons in this context are the kinds of tools of the trade relished by the intruders: human ingenuity, rhetoric, showmanship, a certain splashiness and forwardness in spiritual pretensions, charm, powerful personal charisma. Such weapons they will not find in Paul’s arsenal. So they think him inferior; but Paul responds by openly disavowing such weapons. He would not want to defend himself on that score, for his weapons are of an entirely different sort. They are spiritual weapons, and they are divinely powerful (or powerful in God’s perspective or for his service).
But what can Paul’s weapons do? If we agree they are powerful, how is their power manifest? That brings us to the second element in Paul’s statement. His weapons, he claims, have power “to demolish strongholds.” Paul’s symbolism calls to mind a classic form of warfare in the ancient world. A prosperous city would not only build a stout wall for its security, but somewhere inside the wall it might also build a stronghold—i.e., a massively fortified tower that could be defended by relatively few soldiers. Even if the walls of the city were breached by the enemy, the defending forces could retreat to the stronghold and make a final defense there. Once the stronghold was taken, the battle was over. Extolling wisdom, Proverbs 21:22 reads, “A wise man attacks the city of the mighty and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust.” Using just such language, Paul claims his weapons have divine power “to demolish strongholds.”
What does this mean in nonmetaphorical language? Paul unpacks his metaphor in the next sentence. He continues the theme of demolition, but changes the object: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.” The word translated “arguments” might be rendered “thoughts” or “plans.” It is cognate with a term Paul uses elsewhere with a very similar meaning. For instance, Paul describes the progressive deterioration of the human race when he says that although people once knew God, “they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom. 1:21). “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile” (1 Cor. 3:20). Again, Paul tells believers to “do everything without complaining or arguing” (Phil. 2:14, emphasis added). When he tells us that his weapons demolish arguments, therefore, he does not simply mean that he can out-debate any opponent and drive him shamefaced from the stage. He means something far more: his weapons destroy the way people think, demolish their sinful thought patterns, the mental structures by which they live their lives in rebellion against God. In his own words, his spiritual weapons tear down “every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (v. 5).
What Paul has in mind is related to the very fountainhead of sin in our lives. “Every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” embraces every arrogant claim, every haughty thought, every proud act that forms a barrier to the knowledge of the living God. We were created dependent creatures; the heart of sin is rebellion against God, a pervasive attitude that wants above all to be independent of God. This willful drive for independence is the root of sin, the core evil that rightly attracts the wrath of God. We do “not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God” (Rom. 1:28; cf. vv. 18–32). Instead we erect pretensions to shut out the knowledge of God. We claim intellectual doubt, we appeal to the arguments of sophistry and skepticism, we display a supercilious and condescending cynicism; or we merely remain aloof and distant, claiming an intellectual independence that loves to debate theology without ever bending the knee in adoring worship. But we have not adequately weighed the catastrophic entailment. Because we had shielded ourselves from the knowledge of God, God has given us over to a depraved mind. Emptied of the knowledge of God, we become filled not only with ourselves but “with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.” We become “full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.” We degenerate until we are “gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful.” We “invent ways of doing evil,” disobey our parents, and become “senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” Worse, although we know “God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,” we “not only continue to do those very things but also approve those who practice them” (Rom. 1:28–32).
This is why “every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” is so desperately serious, and deeply tied in to the fountainhead of sin in our lives. We cannot know God from a position of arrogance and cynicism; for not only are such attitudes fundamentally antithetical to our creaturely dependence, they are also foundationally opposed to the only knowledge of God open to poor sinners, viz., Jesus Christ crucified.
That is the heart of the issue; and it is something Paul had. “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:21–23, emphasis added). On the whole, Jews expected a triumphant Messiah who would scatter the forces of Rome and establish afresh the independence and supremacy of Israel. A Messiah who had to die the ignominious death of a shamed criminal could scarcely be thought powerful enough to take on Rome or worthy enough to be followed. Even the accounts of his resurrection could not wipe out the stigma of his self-abasement: so Christ crucified was a stumbling block. But Gentiles by and large adhered to patterns of religion that advocated self-improvement in various ways. Salvation gained by another’s death was strange, even foolish; one might almost question whether such a putative savior could be of any value if he so lacked integrity and skill that he died an ignoble death.
Paul might have gone on with his illustration, for the notion of Christ crucified is foundationally offensive. The Buddhist believes he can purify himself; the Hindu anticipates countless cycles of reincarnation as he plods upward toward Nirvana; the Muslim insists that God is so powerful he may simply forgive without reference to any atoning sacrifice; the religiously superstitious may treat a crucifix as if it were a talisman, a magical trinket to ward off misfortune and disaster; the religiously sophisticated may busily debate theories of the atonement and the nature of the resurrection body, but exhibit little trust in Messiah and his cross-work. To one and all, Christ crucified may still be a stumbling block or foolishness; “but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24).
The problem Paul confronts now stands out starkly. By God’s design at creation, we are dependent beings whose purpose is to know and worship and trust God, and the root of our sin is rebellion against that wise design. By God’s plan of redemption, there is hope of forgiveness and life only to those who bow at the cross and receive forgiveness of sin and the person of the Spirit as free gifts of grace. By contrast, triumphalists, self-sufficient types, unbroken people who would not or could not think of bending the knee, dismiss this saving plan as religious camp or blatant nonsense. The problem is one: human pride, unwilling to learn or repent, rushes to erect new pretensions against the knowledge of God, new arguments from an artificial position of intellectual strength to dismiss “mere Christianity” or to write it off as “the opiate of the people.” Worse, these inglorious pretensions often adopt the language and ritual of biblical Christianity and systematically strip away its power by investing it with new meaning, until ultimately another Jesus is being preached (cf. 2 Cor. 11:4).
Such arguments and pretensions as these are what Paul’s spiritual weaponry has the power to demolish. Now Paul expands the language of warfare: his weapons not only demolish these mental strongholds, they are powerful enough to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). The picture is of a military expedition into enemy territory, an expedition so effective that every plan of the enemy is thwarted, every scheme foiled, every counteroffensive beaten. More: these designs and schemes of sinful men are captured by Christ and brought under a new authority. The idea in this verse is not simply that Christ so takes hold of people that they think holy thoughts (though that is true: cf. Phil 4:8), but that their mental structures, their plans and schemes, are taken over and transformed as they come into a new allegiance. Using his spiritual weapons Paul takes captive every scheme (as the same word is translated in 2:11), every mind (as it is rendered in 2 Cor. 11:13), and makes it obedient to Christ.
Paul’s point in making this extraordinary statement appears to be threefold. First, it highlights the nature of the conflict. If the Christian’s weapons are essentially spiritual, so also is the conflict—a point Paul makes elsewhere when he writes that our struggle is not against “flesh and blood” (i.e., mortal man) but against a vast array of spiritual enemies (Eph. 6:12). Second, Paul is insisting that his weapons are producing results. The astonishing thing about Paul’s preaching of the gospel in the first century is that although his message was a stumbling block to Jews and nonsense to Gentiles, both Jews and Gentiles were being converted. The gospel may be a scandal to some and folly to others, but it is powerful enough to capture representatives of this proud and unregenerate race. Many who cherish their “freedom” and dismiss the crucified Christ with scorn come in time to embrace his lordship, cherish his cross, abandon self-promotion, and exchange it for self-denial and obedience.
There is a third point, made clear by the context. Since Paul is setting his spiritual and powerful weapons over against the claims to leadership advanced by the intruders, he is not only clarifying the nature and purpose of his own weapons, but he is implicitly exposing the nature and futility of theirs for the conflict at hand. True, their arguments, rhetoric, boasts, methods, claims to ecstatic experience, and the like may win a following, sweep a church, win a certain fame; but can they transform people? Paul’s weapons have divine power to demolish the convictions and pretensions of those who set themselves and their self-declared “autonomous” reason against the truth of God, and to capture the minds and opinions of these onetime rebels: can the false apostles claim the same thing for their weapons? Indeed, Paul almost hints that their weapons are not only powerless for the task at hand, but that they actually constitute part of the problem, part of the rebellious mental world of sinful man, who wants to be the self-sufficient center of the universe instead of bowing to God and his true revelation. The intruders may be good at seducing a church and introducing another gospel; but are they any good at breaking down arrogant human beings and bringing them to the refuge of the cross? That this is included in Paul’s protest is confirmed a few verses later when, as we shall see, he points out that his proclamation of the gospel did extend with success, as far as Corinth (2 Cor. 10:13–15a)—which is why the Corinthians themselves are Christians! What similar credentials can the intruders advance?
What are Paul’s spiritual weapons, these weapons with such magnificent power? We could deduce most of them from these chapters; but Paul himself provides a convenient list in Ephesians 6:13–18, where he exhorts believers to “put on the full armor of God.” Using the extended metaphor of the equipment worn and carried by a common Roman foot soldier, Paul lists the essential elements of the Christian’s weaponry: the truth of the gospel, righteousness, readiness and boldness born of a deep grasp of the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, itself, the Word of God, and vigilant prayer.
These are Paul’s powerful weapons! Not one depends on gimmickry, still less on proud human pretensions. True, Paul is prepared to use all legitimate means to save some (1 Cor. 9:22), just as today we may legitimately use computers, television, and printing presses. But ultimately Paul’s understanding of the nature of his effective, spiritual weaponry (as opposed to a few external means) holds true for our day as it did for his.
We are now better situated to think more closely about how this text speaks to contemporary evangelicalism, especially Western evangelicalism. At the risk of considerable oversimplification, we may divide that evangelicalism into two groups. Group One is relatively placid. It goes through the accepted motions, is basically faithful (esp. in formal matters), but knows little of the power of the gospel. Group Two is aggressive, active, triumphalistic. Not a little of the American can-do mentality is mixed in with it. It gains a substantial hearing, expects to see victory and joy in its followers, and harnesses enormous energy and many skills to the task of promoting its understanding of the gospel.
This is quite clearly a caricature. There are many Christians who fit neither group. Nevertheless the model embraces large blocks of Western Christianity, and it is worth pausing to ask what impact the text ought to make on such groups.
In its most virulent forms, Group Two suffers from an overrealized eschatology—just as the Corinthians did. Group Two Christians so magnify the many promises of God for health, prosperity, and victory that they reflect little on what the Bible also says about suffering, persecution, steadfastness in defeat, and death. Deeply, if unwittingly, influenced by the materialism around us and by the American ideal of the classic success story, they transfer such models into the church; and, ignorant of both church history and the balance of Scripture, they lay themselves open to teachers whose grasp of the biblical gospel is badly skewed. I shall say more about these things later and provide more concrete examples; but already, even from the verses at hand (esp. 2 Cor. 10:3–5), it is important to call attention to such tragic features as self-promotion in Christian leadership, and to a profound dependence on psychological manipulation, mass circulation of glib how-to formulas for instant spiritual maturity and material prosperity, and a frank appeal to endless self-interest, that such features as principial daily death to self-interest (= taking up one’s cross and following the Lord Jesus Christ), maturity stimulated by suffering (= God’s grace is made perfect in weakness), and the abolition of doubtful, manipulative techniques (= rejection of a style of proclamation that is nothing more than wise and persuasive words, 1 Cor. 2:4) and ignored or buried in the deluge of success stories.
Meanwhile, Group One avoids the triumphalism of Group Two and sometimes criticizes Group Two; but instead of wielding Paul’s powerful, divine weapons, the members of this camp go through formal motions of religion, adhere to orthodox confessions, expect little of real blessing or joy in the Lord, and experience even less of the same.
The result is that both Group One and Group Two, if for very different reasons, shy away from the weapons Paul recommends, and to the extent that we belong to either group, we discover as a result, if we are honest in our self-criticism, that our weapons lack divine power to demolish the strongholds that interest Paul. Why is there a rising number of “evangelicals” without a corresponding swell of God-centered worship, repentance, unfeigned faith, humility, righteousness? Of course, there are many exceptions, many individual Christians who have truly been transformed by the grace of God; but their numbers fall so far short of those who think of themselves as evangelical Christians that we must ask if some forms of evangelicalism are falling progressively out of step with the Scriptures on such points as these.
I shall cast the matter in a more positive light. One of the things we badly need in Western Christianity is a return to the balance of Paul. On the one hand, we must recognize we live in a world: some eschatological blessings will ordinarily be withheld from us until the consummation. At the same time, although the weapons for spiritual warfare God has given us are divinely powerful, they are bound up with the very nature of this “foolish” gospel we proclaim. Argue a skeptic into a corner, and you will not take his mind captive for Christ, but pray for him, proclaim the gospel to him, live out the gospel of peace, walk righteously by faith until he senses your ultimate allegiance and citizenship are vastly different from his own, and you may discover that the power of truth, the convicting and regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, and the glories of Christ Jesus shatter his reasons and demolish his arguments until you take captive his mind and heart to make them obedient to Christ. The result will be a life transformed. Gone will be the principial egocentricity, the self-proclaimed independence. Replacing it will be a cheerful and devoted submission to the lordship of Christ. Only the weapons Paul advocates are sufficient to accomplish so stupendous a task. In the spiritual arena a successful campaign can be fought only when worldly weapons are self-consciously abandoned, and all our reliance is firmly set on the spiritual weapons, which alone have divine power to demolish the strongholds where rebel minds cling to idolatrous, God-rejecting self-sufficiency and manufacture new forms of entrenched evil. Paul sounds a call to return to biblical basics.
E. Paul’s Promise to Discipline against the Troublemakers—A Promise Predicated on the Obedient Church (10:6)
Paul’s appeal (2 Cor. 10:2) comes full circle. He has begged the church to take the kind of action necessary to silence the “some people” who have been accusing him of worldliness; and now he affirms his own willingness “to punish every act of disobedience” once the church has taken its preliminary step of obedience.
This verse is often misunderstood. Some have taken it to mean that once the Corinthians have repented and turned in obedience to Paul and his doctrine, he will then descend on them with punishment for their past acts of disobedience. This is not very realistic. For a start, such an interpretation makes Paul’s promise of punishment a disincentive to repentance: he will chastise them as soon as they toe the line! Moreover, it leaves Paul in the perilous position of presenting himself yet again as weak and unimpressive in person: he cannot even exercise a little discipline until the Corinthians have already straightened out their own course.
What Paul is really saying is that he will be ready to punish every act of disobedience by the interlopers and by any who persist in following them, once the church as a whole has brought its own obedience to perfection by exercising the kind of discipline hitherto conspicuous by its absence.
This does not mean Paul is afraid to act unilaterally, or is powerless to do so. Indeed, later on he uses very strong language to describe his personal readiness to discipline the entire church (2 Cor. 13:1–3, 10); but here his appeal is for obedient faith by the church, so that his special apostolic sanctions (the nature of which I shall discuss later) will have to be applied only to a small minority, and in conjunction with the church’s discipline. In short, he is writing to see if the Corinthians “would stand the test and be obedient in everything” (2:9), not only because his severity is a weapon of last resort, but also to give every possible opportunity for the Corinthians to take responsible steps themselves. That is the burden of Paul’s appeal, as it was in an earlier disciplinary matter (cf. 1 Cor. 5:1–10). This accurately reflects the high value Paul places on disciplinary action taken by the church as a whole, for not only will such corporate action breed corporate maturity, but also this is the only kind of ecclesiastical action with genuine potency. Only if the body as a whole makes the offenders feel the sting of reproach and the shame of loving but firm ostracism will the step prove effective. Paul therefore begs (2 Cor. 10:2) the Corinthian believers to take these hard decisions and assures the church that in the wake of their obedience he himself will add apostolic punishment to continuing offenders who trouble the church by maligning not only the apostle but his gospel.
What Paul appeals for is obedient faith. The Corinthians now face a clear-cut choice, presented by an apostle who makes his begging appeal by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Either they will continue in disobedience, or they will exercise church discipline. Full-orbed obedient faith is not purely private and pietistic; it entails the responsibilities of corporate discipline. The church that forgets or neglects this lesson will sooner or later become much more of a “mixed company” than it has any right to be. Its self-proclaimed breadth and sophistication may be nothing more than an indicator of its disobedience.
Greek dynata tō theō could be understood in one of four ways: (1) instrumental dative: Paul’s weapons are “made powerful by God”; (2) Hebraism: Paul’s weapons are “divinely powerful” or “supernaturally powerful”; (3) dative of respect: Paul’s weapons are “powerful in God’s perspective”; (4) dative of advantage: Paul’s weapons are “powerful for God,” i.e., for God’s service. The first two options are conceptually very close, and NIV presupposes one or the other. But all four options in some way relate the weapons and their power to God.
In Paul’s extended metaphor of Ephesians 6:14–17, it is important to recognize that the genitives are epexegetical. Just as in the expression “the city of Jerusalem,” the city is Jerusalem, so also in the expression “the breastplate of righteousness,” the breastplate is righteousness.