2 Corinthians 11:17-23 – Choose Your Mentors Carefully

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 21 June 2026
Underlined words in Scripture quotes indicate words that are in common with the Greek text of the sermon passage. Otherwise, underlining indicates words to emphasize when reading this transcript out loud. Omitting greyed-out text should reduce read-aloud time to about 40 minutes.

Introduction

• I was talking with somebody recently who said they were going to leave their church. When I asked what had influenced them in this direction, they said that they were listening to teaching from a person who had left ministry as a church pastor to start an internet-based teaching ministry. That set off alarm bells in my head. I left internet-based ministry to pastor a church because I wanted real community – real discipleship in-person over the long haul, the kind of ministry that depends upon the power of God to change lives rather than upon the power of technology as its fulcrum, and the kind of ministry that involves the strength of personal relationships in real life rather than the fleeting popularity of who can be the most-compelling speaker. I’m purposefully being vague as to who this is because the point is not to guess who I’m talking about but rather to recognize how close this issue hits to home. In our country there is a glut of Christian teachers making their teaching available to us through books, podcasts, videos, Bible studies, churches, conferences, and so on. We all need good teaching, but how do you choose who to listen to and who not to listen to?

• As we’ve already seen in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, there were teachers who had made their way into Corinth who were competing with Paul for the attention of the church and whose message was contradictory to Paul’s. In this passage, Paul gives us some guidelines as to how to decide who to listen to. Notice that Paul does not give the Corinthians a blacklist of the names of contemporary false teachers, rather, what Paul does is equip the church to recognize principially what makes for a good teacher versus a bad teacher. Let’s learn from what Paul does here.

• Read my translation of the passage, starting at v.17:
  I’m not saying the thing I’m saying in accordance with the Lord, but rather as in silliness – in this confidence of bragging. Since many are bragging in accordance with flesh, I myself will also brag! For y’all, smart as you are, gladly put up with those who are silly. Y’all are even putting up with it when someone enslaves you, when someone is voracious, when someone is on-the-take, when someone is self-promoting, when someone punches you in the face! I speak in accordance with dishonor, as though we ourselves were weak, but in what ever someone might venture (In silliness I speak!), I am also venturing. Are they Hebrews? I am also! Are they Israelites? I am also! Are they Abraham’s descendants? I am also! Are they servants of the Anointed One? (I am speaking insanely!) I am moreso. In labors abund­antly, in wounds exceedingly, in imprisonments abundantly, [and] in mortal-dangers often.

vs.17-18 What is their Confidence of Boasting?

• Based on verses 17-18, I think we can say that Paul’s review of his accomplishments later on in this chapter was his own words and not a message given directly from God to the Corinth­ians. This is a personal message from Paul.¹ Other commentators suggest that this has nothing to do with inspiration and merely indicates that Paul realizes that the example of Jesus’ life doesn’t encourage us to brag about things.²

• We find the same phrase from the end of this verse in the majority of Greek manuscripts of 2 Corinthians 9:4 “Otherwise, if Macedonians happen to come with me and find y'all unpre­pared, we ourselves might be shamed, so that we might not say that y'all were [prepared] in this confidence [of boasting].” (NAW, cf. v.21)

• Paul has “bragged” about the goodness of what God has done in the lives of believers in the churches he has worked with, and he is going to brag about the goodness of what God has done in his own life, but his boasting was only to encourage the church in good and healthy directions, not to boost his ego or to lead them away from Christ. This is because His “confi­dence” is not in the greatness or goodness of human beings (or “flesh” as he puts it in v.18), but in the greatness and goodness of God at work among human beings.

  • 2 Corinthians 5:16 “Therefore, as for us, from now on, we recognize no one according to flesh...” (NAW)

  • Philippians 3:3-4 “For we... worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence³ in the flesh…” (NKJV)

  • 2 Cor. 1:9 “However, as for us we have had the death-sentence in ourselves in order that we might not rely upon ourselves, but rather upon God: the One who raises the dead…” (NAW)

• Unlike Paul, the false teachers who came in after him “boasted in the flesh,” drawing the attention of the church away from Christ and His goodness and onto themselves to focus on how great they were.

• 20^th century commentator Phillip Hughes noted, “Paul... at least has a right to expect that, since they have given a welcome to those foolish boasters who have invaded his territory in Corinth, they will receive him also as he engages in the foolishness of boasting for a short while. He is not asking of them any favour which they have not already accorded to the intruding false apostles.”

v.19 Foolishness is Dangerous

• It is typical of foolish pride to adopt a self-confident attitude in the face of danger. The Corinthians seem to have felt that they had such great maturity that they didn’t feel threat­ened by sin or false teachers. “We can handle it,” they would say.

• Paul has referred to this problem sarcastically before:

• 1 Corinthians 4:10 “We are stupid on account of Christ, but y'all are smart in Christ⁴. We are weak, but y'all are strong. Y'all are illustrious, but we are dishonored.” (NAW)

• 1 Corinthians 5:1-2 “Immorality is totally being heard-of among y'all – and such immorality as is not even among the nations – such as a man to have his father's wife! And y'all? Y'all are puffed up...” (NAW)

• 2 Corinthians 11:4 “[W]hen the [new]comer preaches about another Jesus (about whom we did not preach), or [when] y'all accept a different spirit which y'all had not accepted [before] – or a different gospel which y'all had not received [before], y'all have been putting up [with it] nicely.” (NAW, cf. v.1)

• And yet it resulted in them being exposed to bad ideas that led them away from their rela­tionship with Jesus Christ, away from their relationship with their pastor, Paul, and into bad life choices and influence from spiritual abusers.

v.20 Don’t Put Up With Abuse

• The Greek particle “if” in verse 20, combined with present-tense verbs indicates situations that were actually happening.

• To someone from a healthy home life, a healthy church, and a healthy relationship with Jesus, it may seem puzzling that a person could get to the point of “putting up with” abusive treatment, but it is all-too-common.

• Paul said in v.20, “You put up with it when someone/anyone/a man brings you into bondage/slavery...”

  • Why would anyone put up with that? Often because they are offered more freedom in order to lure them into slavery.

  • Satan told Eve: “Why should you put up with having to do everything that God tells you to do all the time? Go ahead and eat the forbidden fruit! Exercise your freedom to do what you want! As soon as you eat it, “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…” (Gen. 3:5, NKJV) Satan lured Eve and Adam into slavery to sin by promising them more freedom.

  • Human traffickers lure children away from their homes into slavery by promising them freedom from their parents’ authority and freedom to eat whatever food they want.

  • Paul wrote at length of this principle in his Epistle to the Galatians, as Judaizers were trying to convert Christians into the spiritual bondage of earning favor with God through obeying all the man-made rules of Judaism. They tried to lure Christians into this bondage through the promise of freedom from persecution and the opportunity to make more money and have more things (which Paul calls “weak and beggarly” elements compared to the eternal glories of heaven).

    • Galatians 4:3 “[W]e, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world… 9 “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?” (NKJV)

    • Galatians 2:4 “...false brethren [were] secretly brought in... to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage...” (NKJV)

    • Galatians 5:1 “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” (NKJV)

  • There can be no real freedom apart from submitting to Jesus and dying to ourselves and to this world so that sin and evil no longer have any more control over us. The promise of autonomous freedom to do whatever you want is a pernicious falsehood. You are are either a slave of the Devil or a slave of God. There is no other option. But Jesus said, “Take My yoke upon you” (Matt. 11:29) and, “if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36, NKJV) That’s real freedom!

• Paul adds in v.20, “You put up with it… when someone is voracious/exploits/devours you [and] when someone is on-the-take/takes advantage of you...”

• In Matthew 23:14, Jesus used some of the same words to describe the Jewish “scribes and Pharisees... who eat up the houses of the widows, while pretending to pray for a long [time]...” (NAW)

• Taking into account both the legendary hospitality standards of Middle Easterners, as well as the robust standards in the Mosaic law for supporting priests and Levites through donations, it’s easy to see how disingenuous men could could “game the system,” by making people feel religiously obligated to make donations to them and making them feel socially obligated to share food and hospitality with them.

• I remember one famous Christian leader (who is now disgraced), who used to get his donors to upgrade their giving to him by telling them that they should “give only their very best” to God (in other words, to this man’s program).

• The contemporary stereotype of the filthy-rich televangelist who makes himself cry real tears during a broadcast in order to manipulate widows into donating family fortunes to him is nothing new.

• And, of course, the levels of exploitation can get much deeper and darker than just financial greed. Paul warned Timothy about men in Ephesus “having a form of godliness but denying its power... who creep into households and make captives⁵ of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts…” (2 Tim. 3:5-6, NKJV)

• Why would they put up with that? Because they don’t understand the Gospel or the wisdom of God. People who buy into man-centered religion are more-easily manipulated by greedy religious impostors because they believe that it’s the most-pious men who get to make the rules for religion, and they also believe that it is their good works which are the basis of their standing with God. So if religious leaders tell them they need to give more in order to make God happy, they will give more, even if is unwise.

• Believing in Jesus frees us from this trap by recognizing that Jesus’ perfect life and sacrificial death perfectly satisfied God on our behalf, so giving more or less doesn’t make God more or less inclined to love us, and furthermore, Jesus gave us the Bible, which is full of wisdom about relationships and giving, and we are free to follow His word (according to our con­science guided by the Holy Spirit) rather than the demands of any human religious leader.

• Paul goes on to say, “You put up with it when... someone is self-promoting/exalts himself/pushes himself forward/puts on airs...”

• The Greek word here is ἐπαίρεται, which means literally to “go up on top of.”

• This is one of several instances in the Bible where it denotes sinful behavior. Other instances are:

  • John 13:18 speaking of Judas, “...He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me.” (NKJV)

  • and Acts 22:22 speaking of the Jews in the temple who were at first listening to Paul, “...and then they raised their voices and said, ‘Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live!’” (NKJV)

  • This is describing an act of antagonism, whether it’s “lifting up their heel” to insult and kick an enemy, or “lifting up their voice” to shout down an enemy and condemn him to death, or “lifting up themselves” to lord it over an enemy.

• Often in ministry, this is done in sly ways that don’t look antagonistic.

  • As I understand it, social media influencers can pay companies to elevate their priority in the computer algorithms so that they appear on more social media feeds than others. You don’t see what they’re doing to promote themselves; all you see is that they appear in your media feed and others don’t. The result is often that what you see is not those who are most deserving of your attention, but those who have worked hardest to promote themselves.

  • Even in face-to-face interactions, it is usually the least-wise, most self-centered and proud persons who demand attention and volunteer for important positions and eagerly seek influence. Their vices and immaturity are hidden under a veneer of holy-talk.

• People who are oriented toward man instead of God see all that zeal and ambition and say, “Wow, he or she is really impressive! They’re so exciting to listen to! They’re going to change the world! That’s who I’m supporting!”

• But, once again, following Jesus keeps us from falling into that trap. Jesus said that it’s not ambition but rather a heart that is humble before Him and looking to be a servant to others that qualifies a man for spiritual leadership: Matthew 20:25-28 “...the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and the great ones exercise authority down over them. It will not be so among y'all, but rather, whoever among y'all wants to become great will be your servant, and whoever among y'all wants to be first will be your slave. In this way the Son of Man did not come in order to be served, but rather in order to serve...” (NAW)

• Paul lived out Jesus’ teaching and wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:24 “...we are not being domineering⁶ over y'all's faith, but rather we are co-workers of your joy, for it is by faith that y'all have been standing.” (NAW)

• In the last phrase of v.20, Paul says, “and You put up with it … when someone smites/ strikes/hits/slaps you in the face!”

  • Although Paul may be using figurative language for very insulting behavior, we know from the Gospels and Acts that there were several times when Jewish authorities literally did strike Christians on the face:

    • John 18:22 “...one of the officers who stood by [at Jesus’ trial] struck⁷ Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, ‘Do You answer the high priest like that?’” (NKJV)

    • Then after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Jewish religious leaders arrested Peter and the other apostles for preaching about Jesus, “...and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.” (Acts 5:40, NKJV)

    • And Paul confessed in Acts 22:19 that, before his conversion, he also had “...beat those who believe…,” but now after his conversion he was the one getting “beaten up⁸” (1 Cor. 4:11).

  • But physical beatings don’t always come from persecution from other religions. I’ve discovered self-professed Christians who engaged in this kind of abusive behavior against other Christians. The most-memorable case was an acquaintance who set up a missionary training project with Wheaton College students around the year 2000. These students later testified that, among other forms of abuse, he had made them take turns tying each other to chairs and hitting each other while he coached them to strike as hard as they could because it would make them better Christians.

  • Again, it’s hard for someone in a healthy community to understand why anyone would put up with this.

    • Many victims are manipulated into so much dependence upon the abuser that they feel like they have no better choice than to keep tolerating the abuse,

    • but, judging from the various cases of physical abuse I have observed, I think there is often an element of pride. In the case of that abusive missionary training program, the trainees were led to believe that they were part of an elite group of super-Christians who would be able to do above-average exploits for God in missions, so they were willing to go to unhealthy extremes in their training to stroke their pride in being a special, elite ministry team. That is typical of pride. Other times, the pride is placed, not in self but in the abusive leader. “He is so smart; He knows his Bible better than anyone; He is so radically devoted to God; He is so successful and leads such an amazingly-well-organ­ized life,” they say, “We’re just lucky to be around him and amazed that he lets us serve him, so when he has one of his ‘bad moods,’ we just put up with it.” That’s also a sort of man-centered pride that moves people away from Jesus.

  • Another common reason people will put up with physical abuse from spiritual leaders is because they believe that hurting themselves will help pay for their sins. But that is a complete misunderstanding of the Gospel! Jesus already suffered on the cross all that was necessary to atone for all of your sins. It is only through trusting Him to make you right with God that your sins are forgiven – yes, even forgotten – by God!

    • Psalm 103:10-12 “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (NKJV)

    • Isaiah 43:25 “I, I am He who washes away your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” (NAW)

    • Hebrews 8:12 “For I will be gracious toward their unrighteousnesses, and I will never again remember their sins...” (NAW, cf. Jer. 31:34)

    • There is no more penance you can do to help in that process. Of course, if your sin harmed someone else, God’s word says you should more than reimburse them for the damages you caused, but the sin itself, as an offense against God, can only be paid-for by Jesus.

v.21 How do they handle Weakness, and what makes them Bold?

• The phrase in the middle of verse 21 about the apostles being “weak” gets interpreted two different ways:

  • Contemporary English versions interpret it as stating a comparison: “we were too weak by comparison for that” – “that” being “slapping people around” from verse 20. In that case, Paul would be speaking facetiously, meaning the opposite of what he actually wrote, and it also requires changing and adding words from the original Greek.

    • One of the words that gets added in a lot of the translations that interpret it this way is the word “my/our,” as though Paul were admitting that he was “dishonorable/ ashamed/reproachable,” but the original Greek doesn’t explicitly say whether it was the apostles or the Corinthians who were acting dishonorably/shamefully, and the context indicates that it was the Corinthians acting this way, not the apostles⁹.

  • I prefer the traditional interpretation of most Bibles printed before 1950, which interpreted it this way: “as though we were weak” – the Greek word “as” next to the word “that,” paired with a past-tense verb, is a Greek grammar form which can indicate that it was not a true situation.

    • Paul was no pansy. Any man who could keep on preaching after surviving as many beatings and assassination attempts as Paul did was a stronger man than most!

    • Remember that we read in the previous chapter, verse 10 that somebody was maligning him for being “weak” and his “message discredited¹⁰,” and in 2 Corinthians 6:8 he has endured “dishonor [and] being spoken ill of…,” so he had written in 2 Corinthians 10:2 “I therefore plead that, when I arrive, I not have to be courageous¹¹ with the confidence with which I'm reckoning to venture upon some who reckon us to be walking according to flesh.” (NAW)

• This is the third time in five verses that a speaking verb is combined with the Greek preposition kata:

• In v.17 Paul said he is “not speaking in accordance with the Lord,”

• in verse 18, “many are bragging in accordance with flesh,”

• and in v.21, I think Paul is saying that to speak according to the flesh and not according to the Lord is speaking “according to dishonor,” and “foolishly,” but he’s going to do it anyway because so many false apostles are being so bold as to do it.

v.22 It’s Not About Ethnicity

• After all that introduction, Paul’s first point in verse 22 is that He is every bit as Jewish as the false apostles are. He wasn’t ashamed of his heritage.

  • He wrote elsewhere in Philippians 3:5 I was “circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee...” (NKJV, cf. Rom. 11:1 & Acts 22:3)

• This implies that the false teachers were emphasizing ethnic identity as part of their religious scheme. “I’m a Jew, so I know more about God than you do.”

• The fourth-century bishop of Cyprus, Epiphanius, asserted in his encyclopedia of heresies¹² that false teachers in the first century even spread a rumor that Paul was a Gentile, because they thought that would discredit him.

• Nowadays, there are still Judaistic groups with an elitist attitude that since they know some Hebrew words and follow some Jewish traditions (such as holding their church services on Saturdays instead of Sundays), they are God’s Anointed to lead Christianity back into the Jewish customs and ceremonial laws that the Apostles led Christianity away from in the first century!

• Even more ridiculously, there are white supremacists, who think that they are superior in faith to the very Jews, Arabs, and Africans who brought the gospel to their pagan European ancestors in the first place, and who think that just because Europe and America have had a few centuries of experience with Christianity, it somehow makes Western Christians superior the rest of the world.

• But if Paul had to say explicitly in verse 22 that he was a Jew, then that means there were people in the Corinthian church who didn’t know he was a Jew, and that means he must not have made a big deal of his ethnicity during his years of ministry there. It doesn’t matter who your Great-Grandma and Grandpa were; what matters is whether you are a new creation in Christ and part of His New Testament people gathered from every nation.

• Paul wrote explicitly in Galatians 3:26-29 “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (NKJV)

• and in Galatians 6:15 “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” (NKJV, cf. 2 Cor. 5:17)

• If you are a Christian, it doesn’t matter whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, you are an heir to the same promises God gave Abraham¹³!

• But, whereas Paul’s credentials concerning Jewish identity were equal to the super-apostles, his credentials concerning how much he suffered to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ was off-the-charts compared to the minor inconveniences his detractors had experienced, and this is a key point. A leader’s track record of enduring hardship on behalf of a cause is a much more compelling credential than anything else, because people will only suffer for what they believe is really important.

v.23 Have they endured Suffering for what they Believe?

• In v.23, Paul reviews and expands on what he said back in 2 Corinthians 6:4-5, 9 “...in everything, as servants of God, recommending ourselves in much perseverance, in stresses, in forced circumstances, in restrictions, in wounds[stripes], in imprisonments, in upheavals, in labors, in night-watches, in fastings… as being punished yet not put to death…” (NAW)

• There is a false doctrine called the Prosperity Gospel that teaches that wealth and ease are the proof of God’s favor, so the goal of the Christian life is prosperity. They teach that the richer a pastor is, the more people should be following him. People really believe this. I was visiting a church in Uganda one Sunday and, after the worship service, I heard a parishioner ask the pastor in all seriousness, “So when are we going to get rich?”

• Paul turns that false doctrine on its head by saying that the proof that he is a “superior/bet­ter” minister of Christ in v.23 is that he has had to work harder (1 Cor. 15:10) and endure more whippings and imprisonments¹⁴ and death-threats¹⁵!

• He mentioned God rescuing him out of one of those “death-threats” in chapter 1 v.10,

• and in Acts 16:23, we read of Paul and Silas being flogged publicly with “many stripes” and thrown into prison in Philippi for freeing a girl from demon-possession. (That was before Paul made his way down to Corinth the first time.)

• In the next few verses we will have opportunity to consider in more detail the other hardships Paul suffered.

• But Paul considered suffering to be “par for the course” in the Christian life. He wrote later in Romans 8:16-17 “...we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” (NKJV)

• Peter warns us in his first epistle, chapter 4 verses 15-19, however, not to bring stripes and imprisonment upon ourselves by doing wrong things: “...[D]on't let any of y'all suffer for being a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or for being a snoop, but if it's for being a Christian, let him not be ashamed... [T]hose who are suffering according to the will of God must present their souls to [the] Faithful Creator by doing good.” (NAW)

• Paul sets the example of leadership with a clean reputation of staying away from evildoing, yet enduring through persecution for trusting Jesus and persevering through trials as he lived a life of service to Jesus Christ.

Summary

• Seek out spiritual leaders with the character qualities we see in Paul:

  • whose confidence is in God rather than man and who use bragging carefully to encourage God’s people in what is right.

  • who focus on the Gospel and point you toward Christ and away from sin.

  • who submits to Jesus and other legitimate authorities and who is dying to himself and who reassures you that the Son will makes you free indeed.

  • who understands that we are all one in Christ Jesus.

  • And who has stayed the course through suffering.

2 Corinthians 11:17-23 – Comparison of Textual Traditions & Versions^A