2 Corinthians 11:16-33·~2 min

Paul’s Suffering and Service

Paul asks again that no one take him for a fool, but if they do, to receive him that way so he may boast a little in response to others who boast according to the flesh. He says this is foolish talk, yet the Corinthians have tolerated people who enslave, exploit, and exalt themselves over them, and with irony he says Paul and his companions were too weak for that sort of treatment.

I¹⁶ repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then receive me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. ¹⁷In this confident boasting of mine, I am not speaking as the Lord would, but as a fool. ¹⁸Since many are boasting according to the flesh, I too will boast. ¹⁹For you gladly put up with fools, since you are so wise. ²⁰In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or exalts himself or strikes you in the face. ²¹To my shame I concede that we were too weak for that!

Paul matches the rivals in lineage only to surpass them in a very different register: harder labor, imprisonments, lashes, beatings, shipwrecks, repeated dangers, hunger, cold, and exposure. Beyond these outward things, he says, there is also the daily pressure of concern for all the churches and a deep sharing in the weakness and stumbling of others.

²²Speaking as a fool, however, I can match what anyone else dares to boast about. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. ²³Are they servants of Christ? (I am speaking as if I were out of my mind.) I am so much more: in harder labor, in more imprisonments, in worse beatings, in frequent danger of death. ²⁴Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. ²⁵Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea. ²⁶In my frequent journeys, I have been in danger from rivers and from bandits, in danger from my countrymen and from the Gentiles, in danger in the city and in the country, in danger on the sea and among false brothers, ²⁷in labor and toil and often without sleep, in hunger and thirst and often without food, in cold and exposure. ²⁸Apart from these external trials, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. ²⁹Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not burn with grief?

If boasting must continue, Paul says, he will boast in what shows his weakness. Calling God as witness, he then ends not with a triumph but with the story of escaping Damascus by being lowered in a basket through a city wall.

³⁰If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. ³¹The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is forever worthy of praise, knows that I am not lying. ³²In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas secured the city of the Damascenes in order to arrest me. ³³But I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his grasp.

Section summaryPaul goes on with the foolishness of boasting because the Corinthians have tolerated those who dominate and humiliate them while dismissing him as weak. He matches the rivals' fleshly claims only to overturn them, listing instead imprisonments, lashes, shipwrecks, dangers, hardship, and daily anxiety for the churches. The section ends with Paul deliberately boasting in weakness, closing on the memory of his humiliating escape from Damascus.

Role in the chapterThis section turns boasting inside out. Instead of using status to prove himself, Paul lets suffering, pastoral burden, and public weakness define the shape of his apostolic service.