2 Corinthians 10
2 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted
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10 For it is said, “His letters are weighty and powerful, but his physical presence is weak, and his public speaking is despicable.”
1 Now I, Paul, make a personal appeal to you by the gentleness and graciousness of Christ—I who am humble among you in person but bold toward you when absent.
Gentleness: acting in a manner that is gentle, mild, or even-tempered.
Graciousness: leniency and compassion shown toward offenders by a person or agency charged with administering justice.
I Paul, personally make an appeal to you by the gentleness and graciousness of Christ.
We need Gentleness and Graciousness appeals. This week this was not present in our culture. Gentleness and Graciousness was not key characteristic takeaways from the presidential debate. It was not present at the debate nor did I see it present on social media after the debate was over.
Paul through Christ was the founding apostle of the church at Corinth. He says I make an appeal to you through gentleness and graciousness of Christ.
The gentleness and graciousness of Christ
When I think of my own sin, Christ has dealt with me with gentleness. That is, he has been gentle, mild, and even-tempered in my sin. We see this in the Old Testament as God deals with the Israelites. He is gentle, mild, and even-tempered.
Ask yourself the question.
What would happen to you if God was not gentle towards your sin?
Christ has been gracious. That is he has been lenient and had compassion as he administered justice on my life. If Christ had not been gracious toward my sin then stamp guilty on my life and put me away. Christ came and brought justice for my sin by taking the penalty that I deserved.
Christ dealt with us in gentleness and graciousness. Our prayer is that we live out
2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
May our minds be transformed by the renewing of our minds that rather than quick tempered and judging we are Gentle and gracious.
1 Now I, Paul, make a personal appeal to you by the gentleness and graciousness of Christ—I who am humble among you in person but bold toward you when absent.
Here at the end of this verse Paul reference what some in Corinth are saying of Paul. They are saying he is humble when he is in person but when he is writing in His letters he is bold.
They are saying when he is face to face he is weak but when he writes you in his letters he is really bold. Some I am sure are using this as a reason against Paul and the Gospel ministry. They are saying he is a coward and this is not the behavior of a true apostle. He is only bold when he is away from them.
In today’s terms they was saying that Paul was nothing more than a keyboard bandit. That is he is so bold when he sits down on the computer to write something but if you face him face to face he is weak and timid.
Do any of you know someone like this? Have any of you been accused of something like this? How would it make you feel if someone said this about your character?
2 I beg you that when I am present I will not need to be bold with the confidence by which I plan to challenge certain people who think we are behaving in an unspiritual way.
Paul says I beg you through the gentleness and graciousness of Jesus that when I with you I will not need to be bold.
He desires that they believe the truth about him and reject the nay sayers. More that about him but the Gospel that he is preaching. Receive the truth and live the truth. Do this so that when I do come to you I will not need to be bold.
Paul does warn that he plans to challenge certain people who think we are behaving in an unspiritual way.
This is very interesting because he is being accused of being humble when in their presence and bold when he is away. This action is calling some to say that Paul and his companions at in an unspiritual way.
Paul is given credit for penning 13 of the New Testament letters is accused of being unspiritual because he is humble in their presence and bold in his writing.
If they questioned Paul, then what keeps others questioning you today?
Again they questioned him because he was humble when face to face and bold when away. This is not the same as being questioned for living out unbiblical characteristics and being questioned for it.
He is questioned for acting Biblically and his apostleship is placed in question.
Paul’s confidence is in living his life in a spiritual way. Be concerned about living life according to the word of God. When your life is questioned let it be the Bible that is being challenged because you have lived a live in a spiritual way.
Reminder: you can’t control what people think about you or how they react to you. You can control if your life has been lived in a spiritual way or an unspiritual way.
3 For though we live in the body, we do not wage war in an unspiritual way,
4 since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments
The false teachers that Paul is refuting were fixated on matters of the flesh. These Judaizers wanted the believers to do more than trust Jesus for salvation.
Paul being as human as anyone else, did not depend on the human but on the divine. Paul trusted the spiritual weapons provided by the Lord.
Being fully human, we do not wage war in an unspiritual way.
Jesus opposed evil without mirroring evil, modeling for us a transformative pathway of humility and love. -Subversive Jesus
verse 4
Since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly or fleshly.
10 Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength.
11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the Devil.
12 For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.
13 This is why you must take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.
14 Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest,
15 and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace.
16 In every situation take the shield of faith, and with it you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
17 Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.
4 since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments
The word warfare means “campaign”. Paul is not fighting a small skirmish in Corinth. This is attack of the enemy is part of a large satanic campaign
The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Nine: Ministerial Misunderstandings (2 Corinthians 10)
The powers of hell are still trying to destroy the work of God (Matt. 16:18), and it is important that we not yield any ground to the enemy, not even one church!
Notice the military language here. Weapons and we saw those in Ephesians 6. Now we see strongholds or walls.
Stronghold is found only here in the New Testament. It is used in a literal sense in
22 A wise person went up against a city of warriors and brought down its secure fortress.
This military picture of building strongholds or a secure fortress was used by philosophers to describe the fortification of the soul by reasonable arguments so that when under attack the argument would stand and not be able to be broken through.
Remember that Corinth was a philosophical city that was fixated upon knowledge and great arguments. They are saying that Paul is not an apostle because of his weakness and he is saying that their great “knowledge” is broken down by the power of God.
The weapons of Spiritual warfare are powerful through God. His humility, gentleness, or graciousness is powerful through God.
The problem is we often use fleshly weapons to fight spiritual battles and this will fail. It is so essential that we use the power of God to fight spiritual battles and defend against fleshly arguments.
5 and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey Christ.
2 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary a. An Earnest Entreaty (10:1–6)
The military metaphor is evident here. The arguments Paul destroys are the ‘strongholds’ in which people fortify themselves against the invasion of the knowledge of God (the gospel). The expression every proud obstacle translates pan hypsōma epairomenon (lit. ‘every high thing lifted up’), which belongs to the world of ancient warfare and denotes a tower or raised rampart. Both the stronghold of v. 4 and the tower (proud obstacle) of this verse stand for the intellectual arguments, the reasonings erected by human beings against the gospel.
He says we use the power of God to demolish or tear down the strongholds and towers of intellectual arguments that oppose the Knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is by proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that God has chosen to release his power by which these arguments will be destroyed and by which those who believe are saved.
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved.
19 For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the experts.
20 Where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish?
21 For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached.
22 For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom,
23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.
24 Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom,
25 because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
It should also be noted that we don’t have to blindly accept the Gospel argument. We can use our intellect to receive the Gospel. The argument of the Gospel does stand up against worldly intellect. Paul used intellectual arguments in defense of the Gospel.
5 and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey Christ.
taking every thought captive to obey Christ
2 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary a. An Earnest Entreaty (10:1–6)
The imagery is of a stronghold breached and those sheltering behind its walls taken captive.
The apostle’s purpose is not only to demolish false arguments but also to bring people’s thoughts under the lordship of Christ.
To some degree this verse is often taken out of context.
It is often quoted as though it is my sole responsibility to take every thought captive.
In context we see the spiritual weapons are used for spiritual warfare and it is the power of God through the knowledge of the Gospel to demolish strongholds and bring towers low to take every thought captive to obey Christ.
This is so much more than me as a human trying to control my thoughts. This is me as human submitting the to Lordship of Jesus Christ and the knowledge of the the Gospel to take every thought captive to obey Christ.
6 And we are ready to punish any disobedience, once your obedience has been confirmed.
Paul stands ready to punish any disobedience. The disobedience he speaks of is much more weightier than just people saying he is not an apostle.
What did he just finish writing about in the previous verse? The knowledge of the Gospel vs Intellectual arguments against the Gospel.
Paul stands ready to punish any disobedience to the knowledge of the Gospel.
He is ready to defend the Gospel and punish those who are preaching a false Gospel.
My prayer today for myself and this church is that our minds are fixated on a defense of the Gospel more than any current issue that is going on today. My hope is that we are more passionate about the Knowledge of the Gospel than any current agenda or political party.
This does not mean that we don’t engage in current agendas or political parties but it does mean that when we do we do it through the Knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus.
Look at what the knowledge of the Gospel has the power to do.
3 For though we live in the body, we do not wage war in an unspiritual way,
4 since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments
5 and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey Christ.
6 And we are ready to punish any disobedience, once your obedience has been confirmed.