"(I speak in foolishness)" 2 Corinthians 11:21

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INSPIRED PARENTHESES (17)

"(I speak in foolishness)" 2 Corinthians 11:21


IN considering these New Testament parentheses I have omitted some which did not appear to be very meaningful to us. Being about to pass over this aside of Paul's in the same way, I was checked from doing so by the appearance of a very similar parenthesis in verse 23 -- "(I speak as one beside himself)". The words used are not the same, but they have the same thrust of meaning. As repetitions in Scripture are always important and a divine method of emphasis, I took another look at the apostle's interjection.

HE makes no secret of the fact that he considers indulgence in boasting a crass folly amounting to feeble-mindedness. Everything he tells us about his standing and sufferings is perfectly true, and much of it we would not know of apart from these references, but still he would rather have avoided the subject altogether. He feels impelled to break his silence about personal affairs, but insists that it is a foolishness akin to madness which provokes such statements.

IN the book of Proverbs there are two adjacent verses which seem to be mutually contradictory: "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him", and "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit" (Proverbs 26:4 & 5). Quite clearly the wise man gave these two balanced injunctions so that first of all we might be careful to avoid the contagion of other men's foolishness, but at the same time we must be ready to descend to a silly realm of reasoning if by doing so we can deal with the conceit of those who are wise in their own eyes.

EVIDENTLY Paul felt that the occasion required him to follow the second piece of advice. To use his own phrase, he "speaks as a fool" in order to make evident the madness of this tendency to boast in men and their claims to distinction. As he has already said, there is great unwisdom in measuring ourselves by ourselves and comparing ourselves with ourselves (2 Corinthians 10:12). The only valid standard of measurement is the Lord Jesus Himself, and the moment we begin to compare ourselves with Him we have to blush at the enormity of our shortcomings.

THIS, then, seems to explain the apostle's motive in speaking so much of himself and his doings, He openly admits to the mad folly of it all, praying however that by it the foolish Corinthians will be shocked into turning from their silly infatuation with men and their imagined cleverness in glorying in man.

THERE is often the same strange tendency to make much of certain men among Christians of our day, and too often a consequent denigration of other faithful servants of God. We are appalled by the idea of the Corinthians' regarding Paul as a fool. From our objective viewpoint it merely proves their own utter folly. At the time, though, they felt themselves rather clever and had to be told that it is always wrong to glory in men. "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (10:17). That is true wisdom. All else, whether glorying in ourselves or in others, is crazy foolishness.

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