The Better Servant of Christ

Launching into the Fool’s Speech in today’s passage, Paul begins to compare himself to the false apostles in Corinth to refute their claims. As these teachers of error have been boasting in their own ministry effectiveness, criticizing Paul, and trying to build on the foundation he laid in Corinth (2 Cor. 10:1–11:21a), the Apostle will boast as well, using irony to show that the false apostles’ boasting is without foundation.

Paul starts out by boasting not in the things that set him apart from the men troubling the Corinthian church but in what he holds in common with them (11:21b). To this end, Paul points out that he shares with the false teachers the Hebrew identity, Israelite nationality, and Abrahamic parentage (v. 22). In other words, both Paul and the false apostles were Jews.

That Paul feels the need to stress his Jewishness indicates that the false apostles likely emphasized their own status as ethnic Jews, perhaps even calling Paul’s fidelity to the Jewish law into question. As we noted in an earlier study, this probably also means that the instruction of the false teachers in Corinth included the idea that, to be declared righteous before God, Christians have to add their own good works in keeping the law to their faith (as the Judaizers in Galatia claimed; see Gal. 3; 6:13). Paul, of course, has already refuted this idea in 2 Corinthians, proclaiming that we are justified only by the works of Christ. Through faith in Him alone, we become the righteousness of God (5:21). But as the Jewish heritage of the false apostles somehow helped them gain a hearing in Corinth, Paul asserts his own Jewishness so that the Corinthians will see that they should pay attention to him as well.

The Apostle then compares himself to his opponents as a “servant of Christ,” seemingly attributing that same status to his critics (11:23). Certainly, Paul does not mean that these false teachers are true servants of Jesus; he is only referring to their self-designation to continue the comparison he is making. Paul states that while he and the false teachers are equal with respect to Jewishness, he is far better than they with respect to being a servant of Christ (v. 23). What makes him a better servant of Christ? His own labors and sufferings for the gospel. The false apostles had rejected Jesus’ teaching that following Him will lead to suffering (John 15:18–21), but Paul embraced it wholeheartedly.