¹Now I, Paul, myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am meek when face to face with you, but bold toward you when absent! ²I ask that when I am present I need not be bold with the confidence with which I propose to be courageous against some, who regard us as if we walked according to the flesh.

Moving on from two chapters dealing with Christian benevolence, the apostle breaks out into a new section of teaching, one of a serious tone. He resorts to a personal approach, a reflexive autobiography, as it were. If we are not careful to understand his style of teaching, we will misunderstand him. He speaks boastfully, it seems, and even defensively. The superficial interpreter will be dumbfounded by such uncharacteristic self-centeredness. Certainly his urging the Corinthians “by the meekness and gentleness of Christ” reflects his true character, unless of course Paul is resorting to a false or self-aggrandizing humility.

Actually, these are all “methods” of teaching designed to embarrass the Corinthians by showing them what their behavior would look like if he acted the way they were acting. To jump ahead a little, Paul writes, “I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness…” (2 Cor. 11:1). And then, “What I am saying, I am not saying as the Lord would, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting” (2 Cor. 11:17). “To my shame I must say that we have been weak by comparison. But in whatever respect anyone else is bold—I speak in foolishness—I am just as bold myself” (2 Cor. 11:21).

So we see Paul’s skill in teaching even includes using himself as an illustration. This, of course, carries some risk, but it certainly reveals to us his love for the Corinthians. So we take it that his meekness and gentleness in verse 1 was genuine, but the Corinthians mistook that for weakness or saw it as somehow less than spiritual. This is so ironic, because Paul was the one who brought the gospel to them in the first place. One can hardly imagine how anyone could accuse him of being cowardly or fleshly, when he is the one who taught them about true spirituality. That is, of course, until we consider the Judaizers, those seemingly converted Jews who followed Paul on his second missionary journey down from Thessalonica (Acts 17:5ff, 13) to Corinth (Acts 18:5–6). They opposed the gospel and presumably infiltrated the budding church at Corinth to turn away the young believers from the apostle.

At any rate, Paul sets the stage for a bold rebuke to those who resist his teaching. This is not all those in the Corinthian church, but “some others.” And it is against these that he now turns.

Lord, thank You for the creative and courageous teaching of Your servants.