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 Nor do we boast and claim credit for the work someone else has done. Instead, we hope that your faith will grow so that the boundaries of our work among you will be extended. ¹⁶ Then we will be able to go and preach the Good News in other places far beyond you, where no one else is working. Then there will be no question of our boasting about work done in someone else’s territory. ¹⁷ As the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”

When people commend themselves, it doesn’t count for much. The important thing is for the Lord to commend them. NLT

We’re not barging in on the rightful work of others, interfering with their ministries, demanding a place in the sun with them. What we’re hoping for is that as your lives grow in faith, you’ll play a part within our expanding work. And we’ll all still be within the limits God sets as we proclaim the Message in countries beyond Corinth. But we have no intention of moving in on what others have done and taking credit for it. “If you want to claim credit, claim it for God.” What you say about yourself means nothing in God’s work. It’s what God says about you that makes the difference. The Message

When Paul wanted to be acknowledged as the founder of the church in Corinth, it was for sound pastoral and practical reasons. His God-given calling meant that he still had apostolic authority among them (even though this was being questioned, and undermined by certain others).

Note that he also cherished a vision that he and the Corinthians might ‘team up’ on a missionary project, and use Corinth as a launch pad to go to unreached regions beyond. But all the time, Paul would still be working within his remit, and not straying into the ministry territories given to others.

However it’s important to grasp that in none of this was Paul ‘boasting’ in a conventional sense. Whatever God had used him to do, it was God who had done it through Him. So his ‘’boast’’ was in the Lord.

‘What it all comes down to is the true nature of the Christian ‘boast’: anyone who boasts should boast in the Lord! He’s already quoted this (it comes from Jeremiah 9.23) in the first letter to Corinth (1.31), where it stood as a sign that all the different things the church might want to boast of, not least its social and cultural advancement through teachers with more rhetoric than substance, had to be subjected to the humiliation of the cross. Now he quotes it again with a similar though slightly different aim. He wants to warn the church against those who ‘commend’ themselves, but are not commended by the Lord; and he wants to prepare the way for one of his own most powerful pieces of writing, the ‘boasting’ in chapter 11 which will show them, once and for all, what it means to have one’s whole life reshaped around the Messiah and his cross. Is it boasting you want? he asks. Then boasting you shall have; but don’t expect it to look like what you imagined. ‘In the Lord’, after all, everything has been turned upside down and inside out. That’s what must happen to boasting as well.’ Tom Wright

We will not boast about things done outside our area of authority. We will boast only about what has happened within the boundaries of the work God has given us, which includes our working with you. ¹⁴ We are not reaching beyond these boundaries when we claim authority over you, as if we had never visited you. For we were the first to travel all the way to Corinth with the Good News of Christ.

Nor do we boast and claim credit for the work someone else has done. NLT

In Christian work it is important, I believe, to have a sense of the sphere (or spheres) to which God has called you. No-one can be everywhere and do everything. Paul was aware that Corinth was a part of his calling, and although there were teachers who were seeking to wean the Corinthians off their loyalty to Paul, he asserted that he still had apostolic authority in the church by virtue of the territory God had given him. He was not over-stepping God-appointed boundaries.

‘Founding the church in Corinth was part of the job God gave Paul to do…If there’s any measuring to be done, any assessment of who’s who in the story of the Corinthian church, you simply can’t take it away from Paul: he was the one who went there and announced the good news of the Messiah. Whatever else has happened since, that’s what he did; it was his commission that he should do so; and (he implies) the fact that there’s a church there to this day is testimony to the fact that the Lord has commended him for doing it…What he is most concerned about…is that he shouldn’t be thought to be poaching on someone else’s patch, and that other people shouldn’t claim to have the status of ‘founding apostle’ on territory that God had given to him.’ Tom Wright.

It is important to say that, in all of this, Paul isn’t boasting, as we will see next time. But there is a legitimate desire for people to recognise his God-given role in the founding of the church at Corinth – and its ongoing implications.

We aren’t making outrageous claims here. We’re sticking to the limits of what God has set for us. But there can be no question that those limits reach to and include you. We’re not moving into someone else’s “territory.” We were already there with you, weren’t we? We were the first ones to get there with the Message of Christ, right? So how can there be any question of overstepping our bounds by writing or visiting you?

We’re not barging in on the rightful work of others, interfering with their ministries, demanding a place in the sun with them. The Message

Oh, don’t worry; we wouldn’t dare say that we are as wonderful as these other men who tell you how important they are! But they are only comparing themselves with each other, using themselves as the standard of measurement. How ignorant! NLT

In Romans 12:3 Paul writes:

”For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment…”

However, In Corinth, he was being undermined by some self-important critics. They felt vastly superior to Paul. At least, they gave that impression.

Comparisons can be odious. When we compare ourselves with others we face at least two dangers:

a.) That of feeling inferior. They are so much more better than us, we imagine: more gifted, more able more…everything really!! (This can also feed poisonous weeds of jealousy in the soil of our hearts, causing them to grow and gain a stranglehold);

b.) That of feeling superior. Inwardly, we look down on others from a great height. We may successfully hide these attitudes from them, but we can never hide from God.

‘…if three small people stand side by side, they can convince themselves that they are all really quite tall – until a really tall person comes into the room. Or, again, I might imagine to myself that I am really seven feet tall; but if there’s a rule on the wall that I can measure myself by, an objective standard, marked out in feet and inches (or metres and centimetres), I will soon learn my mistake.’ Tom Wright

Similarly, I may think that I am very good at a particular sport – say badminton, for example. But then I get to play a true pro, and that puts me firmly in my place. The benchmark shows how low my level actually is.

‘There is only one measurement, one standard, by which we should measure ourselves; and that is the standard of Jesus Christ. Only when we compare ourselves with Christ will we be able to measure ourselves accurately. And when we compare ourselves with Christ, how unworthy we appear!’ Tom Hale

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Look at the obvious facts. Those who say they belong to Christ must recognize that we belong to Christ as much as they do. ⁸ I may seem to be boasting too much about the authority given to us by the Lord. But our authority builds you up; it doesn’t tear you down. So I will not be ashamed of using my authority.

⁹ I’m not trying to frighten you by my letters. ¹⁰ For some say, “Paul’s letters are demanding and forceful, but in person he is weak, and his speeches are worthless!” ¹¹ Those people should realize that our actions when we arrive in person will be as forceful as what we say in our letters from far away. NLT

Remember, Paul combined ”the gentleness and kindness of Christ” (1) in his ”appeal” to the Corinthians. In his general approach he had balanced toughness and tenderness, but this had led to the charge that Paul was one thing in his letters, but another thing entirely in person. However, he makes it clear that when he visits the church again, he will not hesitate to use his God-given authority if he has to. But he also shows us, in this chapter, that church discipline is essentially constructive and not destructive. The authority he has is for building people up and not tearing them down. Amidst, at times, necessary disciplinary procedures, Jesus goes on building His church, through His people who stay fully loyal to Him.

” For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.” 2 Corinthians 13:10 ESVUK.

This is pastoral authority. It is essentially constructive. It is always the authority of the servant.