I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.

Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!—2 Corinthians 11:1–11

 

Introduction

The Rest of 2 Corinthians

I am going to try to do the impossible. I want to give you a sketch of the next twelve weeks in five minutes. Remember that we summarized chapters 10–13 with two words: bold warfare. Chapter 10 is Paul’s siege warfare on their foolish pride. Chapters 11–12 are Paul’s bold warfare as he stoops to their level. They have been fooled, and so he plays the fool to win them back. Chapter 13 is bold warfare’s final countdown.

I am planning to do 2 Corinthians 11–13 in nine sermons. First, Paul says that the Corinthians have been fooled by Satan (2 Corinthians 11:1–4). Second, they have been fooled by Satan’s servants (2 Corinthians 11:5–15). Third, they have been fooled by their false style of leadership, which is really spiritual abuse (2 Corinthians 11:16–21).

Second, after laying out the false things that have fooled them, Paul engages in a speech that is sometimes called the fool’s speech. I call it the fool’s boast. He is willing to play their game in order to win them back, though he is completely uncomfortable doing it—he keeps inserting reminders that he is speaking like a madman. The fourth sermon takes on the first part of this fool’s boast (2 Corinthians 11:21–33). It could be summed up in the words of a familiar song: “anything you can do I can do better, I can do anything better than you.” The fifth sermon unpacks the second part of Paul’s fool’s boast, in which he shows off God’s strength by boasting like a weakling (2 Corinthians 12:1–10). The sixth sermon closes out his fool’s warfare by summarizing how it is really a love story. Look at the lengths he is willing to go to reach them. He is a fool for them (2 Corinthians 12:11–21). If Paul has to become all things to win some, he is willing to become a fool for them. We close out 2 Corinthians with three sermons on chapter 13, which is the final countdown. Sermon seven will look at Paul’s final visit, sermon eight will examine the final exam and their final grade, and sermon nine will unpack Paul’s final greetings.

You may have checked my math and discovered that I have only talked about nine sermons even though I said I was going to summarize twelve weeks in five minutes. What happened to the other three? I will be gone at the beginning of May on a short-term trip to Chad where I am speaking at a spiritual life conference for some of our global partners and others.

While I am gone, we have an awesome opportunity to hear from three of Bethlehem’s church plants. Steve Treichler, who is the pastor of Hope Community Church (just a block away from our Downtown Campus), will preach on the first week in May. Tim Cain, one of our church planters in California, will come and preach for us the second week of May. I will be back in the pulpit the third week of May, and the fourth week in May, we will hear from our most recent church plant as Jonathan Parnell will bring the word to us.

Today, we will be looking at the introduction to Paul’s fool’s speech. If you look at this introduction (2 Corinthians 11:1–21), you will see that it has one main point: the command in verse one which is repeated for emphasis in verse sixteen.

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me!—2 Corinthians 11:1 

I repeat, let no one think me foolish. But even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little.—2 Corinthians 11:16

Paul asks the Corinthians to put up with his foolishness. He then follows this command with three reasons they should accept what he is about to say: he feels divine jealousy for them, they put up with everyone else, and he is not inferior to these “super–apostles” (v. 5), who are really servants of Satan (vv. 13–15). 

This structure is a little easier to see in the original language than in English because the same conjunction occurs three times in order to give support to verse 1. We are going to zero in on the first two reasons that the Corinthians should accept the fool’s speech Paul is about to give. Here is the main point of the message, which I will state so that it is directed at all of us today: Receive Paul’s words as God’s passionate plea for you to be purely devoted to Jesus Christ.

We will be able to hear this passionate plea more fully if we break it up into three parts: divine jealousy, divine marriage, and satanic seduction.

1. Divine Jealousy (vv. 1–2)

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, 

Paul is so careful to help them understand how they are to hear his words. C. S. Lewis said that good communication requires the person speaking to know exactly what he wants to say and to say it in such a way that it guards against being taken another way. He said that people are like sheep. If in our communication we leave a gate open for misunderstanding, people are very prone to wander off. Paul is a loving communicator because he is constantly closing sheep gates that could lead to wandering pastures of misunderstanding. If he said, “Bear with me because I feel jealous for you,” it could sound like a petty ministry rivalry, like Paul is trying to pad his stats or maximize his apostolic portfolio or saying, “I can’t lose the Corinthians or it will hurt my appearance of success.” That is not the issue. He feels divine jealousy because the Corinthians are in danger of turning away from God. God is jealous for his people. Paul has tapped into the fountain of divine jealousy, not petty personal jealousy. God’s pure, holy, loving jealousy is stirring within him to speak up for God, not for himself. He is speaking as an apostle of God, not a self-appointed minister.

Paul now unpacks this divine jealousy through a powerful metaphor: the marriage between God and his people. There is divine jealousy because a divine marriage is at stake.

2. Divine Marriage (v. 2)

For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 

This picture of divine marriage grows out of an Old Testament metaphor: God is the bridegroom, and God’s people are the bride. God came to Israel and joined himself in a marriage covenant to them, but they were unfaithful. God had to judge them—sometimes pictured in the prophets as a certificate of divorce. That marriage covenant did not change Israel’s hard heart. The new covenant or marriage that God makes with his people includes the power that changes the heart.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”—Jeremiah 31:31–34

God has always been the faithful marriage partner, but Israel has been the unfaithful partner. God will work in such a way to change her. He will not give a Law that is external and then command his people to make it internal (“these things I am commanding you shall be on your hearts”). This time he starts with the heart. He creates what he calls for. He puts the Law within his people—he writes it on their hearts. They are his. Everyone that is part of this new covenant knows him in a saving way because he forgives their iniquity and remembers their sin no more. He decisively deals with their sin. What is the result? A faithful marriage partner. Look at the other use of the word new in Jeremiah 31:

      “Set up road markers for yourself; 

make yourself guideposts; 

       consider well the highway, 

the road by which you went. 

       Return, O virgin Israel, 

return to these your cities. 

        How long will you waver, 

O faithless daughter? 

       For the Lord has created a new thing on the earth: 

a woman encircles a man.”—Jeremiah 31:21–22

You have to ask, “What is new about a woman hugging a man?” Women have been doing that since Adam and Eve. You have to see the symbolism here. The woman is Israel, and God is the man. The new thing that God is doing is creating a faithful spouse to hug him back.

The New Testament testifies to the fulfillment of this new covenant of marriage. Jesus is the heavenly bridegroom who comes for his bride. Forgiveness is the basis of it all. Jesus came into the world to win a bride for himself with his own blood—the blood of the new covenant. Husbands are called to do for their wives (imperfectly) what Christ did perfectly for his bride: he loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25). He is working to present the church to himself (Ephesians 5:27). 

In 2 Corinthians 11:2, Paul adds one more participant to the picture—Paul calls himself the father of the bride-to-be. This is not new information to them. Back in 1 Corinthians, he said the same thing:

For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”—1 Corinthians 4:15

He reminded them of this in the last chapter when he said he was the first to come to them with the gospel (2 Corinthians 10:14). Receiving the gospel of Christ is pictured as a betrothal, something stronger than our engagement because it took a divorce to undo. People who were betrothed to be married were supposed to keep themselves pure until the consummation of the wedding day. Paul, as the father of the bride, is trying to help keep the Corinthians purely devoted to Christ until the day he returns.

Paul knows his place. The Corinthians belong to Christ, not to him. He is not winking at the bride as if he wants her for himself—what a disgusting thought!—he is the father of the bride whose only desire is to see her stay devoted to Christ. 

Paul’s life calling was to oversee the period between the betrothal and consummation of the bride. This is a picture of discipleship, not the narrow way that many people seem to think of ministry today. Some churches operate as if the only thing that matters is getting decisions. Paul saw ministry as so much bigger. When people respond to the gospel, that is just the betrothal period. That is when the real work of discipleship begins—we want to see the devotion to Christ build and grow, not fade and die out. Paul wants to fan the flame of devotion to Christ so that it burns like a fire until Christ’s second coming.

But Paul also introduces another character into the story, a sinister seducer who wants to steal away the purity of the bride-to-be.

3. Satanic Seduction (vv. 3–4)

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

Paul has a singular aim, and so does Satan. Paul is passionately singular in his purity agenda; Satan is sinisterly singular in his seduction agenda. Paul aims to preserve the purity of the bride-to-be; Satan aims to seduce and steal it away. 

First, Paul invites us to consider the first temptation. Paul says that Satan’s cunning is on display. “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning” (v. 3). Eve was tricked and duped by clever, cunning speech—it sounded smooth, but the substance was pure poison. Satan spewed poison like a spitting cobra, but the sweet sound only helped the poison go down. Just like a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down, an earful of sweet speech helped the poison go down.

Imagine an apple pie with vanilla ice cream. The fancy crust has sugar sprinkles and drizzled caramel, and when you bite into it, it even tastes better than it looks. Take a bite, and you get sweet candied apples. Now imagine everything is the same—same fancy crust, sugar sprinkles, drizzled caramel—but when you bite into it, it tastes so much worse than it looks. It is not an apple pie at all—it’s a rodent road-kill pie. Bite into it, and you get maggots, flies, rancid and ripe smell, putrid road kill—you just can’t get the taste out of your mouth. It makes you sick. That is the picture here—Satan is horribly cunning at hiding the poison. You get tricked into paying attention to his smooth tongue, and you lose sight of the sharp fangs dripping with deadly venom. 

Look at all the similarities between the first satanic seduction and his work in Corinth. Satan is like a serial killer with a calling card—you see the same pattern in the killings.

First, Satan is cunning. He uses smooth speech and fine-sounding words. Paul warns the Corinthians not to get snookered by the sound. Instead, he wants them to listen to the substance, the knowledge. That is where Paul is going in verse 6. The Corinthians think that Paul is unskilled in speaking, but he says the issue is about knowledge. It is not about the outside of the pie; it is about what is on the inside. Take a bite and see what you think!

Second, Satan is deceptive. He downplays what they have and tempts them to attain something better (wisdom). He is appealing to their arrogance in attaining wisdom. This is what Paul is referring to when he says, “Gentiles pursue wisdom, but we preach Christ” or “foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those being saved it is the wisdom and power of God.” When he tempted Adam and Eve, Satan also appealed to a greater attainment of wisdom to be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.—Genesis 3:6

Third, Satan is deadly. He goes for the kill. The first temptation enticed Adam and Eve toward the only thing that could kill them: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now he entices us away from the only thing that can save us: the judgment tree—the cross of wood.

Read verse 4 to see how subtle and smooth Satan is. Satan leads people away from Jesus by preaching a version of Jesus that is just slightly off, just different enough to go undetected, just slanted enough by varying degrees to end up being completely off course.

Now Paul goes to his second argument as to why they should “bear with” what he says. They “put up” with all the counterfeits, so why not accept him when he shares the real thing?

For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.—2 Corinthians 11:4

Satan’s work is so subtle. He will do anything to keep you from seeing Jesus. Do you see how subtle it is? How does he do it? Satan actually leads people away from Jesus by having the false teachers preach Jesus—a counterfeit Jesus, a counterfeit Spirit, a counterfeit gospel, just different enough to not be detected by the Corinthians.

Application 

The Gospel and Our Response

We must clearly distinguish between the gospel itself (what God has done) and our response. This distinction is utterly essential. If you muddy the waters at this point, the ability to see each clearly goes away.

The gospel is not good advice (telling us what to do) it is good news (telling us what God has done). The gospel is a gloriously finished fact. God sent his Son. Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He died on the cross. The work is finished. He did not die saying, “I am finished.” He said, “It is finished.” He accomplished salvation. It is a finished fact. No other payment is needed. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing about Christ’s accomplishment could be taken away.

Think about college basketball. The Kentucky Wildcats were undefeated this year going into the final four. Many thought they were a sure thing. They weren’t. They lost. They had an amazing season, but they lost one game and did not attain the championship. That can’t happen to the gospel. We are talking about something that happened in history—it can’t be undone. It would make no sense for a team to start practicing and planning for how to beat the 1967 UCLA Bruins. They were one of seven teams to have an undefeated season and win the NCAA championship. No one starts their year trying to figure out how to guard Lew Alcindor (who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). The UCLA Bruins had an undefeated season. No one can go back and beat them.

Jesus lived a sinless life. He died on the cross. He rose from the dead. These are finished facts. His victory is untouchable and unchangeable. We are talking about something so much more glorious than college basketball. UCLA was undefeated in 1972, but then the next year they had to do it all over again. They were undefeated in 1973, but then the next year they still had to do it again. They had a record eighty-eight-game winning streak, but then they lost to Notre Dame on January 19, 1974. They also did not win the championship in 1974, which put an end to their string of seven straight championships. 

People talk about a loss breaking their NCAA bracket. Jesus’ win broke every spiritual bracket. He won forever. When March and April roll around, we don’t have a bracket to see if Jesus will win. We don’t have to wait to see if he will be undefeated again this year. He won forever. Listen to the way that Hebrews glories in this absolute, once for all, victory:

The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. . . . He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.—Hebrews 7:23–24 & 27 

Do you hear it? Permanent. He continues forever. Always lives. Once-for-all sacrifice. Perfect forever. What does Jesus’ full and forever victory mean? 

Consequently he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.”—Hebrews 7:25 

He saves to the uttermost. Nothing lacking, nothing missing—uttermost salvation.

What should our response to this good news be? We can’t go back and undo the victory, but we can receive it. You can’t change the story, but you can enter it so that it becomes yours. You can’t defeat him, but you can join him. Come to Christ. Receive all that he is with the open and empty hands of faith. Faith alone corresponds to Christ alone. All that he is (Christ alone) is enough to save all of me (faith alone). I don’t need anything else. Faith says, “Yes. I receive you.” He came from heaven to earth to rescue you. It’s the greatest love story ever told. The eyes of faith see him come, and the hand of faith says yes. This marriage picture is so stunningly powerful because it makes salvation so intensely personal. Listen to the way that James chapter 4 brings the elements of this picture together. 

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?—James 4:3–5 

We don’t use God to get what we really want (something other than him). If we do, then something other than him becomes our god. This picture is shocking. It is as if the wife goes to the husband and says, “Hi, honey, can I have $300.” Her husband says, “Sure, but why?” and she replies, “I’m cheating on you with someone else, and we wanted to go to a really nice restaurant to celebrate tonight.” You should feel outrage. Don’t tone down the personal nature of it. God is jealous for his bride. He yearns jealously over the Spirit he made to dwell in us. God is not a sugar daddy. God Himself is the greatest gift of the gospel. We should never use God to get something other than him. James calls that kind of thing adultery.

Do you hear the jealousy? Hear it the right way. Let it sink in. God wants you. You can come to him because he wants you and he gives grace to come to him and resist the devil.

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double–minded.—James 4:6–8

There is a grace to resist the devil. How do we do that? If the devil is trying to seduce you away from God, then the best way to resist him is to draw nearer to God.

Turn away from all other hopes of salvation. There is a whole host of false saviors strutting around every day trying to attract the attention of your heart. All are promising satisfaction and fulfillment. “Life has no meaning and I have no worth unless I have _____________. “Fill in the blank and find your god. For the Christian, Jesus fills every blank. Every blank and every bracket in our hearts are filled with the name of Jesus.

Betrothal in Paul’s analogy is what Christians have experienced. We have the ring. The question is not whether Jesus will change his mind—as if we need to work hard to keep him interested or keep performing enough to attract his attention. He can’t be more committed to his own gospel. He is not going to lose interest. The real question is whether or not we will lose interest. Will we turn to false gospels and run to false saviors?

You could think of the engagement ring as the promised Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit is what changed the heart and turned it toward Christ in conversion (2 Corinthians 3:3–6). The Spirit gives life. Paul also says in 2 Corinthians that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance. The Spirit that powerfully turned our hearts toward Christ will continue to work to cherish Christ and convict us of sin’s pull away from Christ.

And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.—2 Corinthians 1:21 (see also Eph. 1:13).

The Holy Spirit will not let the gospel be something that is relegated to the past. He will not let us patronize the gospel as something shallow. Like the gospel is a run-of-the-mill message. Jared Wilson gives the analogy of getting a MacBook Pro. Wilson said that he could do the basic types of computer functions—email, word processing—but then someone else asked to borrow his computer for a minute. Wilson said, “I watched him do things on my computer I didn’t know it could do. He opened up programs I didn’t know I had” (Wilson, Gospel Deeps, p. 19).

Christ is not a ticket that you turn in to get what you really want: sins forgiven and one-way trip to heaven. He is the gift. That gospel message applies to marriage, work, parenting, and everything else. Don’t treat the gospel as simple and unsophisticated—something that is okay for beginners but then quickly gets left behind. You should be discovering daily how much more the gospel can do.

Love for the gospel is essential to our evangelism as well. We won’t love to tell the story unless we first love the story. This story becomes our story by faith. Have you ever read the same book to your child over and over and over? I would sometimes read the book for the twentieth time and try to skip something to make it go faster, and, man, would my kids call me on it.

That is the way we should feel about the gospel. It becomes sweeter. It is so precious that we don’t want to skip over any part of it. Does your outlook on the gospel match God’s?

I love to tell the story;

‘tis pleasant to repeat

what seems, each time I tell it,

more wonderfully sweet.

I love to tell the story,

it did so much for me;

and that is just the reason

I tell it now to thee. 

I love to compare 1 Peter 1:12 and Colossians 2:18 when it comes to the gospel. The sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow are the things that Peter says the angels are longing to look into. Paul rebukes the Colossians because they are straying after things to add things to the work of Christ. They were trying to add the worship of angels. How dumb is that? They were trying to climb up and look into the angels, and the angels would just respond back and say, “What are you doing looking at us for? Look up further to the One we can’t take our eyes off of.” Angelic worship praises the Rescuer as mere witnesses to the rescue. We are the ones who are rescued—it is more personal and more meaningful to us! He died and rose for us, not for angels.

I love to tell the story,

for those who know it best

seem hungering and thirsting 

to hear it like the rest.

And when, in scenes of glory, 

I sing the new, new song,

‘twill be the old, old story

that I have loved so long.

Do you know what they are celebrating in heaven? They can’t stop singing about the glories of Christ crucified. They say, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. You are worthy because you were slain, and you purchased people for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” The angels keep going on and on about it.

The gospel of Christ is not something you grow out as you grow in the faith. You don’t grow out of it—you grow into it more and more for all eternity. It gets sweeter, richer, truer, wider, deeper, higher, and longer.

“Aslan” said Lucy “you’re bigger”.
“That is because you are older, little one” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”—C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

 

Sermon Discussion Questions

Outline
1. Divine Jealousy (v. 2)
2. Divine Marriage (v. 2)
3. Satanic Seduction (vv. 3–4)

Main Point: Receive Paul’s words as God’s passionate plea for a pure devotion to Christ. 

Discussion Questions
1.How is Paul experiencing divine jealousy and not petty, personal jealousy? What is the difference? 

2. What metaphor does Paul use to illustrate his divine jealousy? Why is this such a powerful metaphor? Where else is this metaphor used in Scripture?
3. How did Satan seduce Eve in the garden (Genesis 3:1–7)? How was this similar to the way he was trying to seduce the Corinthians? What is Satan’s main tactic?

Application Questions
1. What enters your mind when you hear about the gospel? What are the “finished facts” of the gospel that make it such gloriously good news? 

2. What are some of the false saviors trying to attract the attention of your heart? How do we fight against Satan’s attempts to seduce us with these false saviors? What gospel truths enable us to resist Satan and to draw near to God?
3. How and why does the gospel impact every part of your life (marriage, work, parenting, evangelism, etc.)?

Prayer Focus
Pray that the truth of the gospel would not become stale to our hearts, but that our love for the gospel would grow every day as it increasingly transforms every area of our lives and joyfully overflows into the lives of those around us.