The Living Bible (370 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
I plead with you—yes, I, Paul—and I plead gently, as Christ himself would do. Yet some of you are saying, “Paul’s letters are bold enough when he is far away, but when he gets here he will be afraid to raise his voice!”
2
I hope I won’t need to show you when I come how harsh and rough I can be. I don’t want to carry out my present plans against some of you who seem to think my deeds and words are merely those of an ordinary man.
3
It is true that I am an ordinary, weak human being, but I don’t use human plans and methods to win my battles.
4
I use God’s mighty weapons, not those made by men, to knock down the devil’s strongholds.
5
These weapons can break down every proud argument against God and every wall that can be built to keep men from finding him. With these weapons I can capture rebels and bring them back to God and change them into men whose hearts’ desire is obedience to Christ.
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I will use these weapons against every rebel who remains after I have first used them on you yourselves and you surrender to Christ.
7
The trouble with you is that you look at me and I seem weak and powerless, but you don’t look beneath the surface. Yet if anyone can claim the power and authority of Christ, I certainly can.
8
I may seem to be boasting more than I should about my authority over you—authority to help you, not to hurt you—but I shall make good every claim.
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I say this so that you will not think I am just blustering when I scold you in my letters.
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“Don’t bother about his letters,” some say. “He sounds big, but it’s all noise. When he gets here you will see that there is nothing great about him, and you have never heard a worse preacher!”
11
This time my personal presence is going to be just as rough on you as my letters are!
12
Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare say that I am as wonderful as these other men who tell you how good they are! Their trouble is that they are only comparing themselves with each other and measuring themselves against their own little ideas. What stupidity!
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But we will not boast of authority we do not have. Our goal is to measure up to God’s plan for us, and this plan includes our working there with you.
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We are not going too far when we claim authority over you, for we were the first to come to you with the Good News concerning Christ.
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It is not as though we were trying to claim credit for the work someone else has done among you. Instead, we hope that your faith will grow and that, still within the limits set for us, our work among you will be greatly enlarged.
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After that, we will be able to preach the Good News to other cities that are far beyond you, where no one else is working; then there will be no question about being in someone else’s field.
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As the Scriptures say, “If anyone is going to boast, let him boast about what the Lord has done and not about himself.”
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When someone boasts about himself and how well he has done, it doesn’t count for much. But when the Lord commends him, that’s different!
I hope you will be patient with me as I keep on talking like a fool. Do bear with me and let me say what is on my heart.
2
I am anxious for you with the deep concern of God himself—anxious that your love should be for Christ alone, just as a pure maiden saves her love for one man only, for the one who will be her husband.
3
But I am frightened, fearing that in some way you will be led away from your pure and simple devotion to our Lord, just as Eve was deceived by Satan in the Garden of Eden.
4
You seem so gullible: you believe whatever anyone tells you even if he is preaching about another Jesus than the one we preach, or a different spirit than the Holy Spirit you received, or shows you a different way to be saved. You swallow it all.
5
Yet I don’t feel that these marvelous “messengers from God,” as they call themselves, are any better than I am.
6
If I am a poor speaker, at least I know what I am talking about, as I think you realize by now, for we have proved it again and again.
7
Did I do wrong and cheapen myself and make you look down on me because I preached God’s Good News to you without charging you anything?
8-9
Instead I “robbed” other churches by taking what they sent me and using it up while I was with you so that I could serve you without cost. And when that was gone
*
and I was getting hungry, I still didn’t ask you for anything, for the Christians from Macedonia brought me another gift. I have never yet asked you for one cent, and I never will.
10
I promise this with every ounce of truth I possess—that I will tell everyone in Greece about it!
11
Why? Because I don’t love you? God knows I do.
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But I will do it to cut out the ground from under the feet of those who boast that they are doing God’s work in just the same way we are.
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God never sent those men at all; they are “phonies” who have fooled you into thinking they are Christ’s apostles.
14
Yet I am not surprised! Satan can change himself into an angel of light,
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so it is no wonder his servants can do it too, and seem like godly ministers. In the end they will get every bit of punishment their wicked deeds deserve.
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Again I plead, don’t think that I have lost my wits to talk like this; but even if you do, listen to me anyway—a witless man, a fool—while I also boast a little as they do.
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Such bragging isn’t something the Lord commanded me to do, for I am acting like a brainless fool.
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Yet those other men keep telling you how wonderful they are, so here I go:
19-20
(You think you are so wise—yet you listen gladly to those fools; you don’t mind at all when they make you their slaves and take everything you have, and take advantage of you, and put on airs, and slap you in the face.
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I’m ashamed to say that I’m not strong and daring like that!
But whatever they can boast about—I’m talking like a fool again—I can boast about it, too.)
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They brag that they are Hebrews, do they? Well, so am I. And they say that they are Israelites, God’s chosen people? So am I. And they are descendants of Abraham? Well, I am too.
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They say they serve Christ? But I have served him far more! (Have I gone mad to boast like this?) I have worked harder, been put in jail more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again and again.
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Five different times the Jews gave me their terrible thirty-nine lashes.
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Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I was in the open sea all night and the whole next day.
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I have traveled many weary miles and have been often in great danger from flooded rivers and from robbers and from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the hands of the Gentiles. I have faced grave dangers from mobs in the cities and from death in the deserts and in the stormy seas and from men who claim to be brothers in Christ but are not.
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I have lived with weariness and pain and sleepless nights. Often I have been hungry and thirsty and have gone without food; often I have shivered with cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.
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Then, besides all this, I have the constant worry of how the churches are getting along:
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Who makes a mistake and I do not feel his sadness? Who falls without my longing to help him? Who is spiritually hurt without my fury rising against the one who hurt him?
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But if I must brag, I would rather brag about the things that show how weak I am.
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God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is to be praised forever and ever, knows I tell the truth.
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For instance, in Damascus the governor under King Aretas kept guards at the city gates to catch me;
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but I was let down by rope and basket from a hole in the city wall, and so I got away! What popularity!
*
This boasting is all so foolish, but let me go on. Let me tell about the visions I’ve had, and revelations from the Lord.
2-3
Fourteen years ago I
*
was taken up to heaven
*
for a visit. Don’t ask me whether my body was there or just my spirit, for I don’t know; only God can answer that. But anyway, there I was in paradise,
4
and heard things so astounding that they are beyond a man’s power to describe or put in words (and anyway I am not allowed to tell them to others).
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That experience is something worth bragging about, but I am not going to do it. I am going to boast only about how weak I am and how great God is to use such weakness for his glory.
6
I have plenty to boast about and would be no fool in doing it, but I don’t want anyone to think more highly of me than he should from what he can actually see in my life and my message.
7
I will say this: because these experiences I had were so tremendous, God was afraid I might be puffed up by them; so I was given a physical condition which has been a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to hurt and bother me and prick my pride.
8
Three different times I begged God to make me well again.
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Each time he said,
“No. But I am with you; that is all you need. My power shows up best in weak people.”
Now I am glad to boast about how weak I am; I am glad to be a living demonstration of Christ’s power, instead of showing off my own power and abilities.
10
Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite happy about “the thorn,” and about insults and hardships, persecutions and difficulties; for when I am weak, then I am strong—the less I have, the more I depend on him.
11
You have made me act like a fool—boasting like this—for you people ought to be writing about me and not making me write about myself. There isn’t a single thing these other marvelous fellows have that I don’t have too, even though I am really worth nothing at all.
12
When I was there I certainly gave you every proof that I was truly an apostle, sent to you by God himself, for I patiently did many wonders and signs and mighty works among you.
13
The only thing I didn’t do for you, which I do everywhere else in all other churches, was to become a burden to you—I didn’t ask you to give me food to eat and a place to stay. Please forgive me for this wrong!
14
Now I am coming to you again, the third time; and it is still not going to cost you anything, for I don’t want your money. I want
you!
And anyway, you are my children, and little children don’t pay for their father’s and mother’s food—it’s the other way around; parents supply food for their children.
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I am glad to give you myself and all I have for your spiritual good, even though it seems that the more I love you, the less you love me.
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Some of you are saying, “It’s true that his visits didn’t seem to cost us anything, but he is a sneaky fellow, that Paul, and he fooled us. As sure as anything he must have made money from us some way.”
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But how? Did any of the men I sent to you take advantage of you?
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When I urged Titus to visit you and sent our other brother with him, did they make any profit? No, of course not. For we have the same Holy Spirit and walk in each other’s steps, doing things the same way.
19
I suppose you think I am saying all this to get back into your good graces. That isn’t it at all. I tell you, with God listening as I say it, that I have said this to help
you,
dear friends—to build you up spiritually—and not to help myself.
20
For I am afraid that when I come to visit you I won’t like what I find, and then you won’t like the way I will have to act. I am afraid that I will find you quarreling, and envying each other, and being angry with each other, and acting big, and saying wicked things about each other, and whispering behind each other’s backs, filled with conceit and disunity.
21
Yes, I am afraid that when I come God will humble me before you and I will be sad and mourn because many of you have sinned before and don’t even care about the wicked, impure things you have done: your lust and immorality, and the taking of other men’s wives.