This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. (2 Corinthians 12:1)Sometimes you get tired of being put down. Sometimes people say things and rake you over the coals for no good reason and you get tired of it. Sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself, even when you know it will probably do no good.
Jesus did this himself. In John 8, they were telling him he was no good and a liar. He told them in verse 58 that Before Abraham was, I am. He came out and told them he was from God.
He knew it would do not good and it would more than likely make them mad. And sure enough, it did. The started to stone him, but he slipped away in the crowd.
Then there were times in which he knew it would do no good and was, as he said in Matthew 6, casting pearls before swine. When he stood before Herod at his “trial,” he said nothing.
He asked Jesus question after question, but Jesus refused to answer. Meanwhile, the leading priests and the teachers of religious law stood there shouting their accusations. (Luke 23:9-10)In the passage above, the apostle Paul had been maligned by those who had come to Corinth after he had left. They told the Corinthians that Paul was not all that great, that he was not that good a speaker, that all he was doing was using them to further his career, that he didn’t really like them, that he was a bully, that he was weak. In other words, they said anything and everything they could to put him down in the eyes of those who loved him.
In 2 Corinthians 11 and 12 Paul recounts what he had gone through in his ministry. And it was a lot. Beatings, shipwreck, homelessness, everything you can imagine, all endured in the name of Jesus and in the preaching of the gospel and travel to do so.
And to top it all off, I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not (2 Corinthians 11:26). Not only did he have trouble from those who did not want the gospel preached, he also had as much trouble and danger from those who only wanted it preached their way.
People who only want the gospel preached their way can be worse than infidels. And they do not care how they hurt a minister or his family. They want their way regardless of who gets destroyed in the process. What is worse, every church has them. The church that allows them to continue and do their unholy mission will answer to God one day.
Sometimes you have to stand up for yourself. And Paul did here. I like to think he won the day, but I do not know.
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