Winter 1996

PREFACE

By: Michael Tao

Second Corinthians 11: 1-4, "1. Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. 2. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him."

It is contrary to Paul's conversation to instruct the Corinthians to "well bear with" (v4) the false teachings which can destroy their church. According to the record in Acts, and the letters that Paul wrote, he was never a man of God that would compromise, as a matter of fact, he set examples of faithfulness for all the Christians and pastors. If Paul was willing to put up with the workers of iniquity, or take a feeble stand in fighting the spiritual battles, he would not have been drawn so close to death so many times, and eventually died the death of a martyr in Rome!

Let us look at the verses again, there is a little run in the sentence. We need to read verse 3 and verse 4 together to get a complete sense of Paul's fear. In verse 3, Paul mentioned his fears towards the Corinthian church, because Satan deceived Eve with his subtilty; and the mind of the Corinthian church can also be corrupted, "for if" (verse 4), which means "because if", they "might well bear with" the false teacher who brings in a false saviour, a false spirit, and a false gospel.

The whole sentence is made up with a main clause and a conditional clause. The main clause starts with "But I fear" in v.3, and the conditional clause starts from "for if" in v.4. The phrase "might well bear with" was placed at the end of a sentence, which gives an impression that it is an instruction, but actually it is part of a conditional cause.

What Paul meant was he had his fear if the Corinthian church started to tolerate (i.e. bear with) the false teacher and his teaching, then their mind would be corrupted, and the church would become a victim of Satan's subtilty. Paul was not telling this church to put up with false teaches and their teachings!