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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - 2 Corinthians 11:23 - 11:23
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Are they ministers of Christ - So we find that these were professors of Christianity; and that they were genuine Jews, and such as endeavored to incorporate both systems, and, no doubt, to oblige those who had believed to be circumcised; and this appears to have been the bondage into which they had brought many of the believing Corinthians.
I am more - More of a minister of Christ than they are, and have given fuller proofs of it. I have suffered persecution for the cross of Christ, and of the Jews too; and had I preached up the necessity of circumcision, I should have been as free from opposition as these are.
In labors more abundant - Far from sitting down to take my ease in a Church already gathered into Christ; I travel incessantly, preach every where, and at all risks, in order to get the heathen brought from the empire of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.
In stripes above measure - Being beaten by the heathen, who had no particular rule according to which they scourged criminals; and we find, from Act 16:22, Act 16:23, that they beat Paul unmercifully with many stripes. See the note on Act 16:22.
In prisons more frequent - See Act 21:11, and the whole of the apostle’s history; and his long imprisonment of at least two years at Rome, Act 28:16, Act 28:30. It does not appear that there is any one instance of a false apostle having been imprisoned for the testimony of Christ; this was a badge of the true apostles.
In deaths oft - That is, in the most imminent dangers. See 1Co 15:31; 2Co 4:11. And see the apostle’s history in the Acts.