2 Corinthians 10 - Why Thoughts Matter!"

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Paul’s Defense of His Ministry

10 By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” toward you when away! 2 I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. 3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

The Corinthians accused Paul of being a "big talker" in his letters but then seemingly timid in person. Paul warns them that he is hoping he won't have to be "bold" with them in when he does come to them. His boldness would be necessitated by the extent to which the Corinthians were living according to God's standards not the world's. Were they transforming the world by the presence of Christ living through them, or were they being conformed by the world? 

The world and God's kingdom are at odds with each other pretty much all of the time. As we look at the world empires over the past milennium, and even in Jesus' time, there was rarely a leader who remained pure and was not intoxicated by their power and authority. Even in our own country, though we are a democracy, too often mirror the ways of the world . We should be surprised as the bible tells us, 

"The devil is the ruler of the world." (This is spoken of in several verses such as: John 12:21, John 14:30, Ephesians 2:2, John 16:11, and 2 Corinthians 4:4). 

Though some governments are better than others, or we might say less evil, the only true authority comes from God in heaven. Jesus' title is "Lord", or "ruler of all". Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth when he conquered sin, death, and the devil by his death and resurrection. One day he will come to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom shall remain forever.

In the meantime we live "in" the world, but not "of" the world. If we try to fight the world with the same weapons they use, we will lose. But God has given us "spiritual weapons", or what Paul calls, "divine power to demolish strongholds."

The devil has a clear stronghold in many parts of our culture. I.e. The pornography industry, the drug cartels, the media, child slavery, homelessness/drug addiction etc... For our part, we need to need to be equipped to demolish the arguments the world makes using God's Word. The battle begins in the mind. What one puts in one's mind or what one feeds themselves intellectually will shape one's heart and ultimately their behaviors. But God has also called us to stand up against these demonic stronghold and overcome darkness with light, and hate with love, evil with good. 

This is why it is important to have a Christian worldview and be able to distinguish truth from lies. This can only come by knowing and understanding God's Word, and more specifically the Word who is Jesus. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life". By following him, we will never go astray. The thief (the devil, the ruler of this world) came to steal and destroy but Jesus came to give us life and life abundantly. John 10:10

Paul talks about training our thoughts/minds to be obedient to Christ. What does this mean?

Paul’s principle has a much broader application. We are not helpless victims or recipients of our thoughts. We can choose to stop our thoughts and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Thoughts of lust, thoughts of anger, thoughts of fear, thoughts of greed, bitter thoughts, evil thoughts – they are part of every thought that may be and must be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. - Guzik 

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.” ― Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

7 You are judging by appearances. If anyone is confident that they belong to Christ, they should consider again that we belong to Christ just as much as they do. 8 So even if I boast somewhat freely about the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of it. 9 I do not want to seem to be trying to frighten you with my letters. 10 For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” 11 Such people should realize that what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present.

Part of their worldly thinking is they made evaluations about Paul based on his outward appearance. 
We don't know a lot about Paul's appearance but most commentators agree that he didn't have a flashy appearance or even style of speaking. 

“Since Paul excelled in none of those endowments which ordinarily win praise or reputation among the children of this world, he was despised as one of the common herd.” (Calvin)

Paul again refers to the dichotomy the Corinthians, who viewed him as unimpressive in person, while they said his letters gave off a different impression. Again Paul reminds them that in person he will be what he needs to as an apostle of Jesus' with the authority God has given him over churches. Paul's authority came with the call on his life not superficial and worldly traits. 

It seems that Paul is uncomfortable writing about his own authority. This is because he is a humble, godly man. He uses boast here in an exaggerated, almost sarcastic sense to show he would prefer not to talk about his own authority; it feels like “boasting” to him. Paul realizes how much better it would be if the Corinthian Christians would just recognize his authority so that he wouldn’t have to boast somewhat more about it. Which the Lord gave us for edification and not for your destruction: Paul recognizes that Jesus grants authority in the church for one reason. He does it to build the body of believers up (edification), not to tear it down (destruction). (Guzik)

12 We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise. 13 We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our boasting to the sphere of service God himself has assigned to us, a sphere that also includes you. 14 We are not going too far in our boasting, as would be the case if we had not come to you, for we did get as far as you with the gospel of Christ. 15 Neither do we go beyond our limits by boasting of work done by others. Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our sphere of activity among you will greatly expand, 16 so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you. For we do not want to boast about work already done in someone else’s territory. 17 But, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” 18 For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.

Paul does not want to play the comparison game that they are tempting him to play, especially with those who were commending themselves. They were comparting themselves with themselves. What does this mean? 

This needs to be communicated to pastors and church leaders today: Stop measuring yourself by yourselves. Stop comparing yourselves among yourselves. We should not make ourselves the measure of others, feeling we are superior to them if, by outward appearance, we are more successful. On the other side, we should not make others our measure, feeling we are failures if – by outward appearance – they are more successful. - Guzik

What are your thoughts and feelings on this? Do you think we would be more effective as the church with more of us working together than in our separate churches? 

If anything we should compare ourselves to Jesus, as the ultimate leader and source of authority. It is him we follow not some other worldly leader model or paradigm. Jesus has one measure of great leadership, 

"Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:44-45

We call this servant leadership. Jesus led with a "towel and water basin". This is why Paul did not want to have to boast about his earthly credentials. He was hoping his example of servant leadership would be enough for them, but because they were looking at him with a worldly mentality it was not. 

Paul talks about the Corinthians being part of the, "Sphere of service that God has assigned to them." This is an interesting comment and begs a question. How are spheres of service assigned today? In Paul's day there seems to be a church in each city. I.e. The church at Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, and Philippi. Was Paul the overseer for all these churches?

There is a term that comes mainly from the Catholic church called "parish". The idea in the Catholic church is that their different parishes that made up a "diocese", which a bishop oversaw. The same was true in the Lutheran church, where I was called a "parish pastor". I think this comes somewhat from Paul's teaching here. 

But with the proliferation of some many denominations, there are usually 10-15 churches in every city. One wonders with all the different brands of Christians and churches if that is a good thing or not a good thing. Though there are probably some good things, generally speaking I think we need to think of ourselves as for instance in my case "the church of Fallbrook". Or, the "church of Irvine". We need to look at our community through the same lens as Jesus looks at them. When God looks down on any given community, he sees one church. The body of Christ!

I think the other key thing is that we not try to put down other church or "steal members" from other churches. We should always speak about other church leaders/pastors with the highest respect afforded to them in their calling as ministers of Christ! To disparage another church or leader does great damage to the body of Christ and plays right into the devil's hand.