Verse 20
For ye bear with a man, if he bringeth you into bondage, if he devoureth you, if he taketh you captive, if he exalteth himself, if he smiteth you on the face.
Titus had no doubt given Paul a first-hand account of such scandalous conduct on the part of the false teachers; and the majority of the Corinthians must have blushed to hear this factual record of their cowardice and servility in submitting to it.
The failure of some of the Corinthians had been in their putting up with the arrogance and aggressiveness of the false apostles and in submitting to it as if they were actually true apostles, incredibly failing to notice how anti-Christian and contrary to the Holy Spirit their outrageous behavior surely was. Note what these false apostles were doing:
Bringing into bondage. This could have meant that they were being enslaved to keep the ceremonial laws of the Jews (see Galatians 2:4; Galatians 5:1).
Devouring them. This, like most of what is said here, has overtones of the Pharisaical methods in Jerusalem. Jesus, for example, said that they "devoured widows' houses" (Matthew 23:14). They took as much money and substance as they could lay hold of.
Taking them captive. This suggests 2 Timothy 2:26, where Paul spoke of Satan's taking people "captive" to do his will. The false apostles were leading the people into gross sin.
Exalting themselves. "Light is thrown on Paul's meaning here by what he had already said about `every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God' (2 Corinthians 10:5)."[45] Those evil men were placing their own words above the word of God.
Smiting in the face. Whether this was literal or not has been disputed; but representatives of that class who had smitten the Son of God himself in the face would have been perfectly in character by perpetrating such actions against the Lord's followers. The view here is that there is no reason to suppose it was anything but physical.
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