Verse 9
For we rejoice when we are weak, and ye are strong: this we also pray for, even your perfecting.
When we are weak ... means "when we appear weak" because of no need to exhibit divine power. "He is perfectly willing to be deprived of the opportunity to manifest apostolic power at Corinth, and thus be thought weak by some."[20]
Even your perfection ... It is not the conversion of a whole congregation which is suggested by this, but the conversion of the rebellious minority, thus perfecting the whole congregation. The word thus rendered in the Greek is "restoration"; as Hughes said, "The word means a correct articulating of limbs and joints in a body."[21] Thus is made clear the necessity of seeing these last four chapters, not as a blanket indictment of the whole church. The body had not at this point been destroyed, although some of its members needed "restoration," or "perfecting" as in English Revised Version (1885).
[20] Raymond C. Kelcy, Second Corinthians (Austin, Texas: R. B. Sweet Company, 1967), p. 78.
[21] Philip E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 484.
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