2 Corinthians 10:13-14

Evidently Paul’s critics were claiming that the apostle had exceeded the proper limits of his ministry by evangelizing in Corinth. They proudly refused to admit that Paul’s commission as the apostle to the Gentiles gave him the right to minister as far from Palestine as Corinth. He responded that he had not exceeded the territorial limits of his commission by planting the church in Gentile Corinth.

Paul’s ministry had definite divinely prescribed limits. He was to be the apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; Romans 1:5; cf. Galatians 2:9) and he was to do pioneer missionary work (Romans 15:20). His ministry at Corinth had been within those bounds. He had not overextended his authority by coming to Corinth. It was his critics who were overextending themselves by claiming that Corinth was their special domain.

"We may conjecture that had they come to Corinth and confined their ministry to the synagogue (as Cephas had?), there would have been no problem. The difficulty appears to be that these newcomers are not content with that; they wish to move into Paul’s God-assigned ’field’ of ministry, the Gentiles." [Note: Barnett, p. 488.]