2 Corinthians 11:7, commentary and pictures

The verse belongs to Paul's recounting of his own experience in 2 Corinthians 11, a chapter that gives much instruction and is to be studied closely until it speaks decidedly. To abase himself means that in Corinth, both on his first visit and after he had raised up a strong church there, he preached the gospel of God freely and refused the support he had a just right to claim from his hearers. He sustained this course by taking wages from other churches, and when present in Corinth and in want he was chargeable to no one because what he lacked the brethren from Macedonia supplied. In all things he kept himself from being burdensome and resolved to continue so, declaring that no one would stop his boasting of this in the regions of Achaia. While doing so he worked at tentmaking and labored faithfully in proclaiming the gospel with the signs of an apostle wrought in patience, signs, wonders, and mighty deeds.

He did this because he knew the character of the Corinthians, who as keen traders on the seacoast trained in sharp business practices were suspicious of the motives of strangers. They had come to believe that gain was godliness and that making money by fair means or foul was commendable. His purpose was to burden no poor church and to give no cause for reproach to those who desire occasion. He would give opponents no grounds to question his motives and weaken his message, and would remove all occasion for the misrepresentation that he preached to enrich himself. He forewent his right lest his usefulness and success as a minister be injured by unjust suspicion and the force of his message be lost.

The verse confirms the doctrine that gospel ministers as laborers are entitled to wages and can rightfully claim support. Yet Paul's willingness to set aside that right and even to give freely from his own wages to help others demonstrates self-sacrifice and dignifies honest labor. The verse warns that people who view matters with human eyesight make grave mistakes when they take up a work God has not appointed but has condemned, namely to criticize, to climb upon the judgment seat, and to pronounce sentence. For their own spiritual advancement it is far better to examine their own hearts watchfully, to look to their own shortcomings and defects of character, and to remove the beam of faultfinding, evil surmising, evil speaking, bearing false witness, hatred, and accusing of the brethren.

For a person entering gospel work in a place like Chicago, the verse teaches the need to obtain a deeper experience and to enter into controversy with no one. Such a worker is to avoid seeking to be original in a way that brings in odd notions, and to move the work in a dignified, elevated, and ennobling manner.