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This is a most reproachful passage, and the intensity of St. Paul's feeling can only be accounted for by some knowledge of the bitter and shameful treatment he was receiving from the antagonistic Jewish party at Corinth. Archdeacon Farter, in a very vivid and forcible manner, presents the kind of things that were being freely said at Corinth about the apostle. "He had shown feebleness in his change of plan; his personal appearance, feeble and infirm, did not match the authoritative tone of his letters; his speech had nothing in it to command admiration; he threatened supernatural punishments, but he did not dare to put his threats to the proof. What right had he to claim the authority of an apostle, when he had never seen the Christ in the flesh? Was it certain that he was a Hebrew, a Jew of the pure blood of Palestine, or even that he was of the seed of Abraham? Who was this Paul, who came without credentials, and expected to be received on the strength of his everlasting self-assertions? Was there not a touch of madness in his visions and revelations? Could he claim more than the tolerance which men were ready to extend to the insane?" "Conceive all these barbed arrows of sarcasm falling on the ears, and through them piercing the very soul, of a man of singularly sensitive nature, passionately craving for affection, and proportionately feeling the bitterness of loving with no adequate return; and we may form some estimate of the whirl and storm of emotion in which St. Paul began to dictate the Epistle." As a rule, boastings are only evil both for him who boasts and for those who hear the boasting; but no rule is without exception, and there are times when a man is absolutely driven to boasting - it is the one thing that he can do, and that he ought to do. It becomes the plain duty of the hour. A man may never boast until he is thus driven to it, and then his boastings will have their foundation in his humility. The apostle's boastings had direct reference to the accusations made against him.

I. THERE WERE BOASTINGS OF HIS JEWISH BIRTH AND RIGHTS. These had been assailed. He was a foreign-born Jew, and the Palestine Jews rather looked down upon all such. It was easy to raise prejudice against the apostle on this ground. He therefore pleads the facts of his pure birth, his Pharisaic relationships, his Jerusalem training, and his manifest Jewish sympathies. He was proud of the fact that no Jew could plead superior Jewish birthrights to his. So far he did but boast of facts of his life that were beyond his own control

II. THERE WERE BOASTINGS OF SUFFERINGS BORNE IN MINISTERING FOR CHRIST. See vers. 21-30, the most amazing catalogue of woes ever written. One wonders how so frail a body could have endured them all. But even this record we feel is holy boasting, for one can but feel that, under all the intensity of the utterance, there is a great sadness of heart in being thus compelled to speak of such things. He never would have said one word about them had it not been that attacks upon his apostleship meant dishonour to Christ, and mischievous hindrance to Christ's work. St. Paul never would have boasted if he had not thus been compelled to boast for Christ's sake. And this is the one law for us. Never put self in the front unless so putting self will glorify our Master. We may even boast if it is clear that our boasting will serve him. - R.T.

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KJV: As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.

WEB: As the truth of Christ is in me, no one will stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia.