2 Corinthians 11:4-6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For if he that cometh After me, with such extraordinary pretences; preach another Jesus Can point out to you another Saviour; whom we have not preached Who shall better or equally deserve your attention and regard; or if ye receive another spirit By his preaching, which ye have not received By ours, and which can bestow upon you gifts superior to those which you received through our ministry; or another gospel Bringing you tidings equally happy, evident, and important, with those which we brought you; ye might well bear with him In his pretensions to exceed us, and there would be some excuse for your conduct; but how far this is from being, or so much as seeming to be, the case, I need not say. For I suppose Λογιζομαι, I reckon, or, I conclude, upon most certain knowledge; that I was not a whit behind I was in nothing inferior to; the very chiefest apostles Either in spiritual gifts, or the greatness of my labours and sufferings, or in the success of my ministry. By the chiefest apostles, St. Paul meant Peter, James, and John, whom he called pillars, Galatians 2:9. Let the Papists reconcile this account which Paul gives of himself as an apostle, with their pretended supremacy of Peter over all the apostles. But, or for, though I be rude, or unskilful, in speech Speaking in a plain, unadorned way, like an unlearned person, as the word ιδιωτης, here used, properly signifies. “The apostle,” says Macknight, “called himself unlearned in speech, because, in preaching, he did not follow the rules of the Grecian rhetoric. His discourses were not composed with that art which the Greeks showed in the choice and arrangement of their words, and in the disposition of their periods. Neither were they delivered with those modulations of voice, and with those studied gestures, wherewith the Greeks set off their orations. This sort of eloquence the apostle utterly disclaimed, for a reason mentioned 1 Corinthians 1:17. It seems the faction in Corinth had objected to him his want of these accomplishments.” Or, as some think, the irony of the faction was levelled, not against the apostle's style, but against his pronunciation and action in speaking, which, through some bodily infirmity, was ungraceful and unacceptable. See on 2 Corinthians 10:10. Probably the faction objected both imperfections to him. Yet not in knowledge If I be unskilful in speech, I am not so in the knowledge of the gospel of Christ, and of the dispensations which were introductory to it. But we have been thoroughly made manifest, &c. You have had sufficient proof of my acquaintance with the great doctrines of Christianity, and what my gifts are, and therefore you ought not to call in question my authority as an apostle, or my ability to teach, direct, and govern your church, nor to prefer another in opposition to me.