For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority. — Literally, somewhat too much — perhaps as quoting a word that had been used of him. In referring to his “authority,” it scarcely admits of question that he claims — as in 1 Corinthians 5:5; 1 Timothy 5:20, and by implication in 2 Corinthians 10:6 — the power to enforce that authority by a supernatural chastisement, as, e.g., in the case of Elymas. He is anxious, however, having used the word “pulling down,” or “destruction,” to qualify his threat by the assertion that the power had been given him with a view, not “for destruction,” but “for edification,” or, to express the force of the antithesis more adequately, for building up. (Comp. 1 Corinthians 14:12-26; Ephesians 4:12-16; and Notes on 2 Corinthians 13:10.)
I should not be ashamed. — Better, I shall not be ashamed. He was quite sure, without any shadow of misgiving, that if he proceeded to the extreme step of delivering his opponents to Satan, the result which he contemplates will follow.