2 Corinthians 11:17 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly. — Better, in foolishness; as keeping up the emphatic repetition of the same word in the English as in the Greek. From one point of view the distinction drawn is the same as that which we find in 1 Corinthians 7:6; 1 Corinthians 7:10; 1 Corinthians 7:12. There is, however, a marked difference in the subject-matter of the two cases. There he distinguishes a private opinion from a principle or rule which he feels to be divine. Here he draws the line of demarcation between human feelings and a divine inspiration. It is, of course, easy to raise questions which would be hard, if they were not also frivolous and foolish. Are we to class what he places on the lower side of the boundary-line as inspired or uninspired teaching? If the former, are we not contradicting what he writes as inspired? If the latter, are we not depriving what follows of the authority of an inspired writing? Are we not, in so doing, admitting the principle of recognising a human element mingling with the divine in other parts of Scripture as well as this? The answer to these questions, so far as they need an answer, is best found in taking St. Paul’s words in their plain and natural sense, believing that his words have just the authority which he claims for them, and no more. Speaking apart from these questions, there is something almost pathetic in the consciousness which he feels that self-vindication can never, as such, come from the Spirit of God, and that it is, at the best, a pardonable human weakness. It is not wrong, or else his conscience would have forbidden it. It is not the note of the highest or noblest temper, or else he would have felt the Spirit’s guidance in it.