2 Corinthians 12:20 Commentary and Bible Study

We see here the outcome of false teaching. Paul has sent Titus to turn their hearts back and now he is about to come himself. Will their repentance reported by Titus prove genuine? Paul fears that if there has not been a great change in their attitude and behaviour, he is going to have to come to them as a disciplinarian. He is worried he will have to reprove and single out the false teachers for correction. He gives a formidable list of the kind of bad behaviours that could occur – ‘debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults’. There are four pairs of things. ‘Lest there be debates’ – everything is open to discussion now. ‘I think this. You think that. It’s all a matter of opinion.’ We are no longer rooted evidently and obviously in revelation alone, Scripture alone. So everyone has their great ideas and their debates. He fears lest they be characterised by the worst tendencies of human nature and with regard to one issue only – the word of God. Do they drag it down and make it simply a matter of debate? Are they arguing – debating the truth and authority, as if we can decide it? As soon as teaching comes, which is outside the word of God, people are adding to Scripture with all kinds of human ideas and methods – in the case of the Corinthian false teachers, extremely serious ones – which undermine even the heart of the gospel. Then there are ‘envyings’ because more people listen to him than listen to me; more people like his ideas than my ideas. ‘Wraths’ – it leads to anger and quarrels, and ‘strifes,’ which is kind of party principle, where people get into groups and parties. They had done that before at Corinth. ‘Backbitings’ – doing people down in a cunning way; ‘whisperings’ and gossips; these would be slanders against Paul. ‘Swellings’ – conceitedness and ‘tumults’ – great arguments. Argument brings the worst out of people. It is not a matter of reasoned debate, but of opinions clashing. Some have strong personalities and argue a point – I must win, and I regard all other views as inferior. We have to be very careful about strong opinions over secondary matters. All these things belong together, they relate together and they are the result of losing a clear foundation in the word of God. One of the glories of the Christian church is that we have an inspired Bible and we go back to that for everything, and if my idea doesn’t make a lot of sense and somebody opens the Bible and says to me, ‘Look, this says the opposite’, then I am worried about it and I must go and see whether the Scripture shows me I am wrong. It is not a matter of my big idea, my great idea, so that I’ll argue it till the end of the day. We are not like that – we go back to the Scripture. One of the fruits of elasticity and broadness – allowing people to add to Scripture – is all the characteristics which you find here. The apostle doesn’t say, ‘This is happening in Corinth.’ He says he is afraid he will find that this is happening, if they have been too accommodating to the false teachers and their imaginative notions.