I wish you would tolerate me, even when I am a bit foolish. Please do! I am jealous for you, just as God is; you are like a pure virgin whom I have promised in marriage to one man only, Christ himself. I am afraid that your minds will be corrupted and that you will abandon your full and pure devotion to Christ – in the same way that Eve was deceived by the snake’s clever lies. For you gladly tolerate anyone who comes to you and preaches a different Jesus, not the one we preached; and you accept a spirit and a gospel completely different from the Spirit and the gospel you received from us!

I do not think that I am the least bit inferior to those very special so-called "apostles" of yours! Perhaps I am an amateur in speaking, but certainly not in knowledge; we have made this clear to you at all times and in all conditions.

I did not charge you a thing when I preached the Good News of God to you; I humbled myself in order to make you important. Was that wrong of me? While I was working among you, I was paid by other churches. I was robbing them, so to speak, in order to help you. And during the time I was with you I did not bother you for help when I needed money; the brothers who came from Macedonia brought me everything I needed. As in the past, so in the future: I will never be a burden to you! By Christ’s truth in me, I promise that this boast of mine will not be silenced anywhere in all of Achaia. Do I say this because I don’t love you? God knows I love you!

I will go on doing what I am doing now, in order to keep those other "apostles" from having any reason for boasting and saying that they work in the same way we do. Those men are not true apostles – they are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:1-13

Be firmly grounded in the Word of God and you will not be deceived. There are evil people who will try to lead you away. Examine all teaching in the light of God’s word.

Our Daily Bread – July 29, 2003