Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Corinthians · About this commentary
I Robbed Other Assemblies
2 Corinthians 11:7-11
7 Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you God’s Good News free of charge? · WEB
Refusing payment had been counted against him, and he answers the complaint with a word for looting.
Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you God's Good News free of charge?
The question is sarcastic and the situation behind it is real. Working without pay had been read as evidence against him — a genuine teacher would charge, since accepting fees was how a professional established his worth. His refusal looked either like an admission that his teaching was worthless or like a refusal of relationship.
So he answers with a word chosen to shock: I robbed other assemblies, taking wages from them that I might serve you.
The verb means to plunder, as of a temple or a defeated town. He is describing what he did to poorer congregations in order to serve a wealthier one, and he uses the harshest available term for it — which turns the complaint inside out. If anyone was wronged by his arrangement it was Macedonia, not Corinth.
Verse 9 gives the detail: when I was present with you and was in need, I wasn't a burden on anyone, for the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my need.
He was in need in Corinth. Help arrived from the province that gave beyond its power 2 Corinthians 8:3 — the same congregations he has just held up as an example to Corinth, and they were subsidizing his work there.
And he commits himself to continuing: in everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and I will continue to do so. Then, under oath, no one will stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia. He will not be argued into taking their money, and the refusal is now something he boasts about.
The reason he will not take it is never fully given. What he does is anticipate the interpretation and refuse it: why? Because I don't love you?
And the answer is two words: God knows.
He does not explain. A man who has spent ten chapters justifying himself declines to justify this, and hands the question to the only witness who could settle it.
settled What this mark means