II Corinthians 11: 1-6
I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me.
For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy;
Jealousy arises when someone thinks he'll be replaced. God is a jealous God, not wanting us to replace Him with any other god.
And Paul didn't want these believers to replace Christ with any other entity.
for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.
All through Scripture, God considered idolatry to be the same as unfaithfulness of a wife to her husband, and called Israel His wife. Now the church is the bride of Christ, and Paul wants these Corinthians to be faithful to Him.
But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
Eve was lied to by Satan, and never having heard a lie before, she didn't distinguish it from the truth she had always heard before. So she was deceived, and she believed him, and thought she was doing something good by eating that piece of fruit.
For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached,
Someone who presented Jesus as not having the same character or characteristics that Paul taught them.
or you receive a different spirit which you have not received,
No other spirit is the same as God's Holy Spirit.
or a different gospel which you have not accepted,
The Gospel is that Jesus died, was buried, and rose from the dead, all just as the Old Testament writers predicted He would. Any other story would not be the same, or have the same power to save.
you bear this beautifully.
They are just going along blissfully down this side-path that is leading them astray!
For I consider myself not in the least inferior to the most eminent apostles.
Paul didn't think he had any less reputation or rank or had less authority than others who called themselves apostles.
But even if I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not so in knowledge; in fact, in every way we have made this evident to you in all things.
As a matter of fact, they have showed these Corinthians that what they were teaching them was the true knowledge, even if Paul's oratory skills were not as highly developed as these other teachers.
These other men who came in after Paul had founded this church were teaching these people other doctrines that were not according to the pure, simple Gospel Paul had taught these believers.
He didn't want them to be vulnerable, as Eve was, to fall for the slick silver-tongued false teachers who snuck into their midst after Paul left, casting dispersions on him and his teachings, as the Serpent cast dispersions on God's character.
So he wrote this letter, and now we also have it to read and learn the lessons too.
We also need to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16) when it comes to discerning the Truth. We don't need to experience evil in order to recognize it. We need discernment to determine how to avoid the evil and do the good.
We also are Christ's bride, so we need to keep ourselves pure, as chaste virgins spiritually, staying away from any other spirits or religious teachings that would take us away from the simplicity and purity of the Gospel of Christ, and His character in us.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
