He Exposed the Excesses of the Fault-Finders

He exposed their impure motives.

Rather sarcastically, Paul identified his critics as "super-apostles" in verse 5. In verse 13, he dropped all attempts at diplomacy and spoke of them as "false apostles." They had put out the word that Paul just didn't have what it took. He wasn't a trained orator and thus he was inferior to them. Notice how he conceded their point in verse 5, "I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge."

The Greeks were proud of their oratorical skills. They had mastered rhetoric, elocution and the oratorical style. That was part of the glory of Greece. Who was Paul? Just a Jewish tentmaker, who sewed tents during the week and preached on weekends.

What you see in these criticisms is what lies beneath most criticism. They thought they could make themselves look good by discrediting Paul. In the last part of verse 12, he says they "want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about." According to verse 3, this desire to enhance their personal reputations was so intense that they were actually leading Christians astray from their "sincere and pure devotion to Jesus Christ."

How does that help us? When you find yourself on the receiving end of critical remarks, the first thing you need to do is ask yourself this question, "Why is the critic doing this?" "Does the critic really and truly want to help me?" Or do the critics just want to get something off their chest? Could it be the critics are trying to make themselves look good at my expense? If you can answer the question, "What is the critic's motive?" it will make a big difference in the way you view it. A teenage girl came home and told her father what some other kids at school were saying about her. Her father's response was, "Why is their opinion important to you?" That's a good question for all of us to ask.

He exposed the "spin" the critics placed on his own teaching and actions.

If you follow politics, you know about spin doctors. Certain things are said and done by political figures and then defenders and critics start telling us what it means (as if we didn't have the good sense to figure it out ourselves). "Spin" has a slanted and biased view of the facts. There is a term in the literary world that we ought be familiar with because we are being hit with it almost daily. The term is "deconstruction." As applied to history, deconstruction means that historical events are not to be viewed factually and objectively, rather they are being presented in the light of the biases of the historian. The best known examples of this approach are the movies of Oliver Stone - movies like JFK and Fourth of July. Stone makes no pretense of telling all sides of the story in an objective fashion. He has a point of view and the historical events that he dramatizes in his movies are designed to promote his point of view.

These critics of Paul were first century "spin doctors" and "deconstructionists." They twisted the facts and interpreted those facts to promote their own self-centered purposes.

Paul didn't let that slip by. He defended himself and exposed his critics. There are times when it is best to say nothing in response to a critic. It offers him a level of dignity and lowers your own level of dignity. There's an old story about the skunk who challenged the elephant to a fight. The elephant refused. The skunk said, "You're afraid to fight me." The elephant said, "No, it's not a matter of fear. If I were to win the fight, as I surely would, everybody would know for days to come that I had been fighting with a skunk." Sometimes, its just best to leave the critics alone, because they are doing more damage to themselves than they are to you.

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