2 Corinthians 11:5
I consider myself in no way inferior to those “super-apostles.”
BSB
ASV
For I reckon that I am not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.
KJV
For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.
At last he compares himself with the followers of Peter, wishing to show by this that if they know more than he, then they also know more than the chiefest apostles, reducing the matter to absurd conclusions. See what self-abasement: "I suppose," he says, but …
For I suppose ... - I think that I gave as good evidence that I was commissioned by God as the most eminent of the apostles. In the miracles which I performed; in the abundance of my labors, and in my success, I suppose that I did not fall behind any of them. If so, I ought to be regarded and treated as an apostle; and if so, then the false teachers should not be allowed to supplant me in your affections, or to seduce you from the doctrines which I have taught.
For--My claim is superior to that of the false teachers, "For," &c. I suppose--I reckon [ALFORD]. I was not--Greek, "That I have not been, and am not." the very chiefest apostles--James, Peter, and John, the witnesses of Christ's transfiguration and agony in Gethsemane.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk5
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
1 Corinthians 15:10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not in vain. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of…
leads to
I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God.
For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.
I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace, given me through the working of His power.
in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
