“I say again, Let no man think me a fool; if otherwise, yet as a fool receive me, that I may boast myself a little. That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting. Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also. For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise. For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face.” (2 Corinthians 11:16–20, KJV)
Often you will run into people who just will not listen to reason. When I worked as an engineer doing machine design, I would often have to meet with non-engineers to discuss design details. In these meetings we would look at issues in the machine design that we needed to sort out. This happened on more that one occasion.
In one meeting, a participant came up with an idea. As a machine designer, I looked at the idea and immediately identified a design flaw. The idea that this person had just would not work. It could not work as designed. So, I pointed out the flaw for this was my job. I did not want to finalize a design that I knew would fail. A bit of heated discussion ensued. The man with the idea would not back down. He was convinced that it would work. No amount of explanation could convince him. Yet he was the final decision maker. I finally sat back and with a tone of frustration said, “Ok it won’t work but we’ll do it your way!” At that, we finally had a breakthrough. He asked, “Why won’t it work?” Then I explained it again and we proceeded to solve the problem.
There are a variety of ways that we must sometimes get through to people. It is not that they are insincere. It is just that sometimes they look at things a certain way and then get an idea in their head that is very difficult to shake, even if it is wrong. This is somewhat of the issue Paul had with the congregation at Corinth.
The congregation at Corinth was being persuaded by the false teachers who threatened to undermine Paul’s message of free grace. The false teachers came in proclaiming themselves to be apostles. They looked good on the outside but their teachings were off the mark. Here Paul wrote a further argument in a style that seems somewhat sarcastic. When we think of sarcasm, we get the idea of a comedic antidote. However, sarcasm has a harsher side to it. According to Webster’s, the word sarcasm refers to “a keen, reproachful expression; a satirical remark uttered with some degree of scorn or contempt; a cutting jest” (Webster 1170). Paul used a similar tactic to get through to the Corinthians.
Paul addressed foolish people who were suffering fools, the false teachers. The word he uses to describe the fools they put up with, aphron, refers to ones who are mindless, that is stupid. Only foolish people would suffer the teachings of such people. Paul in addressing the issue, sarcastically speaks as a fool, subsequently writing of his background, labors, and trials in the ministry (2 Cor 11:21).
We can debate whether it is correct or not to use such an approach to get through to parishioners who are being persuaded by false teachers. It is my opinion that you need to be very careful when using sarcasm for it can backfire. However, sometimes our tendency is to sit back and do nothing because we are afraid to offend those who are swaying away from the truth. We need to realize that to wander from the truth is the worst thing we could allow one to do. Sometimes, we will need to speak direct words in love so we can keep people from wandering from the righteous path.
Renewing the Heart 