Look at this obvious fact. So-and-so is perfectly sure he 'belongs to Christ'? Well then, let him understand, on second thoughts, that I 'belong to Christ' as much as he does.
This is not 'recommending myself to you again'; it is giving you an incentive to be proud of me, which you can use against men who are proud of externals instead of the inward reality.
Ministers of Christ? yes perhaps, but not as much as I am (I am mad to talk like this! ), with all my labours, with all my lashes, with all my time in prison — a record longer far than theirs. I have been often at the point of death;
we belong to God — he who knows God listens to us, he who does not belong to God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
I appeal to you myself by the gentleness and consideration of Christ — the Paul who is 'humble enough to your face when he is with you, but outspoken enough when he gets away from you.'
Now this is playing the fool! But you forced me to it, instead of coming forward yourselves and vouching for me. That was what I deserved; for, 'nobody' as I am, I am not one whit inferior to these precious 'apostles.'
You put up with it all right, when some interloper preaches a second Jesus (not the Jesus I preached), or when you are treated to a Spirit different from the Spirit you once received, and to a different gospel from what I gave you! Why not put up with me?
So he told them, "You are the people who get men to think you are good, but God knows what your hearts are! What is lofty in the view of man is loathsome in the eyes of God.