We, for Christ's sake, are 'fools,' but you, by your union with Christ, are men of discernment. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are despised.
As this was my plan, where, pray, did I show any fickleness of purpose? Or do you think that my plans are formed on mere impulse, so that in the same breath I say 'Yes' and 'No'?
What I am doing now I shall continue to do, that I may cut away the ground from under those who are wishing for some ground for attacking me, so that as regards the thing of which they boast they may appear in their true characters, just as we do.
I have been "playing the fool!" It is you who drove me to it. For it is you who ought to have been commending me! Although I am nobody, in no respect did I prove inferior to the most eminent Apostles.
But his reply has been--'My help is enough for you; for my strength attains its perfection in the midst of weakness.' Most gladly, then, will I boast all the more of my weaknesses, so that the strength of the Christ may overshadow me.
For ourselves, then, from this time forward, we refuse to regard any one from the world's standpoint. Even if we once thought of Christ from the standpoint of the world, yet now we do so no longer.