Verse 9 says, “For we rejoice whenever we are weak and you are powerful; this also we pray for, your perfecting.” Weak here is the same as appearing disapproved. When the apostles appear disapproved, they are weak in administering discipline to the believers. When the believers do good, they are powerful and make the apostles powerless to discipline them. The apostles rejoice over this and pray for this, that is, for the believers’ perfecting.
Literally, the word rendered “perfecting” is restoring. It implies repairing, adjusting, putting in order again, and mending, perfectly joining together, thoroughly equipping, well furnishing, thus perfecting, completing, educating. The apostles pray for the Corinthians that they may be restored, put in order again, and thoroughly equipped and edified to grow in life for the building up of the Body of Christ.
In verse 10 Paul concludes this section by saying, “Therefore I write these things being absent, in order that being present I may not use severity, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for overthrowing.” This verse indicates that Paul did not assume authority. He would not even admit that he was defending himself or vindicating himself. Of course, there is the implication in these chapters that Paul was an apostle. However, he did not assume his apostleship with respect to the Corinthians. What, then, has he been doing in chapters ten through thirteen? He has been seeking to perfect the believers and build them up. In these chapters Paul is not defending himself; he is perfecting the saints. He is not vindicating his standing as an apostle or his apostolic authority; he is perfecting the saints. In other words, according to Paul’s actual ministry, here he is working to reconcile the distracted Corinthian believers back to God in full. As long as their relationship with those who ministered Christ into them had not been rectified or adjusted, the Corinthians would still be away from God. They would remain in a condition of being separated from the full enjoyment of God. What Paul is doing here is trying to remove the last separation between the believers and God and to bring them wholly back into God so that they may have the full enjoyment of Him.
We have seen that the Apostle Paul is a pattern for all believers. In chapter twelve he tells us how he enjoys Christ to the uttermost as his sufficient grace, as his power, and as his overshadowing tabernacle. When Paul wrote this Epistle to the Corinthians, most of them had not come into such an enjoyment of Christ. Thus, in the last part of chapter twelve and the first part of chapter thirteen, Paul is trying to bring the believers into such an enjoyment of Christ as their sufficient grace, their daily strength, and their overshadowing dwelling place. Paul has no intention of assuming his apostleship, exercising his apostolic authority, or vindicating his apostolic standing.
When Paul uses the word apostle, he means one thing, but when Christians use this word today, they mean something else. The vocabulary is the same, but the dictionaries or lexicons are different. When Paul refers to himself as an apostle, he means one sent by God to minister Christ into sinners so that they may become sons of God and members of Christ, and then be edified to grow and become the Body of Christ. This is Paul’s understanding of what an apostle is. Paul does not use this word with a connotation that an apostle is a powerful person authorized by Christ to control and overrule. No, in Paul there is no such concept of apostleship. This concept is altogether despicable. However, when many use the word apostle today, they have in mind someone like a pope or at least an archbishop. Some even have this concept about the word elder. Hence, they give the words apostle and elder a very unpleasant and distasteful connotation. Our understanding of these terms must be biblical, that is, according to the pure Word of God, not according to religious tradition.
I wish to testify that I have never assumed to be an “apostle.” I definitely am not an apostle in the sense of being one who assumes authority and position to rule. But I would surely agree if you would say that I am an apostle in the sense of being sent by God to minister Christ to others and impart Christ into them, so that they may become sons of God and members of Christ and be caused to grow in life and built up as the Body of Christ. We need to use the word apostle with the proper understanding and definition. As we have pointed out before, we all can be apostles in the sense of being those who are sent to minister Christ to others and to help them grow that they may be built up as the Body of Christ. But none of us should be an apostle in the sense of taking the position to exercise authority over others. Instead of referring to me (or to any of the Lord’s servants) as being an apostle, it is better to speak of me as a slave of Christ. May we all be apostles not in the sense of being popes, but in the sense of being slaves who minister Christ to others. We all are qualified to be this kind of apostles.