Put yourself in Paul’s shoes for just a minute. Somebody arrives to give you a report; maybe it's Timothy or Titus. Paul asks, “What do the people of Corinth think of me anyway?” They tell him, “They think your letters are weighty.” Maybe Paul thinks, “Wow, that's cool. They kind of like me.” The review doesn’t stop there, unfortunately. Apparently, people in the Corinth church were saying, “‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account.’” (2 Corinthians 10:10, ESV). Basically, they were saying that his letters were forceful, but he was unimpressive in person, and his speaking amounted to nothing.
How would you like to have your livelihood, your whole life, be spoken about that way? You're loving God, working in your ministry and serving others; then the report about you is “You're not very impressive.”
Paul had the opportunity to let that lie get into his soul. He could have given up and said, “Wow, I've been working so hard and trying to bless these people, and I guess I just don't have what it takes.” Or he could’ve gone the other direction and said, “You know what? I refuse to believe that lie. When I come to you, I'm going to make sure you see how bold and how impressive I can be. I'm going to prove to you!”
It's tempting to have one of those two responses. We either give up and abandon God’s call, or we fight back. The second one sometimes feels more holy, but what are we really doing then? We’re taking on human anger, trying to resolve Satan’s lie with our own strength.
Paul didn’t do either. He understood the truth, that he was not called to fight back in the flesh. He wrote, “’Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends” (2 Corinthians 10:17-18). Paul knew that trying to commend himself or fix things in his own strength would never work. He understood the reality of our struggles in life. “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).