Useful Bible Studies > 2 Corinthians Commentary > chapter 11
Eve, the first woman, remained loyal to her husband but she did not remain loyal to God. She accepted the lies of the devil, who appeared to her as a snake *. That was how sin (evil deeds) entered the world. The effect of sin was to separate people from God* and to bring death into the world*.
It would be terrible for Christians to behave in the same way that Eve did. Christ died to free them from the power of sin and the devil. It would be very wrong if they chose on purpose to use that freedom to serve the devil.
However, when we do wrong things, we often do not act on purpose. Instead, like Eve, we start to believe something that is not true. We accept the clever lies of the devil, and so we do not trust God’s word. Those lies have the power to cause the most severe trouble to our relationship with Christ.
We can see from the Book of 1 Corinthians how often wrong and evil ideas had already entered the church at Corinth. The source of these wrong beliefs was the devil, but often people brought these ideas to Corinth. The devil was using those people to do his work*.
That was especially true now, because certain teachers, with wrong beliefs, had entered Corinth’s church*. They were impressive men, who acted boldly*. They tried to gain authority over people, and many Christians accepted them.
Paul saw that he must stand against those men. He had to try to protect weaker Christians from their wrong message. God had given Paul responsibility for those Christians, and Paul was eager to serve Christ well.
Next part: Another Jesus, a different gospel? (11:4)
* See complete article for these Bible references.
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© 2016, Keith Simons.