4 let them know that the weapons of my armoury are of the spiritual kind, and that my order of attack and assault is of marvellous efficacy through God for the storming of certain strong places and established positions —
5 mighty indeed for battering down mere theories and speculations, for destroying false systems which rear up their evil heads in pitiable rivalry with the true knowledge of the divine, and able to bind and imprison thoughts that are not agreeable to the confession and obedience of the Christ Spirit.
6 I have weapons too at my command only waiting for the fulfilment of your own obedience to make retaliation and reprisals for all that deviates from the true obedience.
7-10 Now look at that which is really “face to face,” and “present” — as they cast in my teeth my absence, and the weightiness of my epistles when I am away from you, and the insignificance of my presence when I come before you — if your life is in Christ, is not mine there too?
11 And do not my deeds when present proceed from that same source as my words in absence? Does it require strong words from me to terrify you into subjection from a distance?
12-13 Is not the authority, of which they say I make too much and boast immoderately, is it not given me by God for your building up — not for your ruin — and does it fail me, does it ever make me ashamed of it? Does it not justify itself? I do not presume to judge my own capacities, and to set myself up over against other teachers, and compare my merits with theirs. For my own capacities do not enter into this question. I measure myself by the rule that God has established in me, not by vague standards that have never been and never can be subjected to a true reckoning and computation. My standard is the measuring rod and line of the perfect builder, and that same rule passes as far as to you, and passes on, too, beyond you to other lands which lie further off still. I shall go on, I hope and believe, to those more distant ones, even as I came to you.
14 For I came to you in person, I was the first to bring you the gospel; I do not, as they seem to aver, reach out by my epistles and missions into other people's fields of labour and beyond my own.