Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
not boast . . . without . . . measure--Greek, "to unmeasured bounds." There is no limit to a man's high opinion of himself, so long as he measures himself by himself (2 Corinthians 10:13) and his fellows, and does not compare himself with his superiors. It marks the personal character of this Epistle that the word "boast" occurs twenty-nine times in it, and only twenty-six times in all the other Epistles put together. Undeterred by the charge of vanity, he felt he must vindicate his apostolic authority by facts [CONYBEARE and HOWSON]. It would be to "boast of things without our measure," were we to boast of conversions made by "other men's labors" (2 Corinthians 10:15).
distributed--apportioned [ALFORD].
a measure--as a measure [ALFORD].
to reach--"that we should reach as far as even to you": not that he meant to go no further (2 Corinthians 10:16; Romans 15:20-24). Paul's "measure" is the apportionment of his sphere of Gospel labors ruled for him by God. A "rule" among the so-called "apostolic canons" subsequently was, that no bishop should appoint ministers beyond his own limits. At Corinth no minister ought to have been received without Paul's sanction, as Corinth was apportioned to him by God as his apostolic sphere. The Epistle here incidentally, and therefore undesignedly, confirms the independent history, the Acts, which represents Corinth as the extreme limit as yet of his preaching, at which he had stopped, after he had from Philippi passed southward successively through Amphipolis, Apollonia, Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens [PALEY, Horæ Paulinæ].
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
2 Corinthians 10:13
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