11:4
Paul chastises the Corinthians for their gullibility, their willingness to believe anything without testing it. This is a criticism that the charismatic parts of the church should be acutely aware of. There is only one Jesus, only one gospel and only one Spirit. How do we distinguish genuine from fake? The primary means is the word of God. If something is contrary to the word of God then it is to be rejected outright and without further ado. For example, churches which have debates on whether LGBT is actually OK are stupid. There is no Biblical evidence whatsoever for saying LGBT is consistent with the Bible. But we also need to watch out for the spirit of what is taught. For it doesn’t seem that the Corinthians were being taught any outright heresies. The factor that Paul has been focusing on is the man-centredness and the man glorifying nature of the false apostles. Another example is legalism. Legalistic teaching will, superficially at least (in actual fact it won’t be, but it may take more effort to tease this out), seem to be consistent with the Bible, but the spirit is completely at odds with the Bible.
11:5
We now get the first mention of the term “super-apostles”. It seems that this group of people were very much into self-promotion and had a high opinion of themselves (if we detect these characteristics in ourselves, which we may well do from time to time, we should step back immediately and focus on the truth). Paul declares that he is not the least inferior to these people. The work of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Jesus and to convict us of sin and our need of Him.
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