The apostle was jealous over the saints at Corinth with a godly jealousy, so he would ask the faithful ones to bear with him in his folly-speaking of himself.
He would present them as a chaste virgin to Christ, and feared as the serpent beguiled Eve so their minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
If false teachers had brought to them another Christ, another Spirit, another gospel, they might bear with them, but the apostle declared that he was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. He owned that he was rude in speech but not in knowledge and had been thoroughly made manifest among the Corinthians.
Was it an offense, he asked, that he preached the gospel without charge, abasing himself that they might be exalted? The reason was to deprive the false teachers of their boast that they preached without charge. As Satan could appear as an angel of light so his ministers could appear as ministers of righteousness.
Yet the saints bore with the apostle as he spoke as a fool. If the Judaizing teachers accredited themselves, he could do as much, a Hebrew of the Hebrews possessing all the titles of glory of which they boasted.
Surely by the following account of the apostle's service such teachers were silenced. The folly of the Corinthians had been the means of our learning of the deep devotedness of the Apostle Paul in his labors. Here we see a life of absolute devotedness. Though speaking of himself, the apostle gloried in his infirmities. He says it is unprofitable to glory.