20 Paul's Apostleship

Paul begins this section of Scripture presenting his credentials for apostleship. It is helpful for us to firmly realize Paul’s place in the Lord’s grand plan for His work on this earth. Some denominations teach that Paul is not ordained to write biblical books that have any authority. Paul here disputes this strongly. Obviously some Corinthians thought the same thing. Only a small group of believers were apostles. In order to show that one was an apostle he had to verify the following:
1. A commission directly from Jesus in the sight of witnesses, or confirmed by others. One other sub qualification was the individual must have seen the Lord after His resurrection. For Paul this account was recorded in Acts 9:3-18.
2. The true apostle must have the ability to perform signs and wonders and mighty acts to confirm their message (Acts 13: 9-12; II Corinthians 12:12).
3. Finally, the true apostle must have evidence of a successful ministry (Acts 18:1-17). With the proper credentials Paul’s message is all the more persuasive.

Paul returned repeatedly to the theme of this verse (1 Cor. 9:2) that the Corinthians themselves were his vindication (2 Cor. 3:1-3; 5:12; 7:14-16; 8:24).