You will find that I am not terrible in letters alone, but also in my presence, and you will find how falsely you have spoken when you said that my letters were the only part of me calculated to cause fear. However, I shall regret to thus demonstrate my power against you, for God gave me this power to use rather in building you up than in tearing you down. 11 Let such a one reckon this, that, what we are in word by letters when we are absent, such are we also in deed when we are present. I am not the equal of the false leaders in Corinth. In this art I am not so proficient that I can presume to measure myself with these Corinthian experts, for they, never looking outside their own narrow circle, but comparing themselves with each other, have swelled with an inflated sense of self-importance which would have long since been punctured so that it would have collapsed if they had brought themselves into comparison with the real apostles.
Real worth can never speak so highly of itself as can conceited and unreasoning vanity.
But we will not glory beyond our measure, but according to the measure of the province which God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even unto you. In the eyes of his opponents Corinth was the sum and center of all things, but in the larger life of Paul it was a mere dot in a limitless field of operations. We were not so much smaller than this bishopric which God gave to us, that we had to stretch ourselves to cover it. To make a show of covering our territory we did not need to take possession of other men's labors and claim the fruits of their ministry, as though they wrought as our agents. If we had done this, we would indeed be glorying beyond our measure.