2 Corinthians 11:20 Meaning For You Bear with a Man If

Pāpamitta: The harmful friend Some company costs you, and this is its name. In Corinth the seat of honor goes to a man who binds, eats, and strikes, and every welcome extended to him is another step down his road. A rotten plank looks like every other board on the bridge until someone puts weight on it.

Lobha: Greed Greed is the pull toward more. The congregation's table feeds him: their money, their labor, their deference, all of it swallowed and the meal called ministry, while bearing with him gladly only sets another place. He is the guest who empties the larder and then asks what there is for breakfast.

Māna: Conceit Conceit is the habit of measuring yourself against others. Exalting himself means climbing onto the apostle's seat in front of people who first received the message as a gift, then offering the height of that seat as proof he belongs on it. Standing on a chair makes a man look taller only to those who stay seated.

Dosa: Ill will Ill will is the mind shoving against whatever it meets, and a hand across the face is that shove made plain. The blow lands because the room has already agreed to call his temper authority. Struck once and borne quietly, the hand comes back, the way a dog fed from the table keeps returning to it.

Moha: Delusion Delusion is the fog in which harm reads as help. Bondage passes for discipline, being devoured passes for generosity, the slap passes for correction, and enduring all of it feels like faithfulness to something higher than yourself. Someone with a heavy cold will drink the sour milk and swear it is fresh.

Khanti: Patient endurance Patience is the strength to take an insult and let it end there. It was given for hardship and for the rough edges of ordinary people, not handed over as standing permission to be used, and here it has been spent on the wrong man while the one who took the lashes and the shipwreck for them is left outside. A gate can be opened wide for a guest and still be shut against a thief.