2 Corinthians 6:8 - Exposition

By honour and dishonour; rather, by glory and dishonour . There is no need to change here the meaning of διὰ , "by means of," to "through," i.e. "amid." The honour and dishonor are alike means which contribute to the commendation of the ministry. Of our Lord some said, "He is a deceiver," while others said, "He is a good man" ( John 7:12 ); and the dispraise of some is the highest praise ( Matthew 5:11 ). Compare with the whole passage 1 Corinthians 4:9-13 , where we see that "abuse," "insult," and "slander," constituted no small part of the apostle's daily trial. By evil report and good report. The beatitude of malediction ( Luke 6:22 ; 1 Peter 4:14 ). St. Paul had deliberately abandoned the desire to win the suffrages of men at the cost of undesirable concessions ( Galatians 1:10 ). As deceivers. The Jews called Christ "a deceiver" ( mesith, i.e. a deliberate and misleading impostor), Matthew 27:63 ; John 7:12 . This is an illustration of the "evil report," and in the Clementine homilies, a century later, St. Paul, under the disgraceful pseudonym of "Simon Magus," is still defamed as a deceiver. And yet true. There is no "yet" in the original, and its omission gives more force to these eloquent and impassioned contrasts.