What does 2 Corinthians 4:11 mean?

Paul restates here something similar to what he wrote in the previous verse. Believers, especially those who carry the gospel of Jesus to others as Paul and his co-workers did, exist in a kind of truthful paradox. On the one hand, they are fragile human beings always existing on the edge of death, targeted for death by those opposed to the gospel. On the other hand, the fact that they keep going, that they refuse to lose hope (2 Corinthians 4:1), is powerful, physical evidence that Christ is alive and at work in the world today.

Some in Corinth seem to have pointed to Paul's suffering as evidence that he must not have been much of an apostle. After all, wouldn't God intervene to spare a close servant of His from all that pain? This is a common assumption in many false religions: that the true servants of a god are protected from any harm. Even today, this lie persists in those who claim that any Christian who suffers does so because they lack faith.

Paul has said the opposite is true. God has put his body on display for the world to see two things: First, look how weak and close to death he is for the sake of Christ. Second, look how powerful Christ must be to keep a weak body like that going and delivering the gospel to more and more people.