2 Corinthians 11:23-33 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure… I. THESE EXPERIENCES, AS NARRATED HERE, ASSUME A GLOOMY CHARACTER. 1. Painful. (1) Bodily suffering. Excessive toil, prison privations, scourgings, stoning, shipwrecks, a night and day in the deep, sleeplessness, coldness, foodlessness, nakedness. (2) Mental suffering. (a) Persecution from Jews as well as Gentiles. His "own countrymen" hated him more fiercely than any. (b) Hostility of false brethren. Peculiarly painful to such a noble nature as Paul's. (c) Anxieties respecting the numerous Churches. (d) Acute sympathy with the weak and hindered ones (ver. 29). 2. Perilous. What a catalogue of perils in ver. 26. how extreme the one instanced in vers. 32, 33! how pathetic and suggestive the expression, "in deaths oft" (ver. 23)! Paul lived on the margin of the next world. Of him was it peculiarly true that he knew not what a day would bring forth. II. MUCH OF THE PAINFUL AND PERILOUS EXPERIENCE OF THE APOSTLE AROSE FROM HIS MARVELLOUS ZEAL AND ENTERPRISE. He might bare avoided not a little by: 1. Being only moderately active. That delightful "mean" coveted by so many - it was too mean for Paul! 2. Being more compliant. If he bad been a man of expediency, and not, as he was, a man of principle. If he had bent to the storm; but he intended that the storm should bend to him, or rather to those God-truths which he proclaimed. 3. Placing God's honour in the second place. The servant was persecuted so vindictively because he would talk so much of his Master. It was not Paul that Jew and Gentile hated so much, but Christ; but where Paul was there men could hear of nothing but the contemned Nazarene; 4. Loving himself more than a perishing world. It was a question which should suffer, Paul or the world; Paul said, "I will." In his sphere he thus imitated his Lord, who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor. III. NO SUFFERING OR PERIL SUCCEEDED IN DAMPING THE APOSTOLIC ARDOUR. How keen must have been his love for Christ and for his fellow men! Ever before him he had the future exaltation of Christ and the "saving some." We haste here a marvellous triumph of mind over matter, and a still more marvellous one of spirituality over carnality. The life of the apostle was so vigorous that he could bear to die daily. What little aches and pains stop us! An avalanche of grief and trial failed to arrest Paul! IV. IT WAS ONLY WHEN SUBJECTED TO GREAT PRESSURE, AND THEN ONLY UNDER PROTEST, THAT THE APOSTLE ALLOWED HIMSELF TO DWELL UPON THIS PERPETUAL MARTYRDOM. He rejoiced in it; yet he did not like to speak about it. He almost calls himself a fool for doing so. The martyr has sometimes sullied his crown by pride; but the apostolic affliction seemed strangely sanctified to him. Some are not great enough to suffer much for Christ. God does not allow it. It would make them so intolerable that prayer would ascend on all hands for their transference to a world where they would have a humble opinion of themselves. Paul went through all the privation, anguish, peril, catalogued here, and came out from it with the spirit of a little child. - H. Parallel Verses KJV: Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. |
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