Paul the Persecuted
During his 30-plus years serving Jesus, Paul endured much at the hands of many people in many ways.
Living as God’s servant isn’t easy. The apostle Paul counseled his protégé Timothy, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). The issue isn’t whether we will suffer but, rather, how that suffering will be utilized. Will it benefit God and His Kingdom, or will it be wasted?
Paul suffered more than anyone in the New Testament, except for Jesus Himself. Jesus told Paul at the outset of the apostle’s call into the ministry that he would suffer many things “for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). The persecutor would become the persecuted.
Accepting his new fate, Paul rejoiced (as the first apostles did, 5:41) that he was counted worthy to suffer for Christ: “I take pleasure,” he wrote, “in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).
We cannot list all that Paul endured. But Luke described some of the events, and Paul himself mentioned others. During his 30-plus years as a bondservant of Jesus, Paul suffered a great deal.
Sources of Suffering
Although the first generation of Christians was primarily Jewish, Paul often experienced persecution at the hands of his own people. Originally, he thought they would accept his testimony; but the majority of the Jewish leadership rejected him.
Synagogue after synagogue and city after city brought trouble. His recorded years of incarceration were nearly all instigated by his own people.
He also suffered at the hands of the Gentiles. After ministering for two years at Ephesus, it was the Gentile merchants who orchestrated a riot, seeking to destroy Paul and put an end to his teaching (Acts 19).
He suffered at the hands of government authorities. In Philippi, the magistrates ordered Paul and his traveling companion Silas beaten with rods and placed in stocks in the innermost prison. The Sanhedrin (Jewish high court) sought his destruction (23:12ff). Wanting to appease the Jewish leadership, Felix, a Roman governor, kept Paul in custody at Caesarea for two years, hoping for bribes.
Sometimes the apostle’s fellow Christians caused his suffering, preaching “Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains” (Phil. 1:16).
And sometimes his suffering was instigated by the Evil One himself: “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure” (2 Cor. 12:7).
Examples of Suffering
Suffering became Paul’s frequent and obvious companion. He suffered physically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually.
Physically. He mentioned the following examples to the Corinthians:
From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness (11:24–27).
Socially. Many of Paul’s countrymen, some of whom had been his peers and friends, rejected him. He was ejected from synagogues, subjected to the jealousy of fellow believers who differed from him in doctrine, and ultimately abandoned in his hour of need.
He wrote to Timothy, “This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes” (2 Tim. 1:15). Later he added,
At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom (4:16–18).
Emotionally. In addition, Paul continually carried the burden of the churches, noting that “besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28). Concerning the Thessalonians, he wrote,
Therefore, when we could no longer endure it, we thought it good to be left in Athens alone, and sent Timothy . . . to establish you and encourage you concerning your faith, that no one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this. For, in fact, we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation, just as it happened, and you know. For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor might be in vain (1 Th. 3:1–5).
Additionally, Paul was heartbroken over his own people’s continual rejection of Messiah Jesus:
I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God (Rom. 9:1–5).
Spiritually. Like most of us, the apostle expressed frustration at his own spiritual failures. He described his battle with his old nature and acknowledged that sometimes “the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (7:19).
Then he asked, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (v. 24). His comfort? “I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25).
As a major figure in the 1st-century church, author of a majority of the New Testament epistles, and the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul suffered more than most. He did not try to insulate himself from suffering; nor did he complain about what he suffered, though he described some of his pain.
Instead, Paul’s attitude provides us with a type of theology of suffering. By learning to cope with and manage our situations, we can find meaning and purpose in the face of adversity until the Lord ends all our suffering on Earth and calls us home.
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