Bible Commentaries
2 Corinthians 12

Verses 1-21

XXXI

EXPOSITION PAUL’S REPLY TO HIS ENEMIES

2 Corinthians 10:1-12:21.

This discussion, commencing at 2 Corinthians 10, closes up the second letter to the Corinthians. This closing section of the book is so utterly unlike the preceding part, that a great many people try to make it a part of a different letter, but they are very much mistaken. The difference arises from the fact that the first nine chapters were addressed to the working majority of the church, and these last chapters refer to the incorrigible minority. The object of the last section is to defend the apostleship and gospel of Paul from the charges made by certain Jewish emissaries who came from Jerusalem to that place, as at other places where he had been, and endeavored to wreck his Work. We have considered this matter somewhat in our exposition of the former letter. We will consider it much more in the next two letters – Galatians and Romans. In these four letters the great controversy is discussed.

The charges of these Jewish brethren with their letters of recommendation were about these: First, he was not coming to them; he kept saying he would come, and even if he should come, he would be very humble when present, though bold in his absence. Second, that he boasted too much of his apostolic authority, trying to overawe the people with his letters, though when present his person was insignificant and his speech contemptible. Third, that he was not in his proper sphere – not a true apostle, not even a true Jew; that he virtually confessed he was not an apostle by not asserting his apostolic authority, as Peter in killing Ananias and Sapphira; that he confessed it in not exacting support from the people to’ whom he preached, but that while he did not exact any money while he was there, he was arranging for a very large collection. Why should those poor people at Corinth be taking up a collection for some interest away off yonder, unless Paul wanted to scoop the money into his own hands? Of course, his not taking money when he was there was that be might send Titus, his henchman, and take a big collection for himself. In other words, being crafty, he caught them with guile to make gain of them.

Of course, these charges are inferred from his defense. We see into his very heart, so sensitive and so deeply wounded, that he is forced to the seeming folly of boasting. We, in our day, rejoice that their assault led to so many rich disclosures of his life and heart that otherwise his modesty would have concealed. It is never a pleasant thing to expose rascality. But we have this pleasure – if these men had not preferred these charges, we never would have had the statement in these chapters which are of imperishable value to the world.

He commences by making his reply to the charges that be was a very humble, modest man when he is present, but when he is absent he is bold: "Now I, Paul, myself entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am of good courage toward you; yea, I beseech you, that I may not when present show courage with the confidence wherewith I could be bold against some, who count of us as if we walked according to the flesh." In other words, he did not want to assume this boldness, because God did not give him this power except for the purpose of building up. Only with great reluctance did Paul ever use his apostolic power to vindicate himself, and never unless the gospel was jeopardized and needed vindication. He had this power, which was not carnal, but was of God. In the exercise of this power he could reach any wicked imagination of their hearts; he would pull down any strong- hold of opposition. He had but to speak the word and God would attest the truth of the word. But for himself, in his love for them, he deprecated such use of the power. They had judged according to the external appearance when they concluded that because he was a modest and humble man, therefore he did not have the apostolic power. Some people parade their authority and want to show it off. Paul preferred to reach men by persuasion, to govern by gentleness, always to win and not to drive.

With reference to his personal appearance and his speech, he uses this language: "That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by my letters. ’For, his letters,’ they say, ’are weighty and strong; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is of no account.’ Let such a one reckon this, that, what we are in word by letters when we are absent, such are we also in deed when we are present." They made the mistake of using the wrong standard of measurement, and this gives us a fine text to preach from. In the King James Version it reads: "They, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." Whenever any fallible test is made a standard of measurement we are certain to bring about a wrong result.

When I was a young preacher I preached on that text. I stated that I decided to put up a picket fence around my place, and as I needed exercise, I thought I would saw the pickets for myself. I sawed off one just long enough to measure by, then the next one by that, and the third by the second, and so on. When I put up my pickets I found there was an inch and a half difference in the height. Every variation that you make repeats and magnifies itself. We must have one fixed standard of measurement and use that standard every time we saw a picket. God has given one standard.

We don’t say that everybody must come up to the measure of Sam Houston or Daniel Webster. When we hear religious experiences we do not say that they must all be alike. We may not have had the same length of despondency as someone else. All we have to do is to tell our experience and let it be measured by God’s Word. No human standard can be good. Some people imitate others. Some preachers select an ideal preacher, and try to imitate him. There used to be a Negro preacher that tried to imitate Dr. Burleson. He would enter the house carrying his big silk hat, bow, and sit down like Dr. Burleson, and strange to say, measuring by human standards, people more often imitate the follies than the excellencies. Paul says, "These men have come here on the field of my labor and set up an arbitrary standard of measurement, and they want to make me fit it. I will only be measured by God’s standard, not man’s."

Continuing his argument, he says with reference to the sphere, "But we will not glory beyond our measure, but according to the measure of the province which God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even unto you. For we stretch not ourselves overmuch, as though we reached not unto you; for we came even as far as unto you in the gospel of Christ."

I think the greatest missionary sermon I ever preached was from that text: "We came even as far as you in the gospel of Christ, having hope that, as your faith groweth, we shall preach the gospel in the regions beyond you." I drew an histopical picture of the progress of the gospel, commencing at Jerusalem, until at this time it had reached Corinth in Europe. It represented many long journeys and varied experiences of Paul. Paul’s rule was when he reached a place not to conduct all of his campaign from the original base, but to make the new church a new base: "I have this hope, that I shall establish a missionary church at Corinth, and that through that missionary church, I shall reach out to the region beyond, and establish other missionary churches beyond you, and use them as a base to reach others yet beyond." That discloses Paul’s method of work. That province had been assigned to him by the Lord Jeans Christ. They claimed that he was out of his sphere. Peter and James recognized that God had sent Paul to the Gentiles. They gave him the right hand of fellowship on that. God’s providence had met him there. God’s Spirit had blessed him there, and he was not building on any other man’s foundation.

The next chapter commences this way: "Would that ye could bear with me in a little foolishness." They claimed that he was foolish. "Well, hear a little foolishness. You bear with people who are more foolish." Notice what he says about what they had borne. If one should even slap them in the face they would bear it. "Now bear with me. I am indeed jealous over you, but it is a godly jealousy. I haven’t that envy and jealousy that one preacher has for another preacher lest the one beat me preaching. My jealousy is one that God approves. There come preachers to you who do not preach the true gospel, who come in another spirit and preach another Jesus, and as the serpent beguiled Eve with subtlety, so will they seduce you. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if ye receive a different spirit, which ye did not receive, or a different gospel, which ye did not accept, ye do well to bear with him. For I reckon that I am not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." Their next objection was that Paul was not a trained orator: "But though I be rude in speech, yet I am not in knowledge."

As to that question of support, he says, "Did I commit a sin . . . because I preached to you the gospel of God for nought? I did receive wages from other churches. Part of the time I supported myself and part of the time the Macedonian churches supplied my necessities while I preached to you. Instead of being led to refrain from claiming support because I distrusted my apostolic right to do that, my object was an entirely different one. I had a number of lessons I wanted to teach you. One reason was that I might take away from anybody who sought occasion to object to my ministry on that account. I wanted to teach you lessons as I taught the Thessalonians, that men ought to work; that industry is a good thing." He says, "It was wrong I did you and I ask you to forgive the wrong."

It is a sin for the gospel to be preached contrary to the declaration of Christ that "they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel."

Every enterprise should pay its own expenses and yield its fruits to the laborer. "I made you inferior in this, that I took away from you the dignity of paying for the gospel preached to you."

I discussed that question before the Southern Baptist Convention once when there was such a hue and cry against agents. I told this anecdote: An Irishman had only one load of powder and shot, and he had to have something to eat. He saw a coon up a tree and fired at it. The coon fell out and hit the ground so hard that it burst open. The Irishman said, "Faith, and what a fool I was to waste that load of ammunition; the fall would have killed him." There are people who talk about a waste of ammunition, but coons don’t fall out of the tops of trees unless someone wastes a load of shot on them.

Let us look at 2 Corinthians 11:20: "For ye bear with a man, if he bringeth you into bondage, if he devoureth you, if he taketh you captive, if he exalteth himself, if he smiteth you on the face." Those fellows with those letters of recommendation were very exalted beings, and demanded high recognition; there was no humility about them. They claimed money, and they got money, and they brought the people from gospel freedom into bondage, and they would even insult them by slapping them in the face. There are some people who are never influenced by gentle means. The old Webster spelling book tells us that a man may talk softly to a boy up an apple tree and he won’t come down. He may throw turf at him and he won’t come down. He has to rock him to get him down. There are some people who want a leader that will knock them down and drag them out, and they have no respect for a leader that can- not fight and call somebody a liar. The one who shot down the most men in western towns used to be a hero. Paul says that these people were like those who cringe before their masters like dogs. That reminds me of Aesop’s fable of King Log.

As to the charge that he was not a Jew, here is his reply: "Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I am more." Now follows a passage of Scripture that ought to be written in letters of gold and carried with every preacher. It shows what Paul had suffered for the gospel up to this time: "In labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily – anxiety for all the churches." I suppose if we put together the labors and sufferings of all the other apostles, they would not equal the sufferings of this one man. When we read the book of Acts, we do not read about any of these shipwrecks, and only one on the scourgings, the one at Philippi by the Roman lictors. Scarcely any of the other perils are mentioned.

No wonder John Mark got scared when they left the Isle of Cyprus and went on to the mainland. Up those mountains, and swimming those river torrents, and meeting those robbers, Paul’s every step was into the jaws of death, always the Spirit of God bearing witness with his spirit that bonds and imprisonments awaited him. He counted it the same as breathing, and more certain than food, for often he did not know he would get any food. How many times do we preachers suffer real hunger in doing our duty as preachers? Do we ever swim creeks? How many times have we been in jail and whipped by the magistrates?

They used to whip Baptist preachers in Virginia, and in ungodly New England it was a devout exercise to banish Quakers and whip Baptists. I have the history of the old Philadelphia Association. Within four years of the time that the battle of Lexington was fought, and almost within sight of the battleground, a large community of Baptists were taxed to build a meeting house for the Congregationalists in a community where there were no Congregationalists. Whenever they did not pay the tax readily, law officers came and attached the center acre of their farms or gardens, and then under forced auction sales, their enemies would bid in their property for a song.

We are living in a good, easy time. But our fathers have been tested. It is certainly true that throughout the dark ages whoever was true to the gospel of Jesus Christ walked at least somewhat in the steps of Paul. There are historians who are unable to see any connection between the Baptists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the preceding sufferings for Christ, but they are very dim-eyed. The gospel is always transmitted by men. Paul says, "What I commit to you, do you commit to faithful men who shall come after you." Somebody carries the gospel, and it always broke out in the places where these faithful preachers went. They could not publish books and preach in houses. They had to preach in the caverns of the earth, and even in pious Switzerland where John Calvin laid the foundation of Presbyterianism, the men who insisted on immersion as baptism were condemned to be drowned: I you will dip, we will dip you."

In 2 Corinthians 12 he comes to another proof of his authority – the revelations made to him. We have read nothing of this in the preceding history. It occurred during his Cilician ministry, to which there are only two New Testament references: "I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not; or whether out of the body, I know not; God knoweth) ; such a one caught up even to the third heaven. And I know such a man (whether in the body, or apart from the body, I know not; God knoweth) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter." In other words, "You say I am not an apostle. This is only one of the many experiences that I have had with my Lord." This man was selected as a special medium of divine revelation, and God honored him by catching him up to the third heaven – the paradise of God. The word "paradise" occurs here, and where the Saviour spoke it on the cross: "This day shalt thou be with me m paradise," and in the third chapter of Revelation: "To him that overcometh to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." These are the only three places where the word occurs in the New Testament, and from these passages it is easy to see where Paul was carried. The tree of life was in the midst of the paradise of God, and the last of Revelation locates that tree of life: "And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." That is paradise regained – the paradise that the original paradise typified. The first Adam lost the type, and the Second Adam gained the antitype. Paul says, "I do not know whether it was just my spirit taken out of my body and carried up there – cannot answer that psychological question – but I know that God caught me up into the paradise of heaven. I heard things not proper to tell now." Notice that Lazarus told nothing as to his experiences the other side of the grave. Our revelation must come from God.

Now Paul says, "By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me." Of course, everybody wants to know what that thorn in the flesh was, but we can only conjecture. I infer from some statements in the letter to the Galatians that it was his weak eyes. He had to be led around, and have his letters written. He wrote the letter to the Galatians with his own hand, and calls attention to the "sprawling letters." He says the Galatians were so much in love with the gospel he preached that they would have plucked out their own eyes and given him. So I infer that the devil was permitted to afflict him. He prayed three times that the affliction might be taken away. There are two other cases where three prayers were made to God like this case, and where those praying did not get the request in the form they asked for it. God did not take away the thorn in the flesh, but he answered Paul’s prayer by giving him grace to bear it.

In regard to that money business he says, "I did not myself burden you, but, being crafty, I caught you with guile." We must understand these words as quoted by him. It was the charge of his enemies to which he replies: "Did I take advantage of you by any one of them whom I have sent unto you? I exhorted Titus, and I sent the other brother with him. Did Titus take any advantage of you? Walked we not in the came spirit? Walked we not in the same steps?" I don’t suppose any man ever acted more prudently than Paul did in the management of money.

QUESTIONS

1. What can you say of the closing section (2 Corinthians 10-13) and from what does the difference arise?

2. What is the object of this last section, and where may we find the discussion extended?

3. What are the charges of the Judaizers, and how did they say that he acknowledged that he was not an apostle?

4. What is Paul’s reply to the charge that he was humble and modest when present, but bold when absent?

5. What is his reply to the charge that his letters were weighty and strong, but his bodily presence was weak, etc.?

6. What the mistake of the accusers on this point, what illustration from the experience of the author, and what the application to the Christian experience?

7. What is Paul’s reply to the accusation that he was out of his sphere, what great missionary text in this connection, what was Paul’s method of work as revealed in this reply, and what recognition was given Paul in this sphere?

8. What his reply to the charge that he was foolish?

9. What his answer to the objection that he was not a trained orator?

10. What his reply to the charge that he did not demand a support?

11. What is the teaching here on ministerial support? Illustrate.

12. What is the character and methods of Paul’s Judaizing accusers, and how does this method seem to fit some people? Illustrate.

13. What is his reply to the charge that he was not a. Jew, and, briefly, what were Paul’s sufferings for the gospel up to this time?

14. How does this paragraph from the life of Paul fit our case, and what, briefly, some of the sufferings of our forefathers?

15. What proof of his authority does Paul present in 2 Corinthians 12, and how does it prove it?

16. What three passages in the Bible contain the word "paradise," and where is paradise?

17. What was Paul’s "thorn in the flesh," and why was it given him?

18. What God’s answer to his prayer respecting it, and what other similar cases in the Bible?

19. How did Paul reply to their charge respecting the money matter?

NOTE: For the first part of the discussion of the revolt against apostolic authority, see 1 Corinthians 16:1.

Verses 1-4

XVIII

SAUL – FROM HIS CONVERSION TO HIS ORDINATION

See list of references below.

The theme of this section is the history of Saul from his conversion and call to the apostleship, up to his ordination as an apostle to the Gentiles; that is, it extends from Acts 9 over certain parts of Acts up to chapter 13, but not all of the intervening chapters of Acts. The scriptures are Acts 9:17-30; Acts 11:25-30; Acts 22:17-21; Galatians 1:5-24; Acts 15:23-41; 2 Corinthians 11:23-27; 2 Corinthians 11:32-33; 2 Corinthians 12:1-4; Acts 26:20, which you have to study very carefully in order to understand this section. The time covered by this period is at least nine years, probably ten years, of which we have very scanty history. We have to get a great part of our history from indirect references, and therefore it takes a vast deal of study to make a connected history of this period.

Two scriptures must here be reconciled, Acts 9:19-26 and Galatians 1:15-18. The particular points conflicting are that Luke in Acts 9 seems to say that immediately, or straightway, after his conversion Saul commenced to preach at Damascus, and the Galatian passage says that straightway after his conversion he went into Arabia and remained there a long time before he returned to Damascus. The precise question involved in the account is, Did Paul commence to preach "straightway" after his conversion, as Luke seems to represent it, or did he wait nearly three years after his conversion before he began to preach? Luke’s account in Acts 9 seems on its face to be a continuous story from Damascus back to Jerusalem, without a note of time, except two expressions: "And he was certain days with the disciples that were at Damascus," and then a little lower down he uses the expression, "when many days were fulfilled." Luke’s account says nothing about Saul’s leaving Damascus, his long absence and return there. In a very few words only he tells the story of three years. With his account only before us, we would naturally infer that Saul began to preach in Damascus "straightway" after his conversion, but we would also infer that this preaching was continuous there after he commenced, until he escaped for his life to go to Jerusalem. But the Galatian account shows that he left Damascus straightway after his conversion, went into Arabia, returned to Damascus, and then took up his ministry there, and, after three years, went to Jerusalem. This account places the whole of his Damascus ministry after his return there.

The issue, however, is not merely between Luke’s "straightway" and the Galatian "straightway," though this is sharp, but so to insert the Galatian account in the Acts account as not to mar either one of the accounts, and yet to intelligently combine the two into one harmonious story. In Hackett on Acts, "American Commentary," we find the argument and the arrangement supporting the view that Paul commenced to preach in Damascus before he went into Arabia, and in chapter II of Farrar’s Life of Paul we find the unanswerable argument showing that Paul did not commence to preach until after his return from Arabia, and that his whole ministry at Damascus was after that time, and then was continued until he escaped and went to Jerusalem.

The Hackett view, though the argument is strong and plausible in some directions, breaks down in adjustment of the accounts, marring both of them, and failing utterly in the combination to make one intelligent, harmonious story. The author, therefore, dissents strongly from the Hackett view and supports strongly that of Farrar. In other words, we put in several verses of the letter to the Galatians right after Acts 9:19.

Let us take Acts 9, commencing with Acts 9:17: "And Ananias departed, and entered into the house; and laying his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way which thou earnest, hath sent me, that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And straightway there fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight; and he arose and was baptized; and he took food and was strengthened. And he was certain days with the disciples that were at Damascus." And Galatians 1:15 reading right along: "But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me: but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned unto Damascus." All of that must follow Acts 9:19. Then we go back and read, beginning at Acts 9:20: "And straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God," that is, straightway after he returned from Arabia. Then read to Acts 9:25, and turn back to Galatians 1:18: "Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas." Then go with Acts 9:26: "And when he was come to Jerusalem, he essayed to join himself to the disciples." The following is a harmony of these scriptures:

It is intensely important that you have this harmony of all these scriptures. You divide all of this into four parts just like the Broadus method in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I have in four parallel columns made the harmony complete in the passages mentioned, showing how far to read, and then taking up the one that supplies, so that one can read the entire story without a break. In column 1 of this harmony read Acts 9:17-19; in column 2, Galatians 1:15-17; returning to column 1 read Acts 9:20-25 and 2 Corinthians 11:32-33; then in column 2, Galatians 1:18 (except the last clause); then back to column I and read Acts 9:26-27; in column 2, Galatians 1:18 (last clause) and Galatians 1:19-20; then back to column I, read Acts 9:28-29 (except last clause); then in column 3 read Acts 22:17-21; in column 1, Acts 9:29 (last clause) to Acts 9:31; in column 2, Galatians 1:21-24; in column 4, Acts 11:25-30; Acts 12:25. This is the harmonious story of Paul. Then read for purposes of investigation, Acts 15:23-41 in order to get the information about his Cilician work, also read 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 to find out what part of the sufferings there enumerated took place in Cicilia. Then read 2 Corinthians 12:1-4, as this pertains to Cilicia. Then read Acts 26:20 and ask the question, When did he do this preaching in Judea, and was it during his Cilician tour? This gives all the scriptures. Carefully read it over in the order in which the scriptures are given. It makes the most perfect story that I have ever read. It does not mar any one of the four separate cases. It does combine into one harmonious story and gives us an excellent harmony of these scriptures.

The value of this harmony is very evident. This arrangement mars no one of the several accounts of the story, but does combine them into one harmonious story, and provides an explanation for Luke’s "certain days," "many days," the Galatian "three years," Luke’s "straightway," and the Galatian "straightway."

With this harmony before us, we can see why Luke is so very brief on the account of Paul in Acts 9. His plan is to tell the story of the Jerusalem church up to the end of Acts 12. All matters apart from that are briefly noted, and only as they connect with Jerusalem, the center. But from Acts 13 he makes Antioch the center, and we are told of his arrest, and later on he shifts back to Jerusalem, and then back to Rome, and thus winds up the history. Remember the centers: First center, Jerusalem; second center, Antioch; third center, Jerusalem, and fourth center, Rome.

Saul did not commence preaching at Damascus immediately after his conversion because he had nothing to preach. He had not yet received the gospel. A man cannot by sudden wrench turn from propagating the Pharisee persecution to propagating the gospel of Jesus Christ. He must have the gospel first, and must receive it direct from the Lord. After you take up the New Testament passages showing how he received the gospel, you will see that he did not receive it while at Damascus. Indeed, we have the most positive proof that he did not receive it there.

But why did he go into Arabia, where in Arabia, and how long there? Being willing to accept Christ as his Saviour, he needs time for adjustment. He needs retirement. He needs, like every preacher needs after conversion, his preparation to preach and to know what to preach. He went into Arabia for this purpose, and, of course, Arabia here means the Sinaitic Peninsula, or Mount Sinai. Up to his conversion he had been preaching Moses and the law given on Mount Sinai. Now he goes into Arabia to Mount Sinai, the very place where God gave the law to Moses, to study the law and the gospel, and comes back to us, having received of the Lord the gospel as explained in Galatians.

There are some analogous cases. The other apostles had to have three years of preparation, and under the same teacher, Jesus. They would have done very poor preaching if they had started immediately after their conversion. Jesus kept them right there, and trained them for three years. Now Paul commences with the three years’ training, and he goes to Arabia and receives the three years’ preparation under the same teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He not only knows the facts of the gospel as we know them from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but as one that was there right at the time, and he gets it firsthand from the Lord Jesus Christ himself telling him all the important facts bearing upon the remaining of the incarnation of Jesus, where he came from in coming to the earth, how much he stooped, what the coming signified, of his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension. We get the harmony of the gospel by studying the books, but he did not get it as we do, but by direct revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ. He introduces a statement concerning the revelation that he received, and he is careful to tell the Corinthian church how that Christ died, was buried, and rose again in three days. It took three years and a half in the analogous cases of other apostles.

Elijah went into Arabia and into this very mountain when he was perplexed; and there came an earthquake, and God was not in the earthquake; and there came a fire, and God was not in the fire, but there came a still, small voice showing Elijah what he must do. Take the case of Moses when the revelation was made to him that he was to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Egyptians. God told him the methods and the means and sent him into the same Sinaitic Peninsula. He stayed there forty years in study and preparation, and then delivered Israel.

John the Baptist remained in the wilderness thirty years in order to preach six months. Neither did Jesus open his mouth to preach a sermon until after his baptism, and was led into the wilderness and tempted of the devil, and then came back and immediately commenced to preach. More hurtful mistakes are made by unprepared people taking hold of the Scriptures than in any other way. A certain colonel, when asked by a zealous young preacher, "Well, colonel, what do you think of my sermon," answered, "Zealous, but weak."

We have only to read Galatians 4 to see the significance of Sinai and Jerusalem, which shows the revolutions which took place in his mind while he was in Arabia. If the apostle Paul had not gone into Arabia, but had been sent to Judea under the old covenant, which is Jerusalem, as Jerusalem now is, the Christian world would have been a Jewish sect. You have only to read to see how certain of the apostles clung to the forms and customs of the Jewish law and claimed that one could not be a Christian without becoming a Jew and being circumcised. What would have been the effect if God had not selected this great life and revealed to him the ministry of the gospel that had been rejected by the Jews and given to the Gentiles, so that foreigners and aliens might become citizens and saints? For a more elaborate discussion of this subject see the author’s sermon on the Arabian visit.

Just before the ministry at Damascus he went into Arabia and returned. He was in Arabia over two, perhaps three years. As he stayed about three years before he went back to Jerusalem, his ministry was not very long in Damascus. The record says, "straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus," etc. What kind of sermons did they have? The Jews over at Damascus that were still holding to the Mosaic law could not yet understand this revolutionary preaching, and right there at Damascus, he received one of the five Jewish scourgings that are mentioned in 2 Corinthians, which gives a list of the number of times he received the forty stripes save one, and the number of times beaten with the Roman rods, and the number of times scourged with the Jewish scourge. Finding the scourging was not sufficient, they laid a plot against him. They conspired and set a watch at every gate all around the city to kill him. The walls at Damascus have houses built on them, as you can see to this day. They put him in a basket and from a window in the upper story they letrbim down by the wall. Aretas was king of Damascus at this time) and he stationed soldiers at every gate to keep watch, and while they were watching the gates, Paul escaped from the window in an upper story, as given in the thrilling account of 2 Corinthians 11:32-33. Also Luke gives the account, saying that the brethren let him down in a basket by the wall. Now he being let down, started to Jerusalem. Three years have elapsed since he left there, a persecutor, and he returns now a preacher of the Lord Jesus Christ. That presents this connected account.

But why did he want to go to Jerusalem to see Peter? Commentaries say he wanted to get information from Peter; Catholics say that Peter was Pope. Whatever he wanted to get, I think he derived nothing from Peter. When he came there they expressed distrust of him. If he had commenced to preach at Damascus "straightway" after his conversion, in three years’ time some notice would have gotten to Jerusalem, and there would not have been this distrust when he got there. Only one had heard of this change and his beginning to preach, and that was Barnabas, of the Jewish church. When Barnabas related Paul’s experience, they received him and he went in and out among them. But he was there only two weeks.

He commenced immediately to preach to the Grecians, and it stirred up the people as it did at Damascus, and they were so intensely stirred that they laid a plan to kill him. So he left, and there are two reasons for his leaving. When the brethren saw the Jews were about to kill him, they sent him to Caesarea and over to Tarsus. That is one of the reasons for his leaving. Paul gives an entirely different reason. He says, "And it came to pass when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the Temple, I was in a trance, and Jesus came unto me saying, Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. Get thee far hence and preach to the Gentiles," and he, therefore, went.

Here was the Cilician ministry, its sufferings and its revelations. He was over there five years, and some of the sufferings enumerated in 1 Corinthians II are bound to have occurred in that period; some of the shipwrecks, some of the scourges, some of these stonings. In 2 Corinthians 12 he says, "I knew a man in Christ, fourteen years ago," so if you drop back fourteen years you find yourself there with Paul in Cilicia. In 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 we find the revelations that occurred there. One of the revelations there was that marvelous revelation that he received (2 Corinthians 12:4): "How that he was caught up into Paradise." Here the question arises, Was it in this tour that he preached on the coasts of Judea? In Acts he seems to say that he preached at Damascus first and then at Jerusalem, and in Cilicia, and on the coasts of Judea. We have no history of his preaching on the Judean coasts beyond his statement, and if he did not preach on the coasts of Judea at that time, when do we find a period in his life before that where he could have preached on the Judean coasts? On his way to the Jerusalem conference. Therefore, he says, "While I was in Cilicia, and the five years I was at Tarsus, and just a little way from Tarsus on the Judean coasts."

Let us consider the Antioch ministry. The record says Barnabas had gone to Tarsus in order to find Saul and bring him back with him, and that Barnabas and Saul preached a year at Antioch. A great many were brought into the church. It was the first time in the world where Jew and Gentile were in the same church together, socially, eating and drinking with each other. But Paul now makes his second visit to Jerusalem. The last of chapter II tells us that Agabus, one of the prophets, foretold a drought in Judea, and Paul and Barnabas took a collection over to them. Later, when Paul is making his last visit to Jerusalem, Agabus meets him and gives that remarkable prophecy which we find in Acts 21, about what would happen to Paul if he went to Jerusalem, he having received the revelation from the Holy Spirit. But the condition of Jerusalem when he arrived was awful. Herod, as we find in Acts 12, was persecuting the church, and had killed James and imprisoned Peter. Paul comes just at that time. On his return to Antioch he finds a new companion, Mark.

The Romanists place here Peter’s first visit to Rome. They take two passages of scripture, one Acts 2, where Peter visits all parts, and they say when he left Jerusalem this time he went to Rome, and got back to Jerusalem in time for that big council in Acts 15. So far as Bible history goes, there is not a bit of testimony that Peter ever saw Rome. I think he did, but we do not get it from the Bible.

Here arises another question, Did the shock of our Lord’s appearance to Saul on the way to Damascus, likely injure him physically in a permanent way, and permanently affect his sensibilities? My opinion is that it did. He was never a strong man after that. His eyes always gave him trouble. Though the scales fell from his eyes, and he was not entirely blind, his eyes were weak, and he had to grope his way in walking. There are two pictures of Paul which greatly contrast his physical appearance. Raphael gives us a famous cartoon of Paul at Athens, and one of the most famous pictures of the great apostle. We find a copy of it in most Bible illustrations, certainly in any Roman Catholic Bible. Another picture is by the artist, Albrecht Durer. It is called a medallion, a carved picture, and it presents a little, ugly, weak, bald-headed, blear-eyed Jew. Durer’s picture is the one that fits Paul’s account of himself, and not Raphael’s.

I here commend, in addition to Conybeare and Howson’s Life of Paul and Farrar’s History, Lightfoot on Galatians.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the theme of this section?

2. What is the scriptures?

3. What is the time covered by this period?

4. What two scriptures must here be reconciled?

5. What is the problem here?

6. What is the Hackett view of it?

7. What is the real solution of it?

8. Show how the scriptures are made to fit this scheme.

9. How may we show the harmony of these scriptures?

10. What is the value of this harmony?

11. Why did not Saul commence preaching at Damascus immediately after his conversion?

12.Why did he go into Arabia, where in Arabia, & how long there?

13. What are the analogous cases cited?

14.What was the added value of this preparation to Saul?

15.What sermon commended in this connection & have you read it?

16. Describe the ministry at Damascus.

17. Why did he want to go to Jerusalem to see Peter?

18. Explain the distrust there & its bearing on preceding question.

19. How long was he there?

20. What of his ministry while there?

21. What two reasons for his leaving?

22. How long was the Cilician ministry, and what its sufferings and its revelations?

23. Was it in this tour that be preached on the coasts of Judea?

24. Describe the Antioch ministry, and how long was it?

25. What carried Paul on his second visit to Jerusalem, and when does Agabus again appear in this history?

26. What was the condition of Jerusalem when he arrived?

27. Where do the Romanists place Peter’s first visit to Rome?

28. On Paul’s return to Antioch, what new companion had he?

29. Did the shock of our Lord’s appearance, to Saul on the way to Damascus likely injure him physically in a permanent way, and permanently affect his sensibilities?

30. What two pictures of Paul greatly contrast his physical appearance, and which is most likely true to nature?

31. What special authority on this period, in addition to Conybeare and Howson, and Farrar’s History, commended?