This aspect of Paul’s life and service was brought before him at the time of his conversion. He was then told by the Lord through Ananias, ‘how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake’, Acts 9.16. Not long before, he had witnessed the suffering of Stephen at the hands of his beloved Jewish nation. He had watched them stone him to death, and had given consent to that death.
Perils from Jews and Gentiles. Salvation had already changed the course of the life of this once proud Jew. As a Christian he entered Damascus blind and led by the hand, and left it with the indignity of having to be passed through a window, and let down by a wall in a basket. This was because of opposition by the Jews when he was the subject of a plot to kill him. In Jerusalem he found it was the Hellenists who ‘went about to slay him’. He had commenced his life of suffering for the sake of Christ.
The Three Journeys. The days of preparation were over, and Paul and his companions had been ‘sent forth’ by the Holy Spirit with the commendation of their local assembly. Soon they were ‘fighting the good fight of faith’ and experiencing the suffering which follows. At Antioch the Jews ‘raised persecution’ and at Iconium ‘an assault … to use them despitefully, and to stone them’. At one point the disciples stood around Paul after he had been stoned thinking he was dead. Yet God was using His servants, souls were being saved and assemblies planted, but the persecution continued. Of this period Paul later wrote to Timothy, ‘afflictions which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me’. The later experiences of the ‘many stripes’ and prison at Philippi, and the uproar at Thessalonica all bear witness to Paul’s continued physical sufferings.
The Care of the Churches. Paul’s suffering was not only of a physical nature. He continually carried the burden of the churches’ spiritual progress and care on his heart. There was great travail for the believers, conflict for the Colossian saints, concern for the assembly at Corinth; ‘without were fightings, within were fears’, 2 Cor. 7. 5.
