In our last study of the ministry of Paul we finished at the clause which spoke of his

testimony to the children of Israel. We would now seek to understand the second

clause--the suffering for the sake of Christ's name. There is no word "great" in the

passage, the expression is rather "how much," or "how many things," he must suffer.

The word "must" is important. "It is necessary," "it must needs be" is the meaning

(cf. John 3: 7, 14, 30). There was a Divine necessity that Paul suffer as well as preach,

and he himself in his last epistle has written that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus

shall suffer persecution.

The epistle that gives us an insight into the heart of the apostle more than any other is

the second epistle to the Corinthians. The predominant note of this epistle is affliction or

tribulation. In 1st Corinthians the apostle sought by the application of sound doctrine and

sanctified argument to bring back the wayward Corinthians to the path of virtue;

in 2nd Corinthians we find him maintaining with all the zeal of his nature his apostolic

claims, so that this epistle becomes the most striking instance of what is the case more or

less with all his writings, "a new philosophy of life poured forth, not through systematic

treatises, but through occasional burst of human feelings."  We shall find that the

sufferings of Paul, as recorded in 2nd Corinthians, arose from several causes, among them

that embittering source of affliction--misrepresentation.

Everything he did seemed to afford but fresh opportunity for the calumniator.

Judaistic feeling ran very high at Corinth. Cepas was exalted at the expense of Paul.

They said among themselves, "His letters are weighty and powerful, but his bodily

presence is weak and his speech contemptible" (II Cor. 10: 10). Why did not this Paul

rectify the wrongs of the church as Peter had done in connection with Ananias and

Sapphira? The fact that he refrained from receiving financial help was misinterpreted.

What depth of feeling must there be in his words, "I will very gladly spend and be spent

for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved. But be it so. I did

not burden you, nevertheless being crafty, I caught you with guile" (II Cor. 12: 15, 16).

This insinuation he immediately repudiates, "Did I make a gain of you?"

Again, his apostolic authority was questioned. This was a matter of great delicacy and

yet of superabounding importance. As we read, for example, the two opening chapters of

Galatians, we realize as never before that the defence of Paul's claims to apostleship was

nothing less than a defence of "the truth of the gospel." The "certain men which came

down from Judea" could possibly produce their "letters of commendation," and

"remember with advantage" before the Corinthians their personal acquaintances among

the "pillars at Jerusalem." This Paul could not and would not do. He had not been