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felt that he had been too impetuous in speaking of his sufferings as compared with the
other apostles.
"Ye suffer fools gladly . . . . . ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man
devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face"
(II Cor. 11: 19, 20).
These are burning, impetuous words, but who would wish them unwritten and
unpublished? Can a man be white-hot for the truth and no one be singed? However, we
see the same characteristic coming out that we saw in Phil. 4: (see pages 141-143),
where, after a long list of unprecedented hardships for Christ's sake, he suddenly swings
away from all this talk about himself and says that if he must needs glory he will glory of
the things which concern his infirmities, and proceeds to speak of one of the most
humiliating of his experiences, his ignominious exit from Damascus.
"Through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands. It
is not expedient for me doubtless to glory" (II Cor. 11: 33, 12: 1).
Yet, who would have a different Paul? That there was ample room for growth in
grace, he, of all men, knew best, but would we exchange the burning zeal of the apostle
of grace, for the cold reasoning of the doctrinaire? His churches were his children; his
doctrine more than life; he "gladly spent himself"; and if this impetuosity sometimes
overran discretion--be it so! The Apostle himself has drawn a distinction between "the
righteous man" and "the good man" (Rom. 5: 7), using the terms after the manner of men.
Who can imagine Paul "faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null", as Tennyson
expresses it. Before his conversion he described himself as being "an exceeding zealot"
(Gal. 1: 14), and Luke speaks of him in those days as "breathing out threatenings and
slaughter" (Acts 9: 1).
Salvation does not rob a man of his individuality, but enables him with the self-same
members that once served sin, now to serve the Lord. Paul would have ceased to be the
same individual had he not burned with zeal in whatever cause he undertook. We are not
in the slightest sense attempting to justify the Apostle in all his ways; we are
endeavouring to look at his self-drawn portrait, the portrait of a man of flesh and blood
like ourselves, a man who, like ourselves, knew what internal conflict was; a man who is
beloved, not by reason of some ideal qualities, but for what he was by the grace of God.
What a marked contrast there was between the Apostle and his Lord when they stood
before their judges. He, the Lamb of God, opened not his mouth, but Paul flashed out:
"God shall smite thee, thou whited wall!" only to follow it immediately by the repentant
words, "I wist not brethren, that he was the high priest" (Acts 23: 2-5). Can we not
hear that impetuous spirit when he said:
"None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I
might finish my course with joy" (Acts 20: 24).
"I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the
Lord Jesus" (Acts 21: 13).