Verse 27
In labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
Paul's hardships were genuine and included physical hunger, cold, nakedness, thirst, unending toil and a host of other hardships which these things suggest but do not elaborate.
Watchings ... His day and a night in the ocean following a shipwreck was one of these; but what were the others? Did he think of that dark night before the wreck on Malta when his watching saved the ship from being abandoned by its crew? What is suggested by this list is just as interesting as what is related.
In fastings ... Were these devotional, or were they of those times of hunger and thirst mentioned in the same breath? Some say one thing, some another; but we do not know. Paul's boasting was taking a turn that no one but himself could have anticipated; and the fact that shines in all of this is that Paul was boasting of his sufferings, his hardships, his persecutions for the name of Christ, his providential survivals of many deaths, and his merciless tortures from rods and stripes. It should be evident to all that no man ever boasted like this, except one under the direct inspiration of God.
Be the first to react on this!
