Man of Sorrows Acquainted with Grief

A certain church found itself suddenly without a pastor, and a committee was formed to search for a new one. Eventually, the committee received a letter from a clergyman applying for the position. The letter read thusly:

Search Committee: Understanding that your pulpit is vacant, I should like to submit my application.

I am generally considered to be a good preacher. I have been a leader in most of the places I have served and have even found time to do some writing on the side.

I have never preached in any place for more than three years and the churches I have preached in were small, even though they were located in large cities. In some places I had to leave because my ministry caused riots and disturbances. Even in places where I stayed, I often encountered conflict with other religious leaders, which may influence the kind of references you will receive. I must mention that I have been threatened several times and even physically attacked several times and imprisoned for standing up for my convictions.

Still I feel confident I can bring vitality to your church. If you can use me, I should be pleased to be considered.

Hearing the letter read aloud, the committee members were aghast. How could this person think that a mega-church like theirs would even consider such a controversial, nonconforming, non-team playing, ex-con? What was his name?

“Well,” said the chairman of the committee, “the letter is simply signed…A. Paul.”

~ Encyclopedia of Illustrations

We do not read very far into Paul’s letters before we realize that our Lord sent him to live on the cutting edge of life where the gospel excited the strongest resistance from the world. For this reason, our journey with him takes us to the front-line where the most strategic battles were being fought.

From the position of 21st century, we acknowledge that his role in the establishment of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world and in the development of Christian theology was second to none in the history of the Judeo-Christian faith. He was a great preacher, teacher, missionary and theologian. His letters have certainly secured a permanent place in our Scripture and his authority is seldom challenged, at least within the Church.

But when we open his letters, we immediately hear the loud echoes of suffering on a titanic scale, not unlike that of our Lord. Like Jesus Himself, Paul “was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” It was, in fact, due to his unswerving commitment to the faith that Paul became implicated in every major controversy between the gospel and the world, whether this conflict took place within the Church itself or between the Church and its external enemies. He was indeed, a man of great sorrows.

This is not to say that Paul did not have friends and supporters in his ministry for he did. In Galatia we learn that he was received as “an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.” The Philippians supported him even when it meant putting themselves at great personal risks. When he was imprisoned, they sent a loyal emissary with food and encouragement. We also know from his letters that others such as Priscilla, Aquila, Epenetus, Demas, Andronicus, Mark, Timothy and others were helpful and willing to endanger their own lives to help him.

But unfortunately, Paul soon learned, to his disappointment, that some of his supporters quickly turned against him and repudiated his authority and distorted his gospel message. The Galatians, he declared, who had once received him so warmly were easily influenced by another gospel, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? ( Galatians 3:1). Neither were the disciples at Philippi who had sent him help immune from being influenced by and succumbing to “those dogs, those men who do evil.” (Philippians 3:2). There were those who pretended to affirm their allegiance to Paul while in his presence, but behind his back they joined in ridiculing and questioning his authority (Galatians 5:2-12).

There were many instances of Paul’s collision with political authorities, magistrates, provincial representatives of the empire. The many arrests, beatings, court hearings, and prison sentences, as his letters clearly attest. Nor can we fail to note the calculating hatred of priests and leaders of pagan cults, who found their gods and their livelihood threatened by this intrepid man of sorrows.

No less relenting and hurtful was the hatred from his own people, “my kinsmen according to the flesh” as he called them. Of course, at the forefront were the Pharisees. It was at their instigation presumably that he was stoned. It was to them that Paul was indebted for the five occasions when he was beaten with thirty-nine lashes.

But among all his adversaries, those within the Church hurt him the most deeply and grieved him to the core of his very being, particularly the Corinthian Church which had not received the Gospel in the way Paul had intended and hoped. Something about the letter he had sent must have deeply offended them. Perhaps it was the stern rebuke which opens the letter, or perhaps it was the importance Paul attached to what Chloe’s people had told him about the transgressions of the Corinthians, their factions, lawsuits, immoralities and revels. Whatever the reasons, it resulted in a full scale opposition campaign against him.

When Paul learned of this, he was crushed in spirit. After all, Corinth was the first city in his missionary ministry in which he had really devoted considerable time and hard work. He had secured employment at Aquila’s shop, thereby relieving the Corinthians of any financial responsibility for him. He had stood up against the persistent attacks of the Jews there and had succeeded in staying on in Corinth until the Church was able to stand on its own and was well on its way to becoming a vigorous existence.

Then, just when Paul was absorbed in laying a similar foundation in Ephesus, he receives the news of the Corinthians strange overly critical hostility. It mortified Paul, and dependent as he was to a great extent on his personal relationships, it almost reduced him to utter despair. He wrote of it afterwards to the Corinthians:

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).

Only breaking established relationships that were so vital to the stability and growth of the Church could have caused Paul the pain and sorrows he describes. A mere imprisonment, or even danger of death, would not have given him such grief and anguish of spirit. No danger from mobs or city authorities could have so egregiously lowered his morale. It was the thought that his Christian friends and co-workers in the Kingdom were turning their backs on him, disowning him as a Christian leader and were no longer dependable for the cause of Christ. He felt his Church at Corinth had collapsed and we cannot even begin to imagine the depth of Paul’s spiritual and emotional pain and suffering.

And, to add insult to injury, Paul was also concerned about his churches in Galatia and Philippi where leaders not only opposed his policies but had the unmitigated audacity to follow him around from city to city inciting suspicion among his own converts. It was because of this danger from the influence of false disciples upon new converts that so gravely concerned Paul. He was not concerned about what they may be able to do to him personally, but because of what they were doing to his churches and the relationships he had and depended upon for the building of the Body.

Basically, the adversaries of Paul feared the effects of his message upon his converts and through them upon the institutions of Israel. I delineate in another article the charges brought against Paul and how he confronted them. Suffice it here to say, they exalted the Law and branded Paul as profaning it. The struggle grew in intensity and at every stage the debate hinged on the integrity of Paul’s apostleship and the authenticity of his message. Time and time again he was compelled to restate the origin of his call by Christ, and the specifications of the mission on which Christ had sent him. He complied with their demands, not for his own sake, but for the sake of the disciples for whose welfare he held himself personally responsible.

The Apostle Paul was indeed, a man of sorrows well acquainted with grief in his persistence struggle to be worthy of his call. He refused under all circumstances to dilute the gospel of Jesus Christ and the honesty with which he confesses both the greatness of his mission to the Gentiles and of his own personal deficiencies. Ultimately, he was persecuted unto death.

Nevertheless, Paul’s apostleship did not cease with his death or with the death of those to whom he wrote. Wherever there are computers, and ipods and ebook readers and cellphones, his message of Christ crucified is being downloaded and read. Wherever there are colleges and universities and seminaries, students are reading and writing about Paul and from his letters. Wherever there are bookstores his letters can be purchased, wherever there are libraries his letters can be read and heard, wherever there is a pulpit, somebody is preaching about the great Apostle Paul and his Christology. Even here on Hubpages, hundreds are writing about Paul and from his letters.

Apostle Paul is like a portent moving through the centuries changing lives as people hear and believe in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Again and again the last words of the man of sorrows have encouraged the hearts of believers to steadfastness and perseverance against all opposition that would seek to halt the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. Timothy 4:6-8.