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A further recital of hardships and difficulties:
v. 29. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?
v. 30. If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.
v. 31. The God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed forevermore, knoweth that I lie not.
v. 32. In Damascus, the governor under Aretas, the king, kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me;
v. 33. and through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.
The first rhetorical questions contain a further explanation of the fact that Paul was burdened with the details of business concerning many congregations. If any important question of faith or of Christian life was to be decided, or when there was a quarrel, or when his advice was desired in any matter whatsoever, the apostle was invariably approached to give his assistance and decision. Not only the weal and woe of entire Congregations, however, rested upon his shoulders, but he also bore with the individual Christians. His apostolic sympathy went out to those that were weak in faith; he felt their weakness with them; he found the right word at the right time; he knew when to make allowances and when to use firmness; he became weak with the weak. On the other hand, when he heard that any person was being offended, was made to stumble, he was inflamed with righteous indignation. He felt the injury as though it had been done to himself. As a true pastor, he felt the spiritual troubles and perils of all his members everywhere and stood by their side with prayer and advice.
The principle which has guided the apostle thus far in his glorying he gives in the sentence: If it is necessary for me to boast, I will boast of my weakness. As though he would say: It is not my own free will, it is not my own choice to glory, but you Corinthians have compelled me to boast in order that the Gospel of Christ may remain in your midst. Since it is thus laid upon me as a necessity, I shall not boast as other people do, of my strength, of my successes, hut of that which belongs to my weakness, of my sufferings, of the persecutions and tribulations which I have endured. And herein the apostle solemnly protests that he is speaking the truth: The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. This exclamation shows the depth of the feeling which was agitating the apostle. God is his witness. Not his own person, not the truth of his doctrine, hut the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the honor of his Lord, is endangered, and therefore this solemn assertion in the midst of his impassioned speech.
Paul now adds an account of a which befell him shortly after his conversion It was after his return from Arabia, when he was preaching so openly and fearlessly in Damascus, that the Jews took counsel to kill him, Act_9:23-25. Their influence in the city was so great that they induced the ethnarch of King Aretas of Arabia, the father-in-law of Herod Agrippa, to guard the city by placing a watch at all the gates, while they themselves searched the city and made every attempt to apprehend Paul. But the Lord watched over His servant. It seems that one of the members of the Christian congregation at Damascus lived nest to the city wall, and so the disciples took him to this house. When night came, hey took him either to an opening in the city wall or to a window of the house where it was flush with the wall, and let him down in a basket. Thus he escaped from the city, and the plans of his enemies were frustrated, both those of the Jews and those of the ethnarch. Note that it is right for a Christian and also for a Christian pastor to flee for his life in times of persecution, when there is an opportunity and it may be done without a denial of the truth.
Summary
Paul censures the spirit which permitted the Corinthians to be led astray; he asserts that he as in no way inferior to his opponents, although he insisted upon supporting himself, a fact which served also as a challenge to the false apostles; he boasts of the perils and hardships of his apostolic labors.