Paul

“The story of Paul's conversion is so fantastic that it would be easy to dismiss save for this: According to the Book of Acts, Paul was present at the stoning, by a mob, of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. He knew the penalty—indeed by his own confession he had often enforced it—for professing faith in Jesus. Yet it was in the effort of spreading such faith that Paul—the educated, comfortable, middle-class, Jewish Pharisee—devoted his life, becoming the ‘envoy extraordinary’ of Christ. In that cause, he endured hardship, imprisonment, and martyrdom and fought, even amongst the other Apostles, for the validity of his vision, what he had seen, and the commission that Jesus had given him. For ‘these causes,’ Paul says, ‘the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me.’ But they did not succeed—yet.”
~H. W. Crocker III

“Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant?

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus (blessed be He forever!) knows that I do not lie. In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.”
~2 Corinthians 11:24-33

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