One Hundred Ninety-Five Is a Lot
2 Corinthians 11:22-28 NKJV
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. 24 From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— 28 besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
In our passage for today, Paul is having to defend his authority and credibility as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Apostle means a sent one. For Paul, this obviously meant being sent into trouble. What Paul endured for the gospel was amazing.
The title of this devotional, One Hundred and Ninety-Five Is a Lot, was taken from Paul mentioning that he had been beaten by the Jews five times. Each time he was beaten, he received thirty-nine lashes with a whip. Paul was whipped one hundred and ninety-five times. Hit with a whip five times is too much for me, much less one hundred and ninety-five. That is a huge amount of suffering. What is even more incredulous is that the lashes were not all of what Paul endured.
He was also beaten with rods three times, stoned once and shipwrecked three times. He suffered from the religious Jews and the heathen Gentiles. He was attacked by robbers and put into prison. If you were a person who believed in luck, you could rightly assume Paul was the poster child for bad luck. He encountered trouble everywhere he went. To add to his physical trauma was the concern for the churches that he helped start.
And yet. And yet Paul kept going. I have heard it said that everyone has a quitting point. I don’t think Paul did. His courage and perseverance in the face of all these troubles and afflictions is astounding. In the fourth chapter of this book of Second Corinthians, Paul says something that may give us insight as to how he was able to endure such intense hardship. “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” 2 Corinthians 4:17 NLT. Paul considered the present troubles small and temporary. To us, what he went through was massive. But not Paul. In the book of Acts, Paul mentions that he does not count his life as dear to himself and that the negative things in life do not move him. This was so that he may finish the work God had given him to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. It appears that Paul’s perspective helped him overcome the problems and keep going. Finishing what God had given him to do was the most important goal of his life.
Application
I have heard it said that it’s not the problems in life that stop us, it’s our attitude about those problems that is the determining factor. This seems to be the case with Paul. I venture to say most of us would have looked for another career if we encountered the problems and suffering Paul dealt with. Without being too preachy, it seems weneed a mission bigger than the misery. Paul was not a glutton for punishment; he was a man with an important mission that held eternal consequences. May we all find a greater sense of mission in life.
Prayer
Lord, please help me to find a sense of purpose in You that can propel me past the pains of life.