I Corinthians 4:16
"Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me."
I Corinthians 11:1
"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." And
Paul was lead of the Holy Spirit, do you seek for power? Then learn the
lesson of both Christ Jesus and Paul, Trust the Holy Spirit in
everything. Its good to study the four gospels but “IF” you learn
nothing of the Jesus in them then your study is wasted effort on your
part. If, you want to learn of Him and take His yoke then you have to
learn from Him through His revelation given to and through Paul by the
Holy Spirit.
II Corinthians 11:5
"For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles."
We don't know what the average person thinks, but when you read that term "the very chiefest apostle,"
who do you think of? Peter. Of course Peter was the spokesman and
leader of the 12 disciples for the Nation of Israel. And when you go
back into Acts chapter 2 and 3 when those Hebrews sold all their goods
and transferred it into cash, at who's feet did they lay it? Peter. So
Peter was the spokesman, he was the authority of the Twelve. So we're
sure this is what Paul is relating to especially since some in the
congregation thought Peter was the only authority.
So here in verse 5 Paul says, "I was not a whit behind Peter in
authority." Not very long ago we had a thought that we'll share with
you. These various opposers of Paul and his apostleship - we're sure
their argument always was, "But Peter and the others had 3 years with
Jesus. They spent 3 years with Him going up and down the roads of
Palestine, you didn't." Paul may not have spent 3 years in Palestine,
but he spent only a year at most with, a private tutor, the Lord Jesus
Himself in the wilderness of Arabia. So again even in time spent with
the Lord, he's not one whit behind Peter. And that's why it had to be
about a year at Mount Sinai, because surely it didn't take that long
just to learn the things that he was going to be preaching. For when it
comes to spiritual things the Lord makes a short work of first undoing
the old junk and then reprogramming us. So in order to give him the
authority with the full time spent with the Lord, we think now that's
what he spent about a year the wilderness. Now let's look at verse 23.
II Corinthians 11:22-23
"Are they (Peter and the eleven) Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? (to be a son of Abraham this was the crowning bragging rights of a Hebrew) so am I. (so they have nothing on Paul there.) Are
they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more: in labours
more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in
deaths oft."
Then Paul goes on to show
how much he had suffered for them and us. We're sure he told them, "You
mean I went through all of this in vain?" And look at what he suffered.
II Corinthians 11:24
"Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one."
Which
was 39. Now listen, if you understand scourging which this was, usually
a man could not take 39; he would die. So usually they had to stop
short of 39, but he took the 39 on 5 different occasions without benefit
of antibiotic or hospital care. So how this man suffered. He could
because he know that the Grace and power of God was sufficient for him,
he know through trial His Grace.
I Corinthians 11:25-27
"Thrice (3 times) was I beaten with rods,
(that was sort of like the American kid they caned in one of the
foreign countries a few years ago. And remember the outcry that it was
brutal and inhuman, but this apostle went through that 3 times.) once was I stoned, (and we know the account of that up there in Asia Minor) thrice
I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In
journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils
by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city,
in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among
false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, (the man was human. He got tired just like we do. He hurt, he ached, of course he did.) in hunger and thirst, in fastings, often, in cold and nakedness."
Then
Paul comes down to chapter 12 and repeats again why he can write the
things that he writes and we can just literally rest on them.
II Corinthians 12:11
"I
am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me: for I ought to have
been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest
apostles (and again we think he's making reference to Peter.) though I be nothing." Now reading Galatians 4:13 again.
Galatians 4:13
"Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first."
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