The Character Of A Disciple: Endurance Series

“Once I was stoned to death” (v. 25). Notice he didn’t say I survived a stoning. He said he was stoned to death … he died. Stoning was a death sentence … capital punishment. You didn’t just stone a person a little bit and then send them home. Paul was stoned to death. They tied a rope around his ankles and dragged him through the city and then dumped his body in the city’s garbage heap outside the city walls. The Disciples surrounded Paul’s body and prayed and that crazy Apostle rose from the dead, got up off that garbage pile, walked back into town, and began preaching again! Now that’s endurance, am I right my brothers and sisters … Captain Larry F. Decker would have loved this man!

As I said, each one of these trials represents “durus” … inner-strength. But his list also represents “durus” … “long-lasting.” When Paul gets flogged in the synagogue, he doesn’t quit. He goes on to the next town and starts preaching in the synagogue there. When they beat him with rods, he heals and then goes on. When he gets robbed, he keeps going. Thieves can’t stop him. Shipwrecks can’t stop him. Raging rivers can’t stop him. The elements can’t stop him. Hunger can’t stop him. Poverty can’t stop him. The gentiles can’t stop him. The Jews can’t stop him. The Romans can’t stop him. The only way they could stop him was to literally cut off his head.

As Leo Tolstoy said in his novel “War and Peace,” a man on a thousand mile walk has to say to himself every morning: “I’m going to cover 25 miles and then rest up and sleep” … and then do that 39 more times. Paul would work in the morning, making and mending tents. Then he would teach and preach all afternoon and into the evening. Sometimes he’d preach all night … hummm, that gives me a thought. When he wasn’t doing all these things, he was writing. He is the author of almost half of the New Testament … and these are only the letters that we have or that have survived the ravages of time. Who knows how many more he may have written.

Paul walked over 15,000 miles … about three and half times across the American continent. He visited the cities of Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Galatia, Colossae, Cyprus, Crete, Malta, Athens, Syracuse, Iconium Antioch, and Rome … starting around 20 churches … maybe more. I doubt that Paul would have much sympathy for a minister whining about the struggles of a pastor serving a two-point charge, do you? [I serve as pastor to two churches, hence the joke.]

When it come to life … my life … I can lift a heavy weight if I only have to do it a few times. Major problems that come and then go away quickly may be painful but they are the ones that give me “durus” … “strength.” But there are also the day-to-day problems, the ones that keep coming back … the ones that can pile up … that can make me a “basket” case.

How many of you have ever reached a point in your life where you felt like you were about to lose it? I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that we’ve all reached that point at some time or other, am I right? We’ve all had seasons in our lives where life just keeps coming at us. Sometimes it’s something big. Sometimes it’s a series of big things. Usually, however, it’s an unrelenting series of little things that push us to the breaking point … the point where we’ve tried everything but nothing seems to work. I’m talking about a day where everything seems to be going wrong, where you’re scared to cry out, “What else can go wrong” because you’re afraid of what’s gonna happen next, amen?