There Has Been A Change

[crakjak]

Originally Posted by SISTER Murphy

Too bad for the apostle Paul, he never did have his status 'healed' by the gospel; indeed, his circumstances were a result of believing and preaching the gospel.

I Corinthians 4:8-14
Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.
For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.
Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace;And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.
I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you.

II Corinthians 11:27
In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

And, Jesus Himself said He didn't even have a place to lay his head (see Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58)

And the writer of Hebrews, in listing those unnamed heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, described them this way:

They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
(Of whom the world was not worthy) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

Paul was not poor. He submitted all he had to fulfill his purpose, which meant he learned, "how to abound and how to be abased". Further it is a mistake to superimpose the culture and times of the NT on our context. These wanderers were being pursued by the Jewish and Roman authorities, we are not in the same context. We are in a context in which we should be more in the "abound" that Paul presented. There is a challenge and discipline required in abundance as much as in the "abased" context. A common misunderstanding of Christians is to look at everything thru a biblical cultural context and miss what God is doing in our current context.

We are called to work out our Christian lives in the context in which we live, not tailoring our lives by the cultural and historical context of the Apostles.