Paul's observation that "for Christ's sake I have suffered the loss of all things" (Phil. 3:8) likely carries a sense of meaning many of us have not fully grasped.
While in Rome some years ago, my wife and I were scheduled to visit a prison site where, according to tradition, the apostle Paul was imprisoned for a period of time. Upon my wife's becoming ill, however, we were unable to do so. Friends shared with us afterward that it had proven a moving experience. A latrine drain had run the length of the insufferable enclosure - a stream in which, following his conversion of a cellmate, Paul had reportedly found the only facility for baptizing a new convert. My first thought was that an experience of this nature would almost certainly incline one's preference to baptism by aspersion where such deemed an absolute and immediate necessity.
Other thoughts would follow, however. In writing elsewhere of his past, Paul also stated; "I made progress in Jewish observance far beyond most of my contemporaries, in my excess of zeal to live out all the traditions of my ancestors" (Ga. 1:14). This would have included the cultural tradition that made is shameful for a man to be unmarried. Given the fact that Paul had noted his singleness in 1 Corinthians 7:7, it has been conjectured by some that, in consequence of his conversion to Christ, Paul's wife may have left him.
A subsequent thought ran through my mind: Were such indeed the case, one begins to envision Paul in the unspeakable squalor of his cell, lying on the hard floor at night, alone with memories of a time when he had had a wife whom he loved. Would it hurt? Of course it would hurt.
Do we in this country know the meaning of sacrifice? No, most of us do not.
This all came to mind this past week in reading a news item concerning believers in North Korea. Considered the most oppressive of today's regimes in terms of religious intolerance, it has been estimated that some 200,000 Christians in that nation are in slave labor because of their faith in Christ. In addition to the physical and mental abuse, many of these believers also know the emotional abuse of destroyed homes, separation from spouses, and of having had their children taken by an atheist state.
In writing the Colossian believers, Paul closes with the appeal: "Remember my bonds" (Col. 4:18). Nor would he be unmindful of others suffering for Christ. Assuming his authorship of the Hebrews epistle, he similarly requests concern for them: "Be as mindful of prisoners as if you were sharing their imprisonment, and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you may yet suffer as they do" (Heb. 13:3 NAB).
Burl Ratzsch
