These Judaisers. Are they genuine? Are they real ministers? They claim to be apostles, can it be true? What is the difference between them and me, says the apostle in so many words? Well of course, they were not true ministers of Christ, but he is going to run this comparison in which he lists his sufferings.
I remember a deacon of a church in the UK for which we have prayed, and some years ago they wanted to call a pastor. They listened to a man, they liked his preaching, and the deacons were about to recommend him to the church for the pastorate. Well, then he presented to them his ‘wants’ list. This is what you have to do for me. He wanted a five bedroomed house, he wasn’t married yet, but anyway he wanted a five bedroomed house. He wanted this, he wanted that, he wanted something else. It was a formidable list. They told me this afterwards. And the deacons looked at each other and said, well, I think we have gone off this man. I do not think we will make this recommendation. I do not think we can possibly have this man. They were very wise. That was right.
You look back and you see certain young men who wanted to be pastors but they did not do anything. They were not interested like many others in volunteering to teach the young, Bible classes, Sunday school classes, visiting. They showed no evidence of commitment and zeal and fire, so we could not take them seriously. But eventually they found a seminary who would take them and they went into the ministry. Some of them dropped out in the course of time, not too surprisingly. In the case of others, you could be forgiven for thinking they were embarking on a bit of careerism. They would go from one pulpit to another to get a larger, larger church. And now you look back and you think, that church is terribly compromised, and that brother has presided happily over it all.