2 Corinthians 11:32 Commentary and Bible Study

The apostle goes back right to the beginning. ‘In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king’, Aretas IV, that is, Hasmonean king, regional king for the area covering Damascus, holding the sceptre of Rome on their behalf. ‘The king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me: and through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall,’ by disciples in Damascus, ‘and escaped his hands.’What is that about? people have asked over the centuries. Why is it here? There are those among the Bible commentators who look at verses 32 and 33, and they say, these verses do not belong here. There is the harrowing list of the apostle Paul’s sufferings and then one event, and although it is a serious, it is not too bad. He is not hurt, he is not injured, he is not dreadfully suffering. He escapes. But of course it belongs here. It is the apostle Paul completing his list. I will glory, he says, in the things that relate to my inadequacies and infirmities and my limitations, the things I could not possibly do without the Lord. He is going back to the beginning. He has just been converted. He was on the Damascus road approaching the city to persecute Christians with authority from the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, and he was somebody; he had power; he had a retinue with him. He was probably, though the record does not actually say so, mounted splendidly on a horse with companions, so that when the record says he was thrown to the ground, it was from up there on his horse. He was a grand individual and he was a persecutor of Christ.But he was converted, and he saw a light that shone like the sun, and Christ appeared to him. At that time he lost his sight and went without food or water, and then Ananias the leading disciple in Damascus was sent to him to heal him of his blindness and to make the first prophecy over him that he was to be a messenger of God. And just as he had caused suffering, he himself would suffer greatly during the course of his service to Christ. Immediately in Acts 9 the record tells us that he began to preach Christ. Locked up in Saul of Tarsus, as he then was, was all the information that he needed. He knew the Messianic promises. He knew the promises of the coming of Christ and Messiah, and now he began to preach Christ. And of course, the Jews hated it and they were against him, and Gentiles hated it also. So there was some kind of collusion between the leading Jews in Damascus and the civil authorities because Aretas the regional king is involved. The governor seems to have referred to him – what do I do about this man? Take him, execute him. The Jews therefore watched the city and the gates night and day, but he escaped. But the point is that Paul had entered that city as a somebody special, as a persecutor with authority, with letters of authority and a commission to root out and to prosecute Christians, and yet he leaves the city as a humbled individual. One expert says ignominiously let down the wall in a smelly fish basket in all probability. He leaves in very different manner, a fugitive, fleeing punishment and death. It is his introduction to apostleship. In the eyes of the world he is now nothing. The prophecy of God is already coming to pass. He will suffer many things and far worse things. Not only does this little anecdote about his first experience in the ministry fit at the end of this formidable, harrowing list of suffering, but it introduces the next phase.He comes into Damascus on the up, he is plunged down physically, humanly, but only so that he can be lifted up spiritually with the privilege of unique revelation to lay the foundation of the New Testament church. We are not going into that now, but can you see the way the Scripture works. The people who say this passage does not belong do not look at it enough. They do not see what is going on.