THE WALKING STICK

If I may speak to you again of the apostle Paul.

We tend to lionize Paul. We tend to make of him an icon of biblical proportions. I suggest that what separates the man we laud as "The Apostle Paul," from the wicked persecutor and murderer of Christian saints we despise as "Saul of Tarsus," is but a wisp of a web.

In many respects, Paul was Elijah fleeing from Jezebel, or David sleeping with his neighbor's wife, a weak man, an ineffectual man, a man who often shot himself in the foot. A monumental Christian with feet of clay.

What monstrous sin troubled Paul? What evil was it that could only be described as a "messenger from Satan." It plagued him all his Christian life.

On three separate occasions he took the matter to God. On three separate occasions God refused to deal with it.

I think that all of the stonings, all of the imprisonments, all of the shipwrecks and all of the ridicule he received did not cripple Paul near so much as did this sin that he sought so desperately to have taken away from him. All of this led Paul to an astounding conclusion: He writes . . .