“To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless; and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.”

I used to think it would be great to have been the apostle Paul. He did more than any other human being to spread the Word of God. He was a prolific pioneering church planter who wrote thirteen books of the NT. I am sure he will be greatly rewarded in glory. But glory comes with a cost.

Here we have one of the earliest records of Paul’s actual experience (the book of Acts, detailing his travels, covers the same time period of this letter but was written five years later). The litany of trials are many. Paul trusted the Lord as he traveled about without any salary, relying on the Lord’s supply and occasionally his tent-making business (Acts 18:3). He did no fundraising for himself or his ministry. What resources he had were spent in furthering the gospel. As a result, there were times he was hungry, thirsty, and without adequate clothing. What a contrast to the Corinthians and to us! When was the last time you experienced any of that because of your commitment to serve God? He was often homeless, not because he enjoyed camping as a vacation but because sometimes he simply had nowhere to sleep inside, so he must have often bedded down on the rubble by the side of a road, under a tree, in a cave, or in the back of a boat. He was frequently mistreated—traveling in the ancient world was precarious with no state troopers or provincial police, just the military who could act in an almost indiscriminate way.

Yet even in difficult times, he shared the profit of his labors with others who were in need (Acts 20:33-34) rather than sponging off the wealth of others. When people mocked him, he acted and prayed for their good. When suffering for his faith, he did not give up! This was not an unusual thing for Christians who were being persecuted (see 1 Peter 2:21–24), but the Corinthians were not experiencing that. They were trying to avoid all discomforts of life, so their Christian witness was not very effective and did not invoke the scorn of the unbelieving world around them.

Finally, Paul writes, “We [apostles] have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.” Almost synonymous words, they refer to that which is scraped off a sandal or the off-scouring from a cooking pot. That is essentially how the apostles were treated, like garbage.

Lord, thank You for the sacrifice of the apostles so that I could hear the gospel.