Translation & Sermon by
Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 28 June
2026
Underlined words in Scripture quotes indicate words that
are in common with the Greek text of the sermon passage. Otherwise,
underlining indicates words to emphasize when reading this transcript
out loud.
Read
my translation of the passage, starting at 11:23:
Are they servants of the Anointed One? (I am speaking
insanely!) I am moreso. In labors abundantly, in wounds exceedingly,
in imprisonments abundantly, [and] in mortal-dangers often. Five
times I took forty [lashes] less one from Jews. I was caned three
times. I was punished by stoning once. I shipwrecked three times. (I
have made-do for a night and a day in the deep.) I’ve been on
journeys often, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from robbers, in
dangers from relatives, in dangers from Gentiles, in dangers in the
city, in dangers in the country, in dangers in the sea, in dangers
with false brothers, in labor and hardship, in night-watches often,
in hunger and thirst, in fasts often, in cold and in poor dress.
Apart from the peripheral things, there is the daily pile-on – my
concern for all of the churches.
There is an old hymn that goes, “I will know my Savior when I come to Him by the scars where the nails have been.” Jesus suffered for us on the cross and rose from the dead, proving that he was the authentic Messiah. But Jesus said that His followers would also suffer, so I think we can take that hymn a step further and say that I can know a Christian’s authenticity by his scars – by how he or she has suffered for Christ. That’s what the Apostle Paul is doing here. He lists in...
Jewish government authorities in Paul’s context used beatings or whippings as a means of punishing criminals in their justice system, but as a humanitarian measure, the Old Testament law forbade a man to be beaten or whipped with more than forty blows or lashes.
Deuteronomy 25:2 “...if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, that the judge will cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence, according to his guilt, with a certain number of blows. Forty blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these, and your brother be humiliated in your sight.” (NKJV)
This passage informs us of a Jewish tradition1 to count out 39 blows and stop, so that if they mis-counted, they would not break God’s law.
The ironic thing is that they obsessed over obeying this provision of the law while overlooking the fact that they were committing the much more egregious evil of punishing men like Jesus, Peter, and Paul, who were innocent of any real crime.
Verse 24 indicates that Paul had been convicted of criminal behavior by Jewish authorities and punished by flogging five times before he wrote 2 Corinthians. For whatever reason, God chose not to give us the details of any of those incidents.
Paul hinted at them in 2 Corinthians 6:5 when he said that he and his companions had commended themselves “in wounds/lashes/stripes, in imprisonments, in upheavals, in labors, in night-watches, in fastings…” (NAW)
It has been suggested that at least one of those floggings was in Ephesus, which could explain Paul’s saying in chapter 1 verses 8-10 that “...distress... happened to us in Asia [Minor]... such that we despaired even of life... but ...God... rescued us out of so distressing a death-threat…” (NAW)
The Book of Acts chapters 21 and 22 record two more times when Paul was beaten after these five times, and perhaps there were more.
If you’ve ever studied the physical procedure of those floggings or watched the brutally gory detail of the flogging scene in the movie, The Passion, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could have survived as many whippings as Paul did.
When he said in Galatians 6:17 “...I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,” he must have been referring to the extensive scar tissue on his back from these beatings.
But Paul suffered this for the sake of telling people about Jesus.
Paul adds in v.25 that he was “beaten with rods/caned three times.”
Whereas the Jewish penal system preferred flogging for crimes, the Greeks preferred punishing criminals by beatings with a rod or a cane. (A. T. Robertson)
The book of Acts records only one of those three occasions, and that was in Philippi before Paul made his way to Corinth the first time. Paul and Silas performed an exorcism on a slave girl, so her owners Acts 16:19-23 “...dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities... and said, ‘These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.’ Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods.” (NKJV)
All this for “proclaiming the way of salvation” (Acts 16:17) and delivering a poor girl from spiritual oppression (Acts 16:18)!
Now, in the Jewish culture, more-serious crimes were punished by death, and blasphemy was considered one of the most serious crimes of all2. “Stoning” was their version of a firing squad before guns were invented. They hurled rocks at a felon until he was dead. The Book of Acts contains a record of that incident:
On their first missionary journey through Turkey, Paul and Barnabas, preached the Gospel in the towns of Antioch and Iconium at the Jewish synagogues, but it made some of the Jewish leaders hopping mad, so Paul and Barnabas moved on to the town of Lystra, where they healed a lame man in the name of Jesus and tried to tell the Jews in the synagogue there that Jesus was the Messiah. Acts 14:19-22 continues the story, “Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there; and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city. And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.’” (NKJV)
Paul knew before he preached in Lystra that leaders in Iconium wanted to put him to death because they thought the Christian Gospel was blasphemy, and yet he kept telling folks the good news of Jesus. And when they well-nigh succeeded in killing him in Lystra, Paul made the astounding decision to go back into those towns of Iconium and Lystra to teach some more! Paul, don’t you know they want you dead? Yeah, but, “It’s necessary that we enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations.”
Perhaps Paul was referring to the message God gave him specifically in Acts 9:16 that he would “have to suffer… many things… for the sake of Jesus’ name.”3
Brothers and sisters, are you anywhere near that willing to suffer in order to share the good news about Jesus?
Paul adds in v.25 that he had been through three shipwrecks.
The apocryphal wisdom book of Sirach 43:24 says, “They that sail on the sea tell of the danger thereof; and when we hear it with our ears, we marvel therein.” (Brenton)
We know that Paul did a bit of travel by ship around the Mediterranean Sea, but we don’t have a record of any of the three shipwrecks he mentions here. We only have the record in Acts 27 of a fourth spectacular shipwreck which he survived years later on the way to preach the Gospel in Rome: “1 ...it was decided that we should sail to Italy… 13 When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire, putting out to sea, they sailed close by Crete. But not long after, a tempestuous head wind arose, called Euroclydon. So when the ship was caught, and could not head into the wind, we let her drive... And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. On the third day we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands. Now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up... when the fourteenth night had come, as we were driven up and down in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors sensed that they were drawing near some land... fearing lest we should run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern, and prayed for day to come… 41 [Later] striking a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the prow stuck fast and remained immovable, but the stern was being broken up by the violence of the waves…. [T]he centurion... commanded that those who could swim should jump overboard first and get to land, and the rest, some on boards and some on parts of the ship. And so it was that they all [all 276 passengers] escaped safely to land.” (NKJV)
Now, if Paul had had a choice in the matter, he probably would not have boarded that boat from Cyprus to Italy4, but he was a prisoner under custody to go to Rome, so he didn’t have a choice.
That raises the question, however, of what kind of desperate situations in the past had led him to run the risk of those other sea-journeys which had ended in shipwreck and a dangerous 24 hours on the open sea. How did he get rescued? When I get to heaven I want to ask Paul about that!
We do know, however, one thing, and that is what the motive force of his life was. We know what drove him to risk his life time and time again on dangerous journeys and voyages: it was his devotion to Jesus Christ. This is what drove him to travel the thousands of miles back and forth around the Mediterranean Ocean: to spread the good news about Jesus and to maintain the fellowship of the church-body of Christ.
Now, the book of Proverbs warns us not to engage in risky things just for the sake of thrills, but, on the other hand, stepping out in faith to do new things for the sake of God’s kingdom will involve a certain amount of risk. What are you willing to risk to spread the good news about Jesus and maintain the fellowship of the church?
The operative word in v.26 is “dangers/perils,” occurring 8 times in this one verse, and every time in the plural!
From the grammatical structure of this verse, it appears that these eight kinds of dangers mostly had to do with Paul’s “journeys” – figuratively “living on-the-move,” literally “going on roads,” most of which he did on foot.
Steve Reece, Professor Emeritus of Classics at St. Olaf College, published a reconstruction of Paul’s travels in the Tyndale Bulletin, entitled “By Land or by Sea: Paul’s Preferred Mode of Travel in the Acts of the Apostles5,” and his well-researched estimates were that Paul traveled:
7,632 miles by foot, which amounts to 414 days spent walking over roads, and
5,347 miles by ship, which amounts to 75 days spent sailing over seas.
But this is only Paul’s travels which are recorded in the book of Acts; his total travels were even more extensive; we don’t know about all of them.
Dr. Reece noted that in that day and age, walking was far easier and cheaper than using beasts of burden, so that’s why we don’t read of Paul using mounted travel. (He only rode a horse when Roman soldiers were transporting him from one prison to another.)
But why did Paul conduct all these perilous journeys and put his life in danger in so many ways?
He would have been much safer living in a cave in the Arabian desert or in his parent’s house in Turkey, studying the Bible and writing great books on Christian theology, raising a big family, and enjoying home-grown food made-from scratch, but he gave up that safe life.
He chose to live a life on the road because Jesus had commanded him to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles unto the uttermost parts of the earth. For many of us, it was because Paul risked all these dangers on the roads and seas to preach the Gospel that we are Christians today.
The first danger on the road that Paul mentions is “rivers.”
Conybeare and Howson’s book, The Life And Epistles Of St. Paul noted, “The rivers of Asia Minor, like all the rivers in the Levant, are liable to violent and sudden changes. And no district in Asia Minor is more singularly characterized by its water floods than the mountainous tract of Pisidia, where rivers burst out at the bases of huge cliffs, or dash down wildly through narrow ravines.6”
We don’t have any accounts of river-crossings in the New Testament, but we do have accounts in the Old Testament about what a big deal it was to cross the Jordan River.
For most of human history, rivers have been a major interruption to travel. Before the Roman army built its famous network of stone bridges over the ensuing centuries, crossings for Paul involved chartering a boat or ferry, or waiting weeks for river flow to diminish, or waiting months for rivers to freeze over.
Our modern-day highways with their contiguous bridges that spare us from having to think through all the logistics of river crossings are a marvel of engineering, but they are a rather recent historical development. Every time Paul crossed a river, he took his life in his hands!
He also mentions “robbers/bandits.”
Again, we don’t have any further details in the Bible of how these marauding bands of thieves threatened Paul, but we do have Jesus’ “Parable of the Good Samaritan” in Luke 10:30, which uses the same Greek word for “robbers,” presenting the problem of robbers matter-of-factly, as though it were not out-of-the-ordinary: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves/robbers, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.” (NKJV)
The same word is also used in the Gospels to describe Barabbas (John 18:40) and the two other criminals crucified along with Jesus (Mat. 27:38), and in Jesus’ wry comment about the army being called out to arrest him as though He were a “robber” (Matt. 26:55).
A synonym for “bandit” also occurs in Acts 21:38, describing an “...Egyptian who... stirred up a rebellion and led... four thousand assassins7 out into the wilderness8...” (NKJV). Bandits were certainly a problem in the first century.
And it is still a problem today. Last week, someone related a comment to me from a foreigner who was observing a truck loaded with goods, which was rolling slowly through a traffic jam on a highway. They said, “Where I’m from, trucks don’t dare drive that slowly, because if they did, thieves on foot would get onto the truck and steal things.”
This may have been part of the wisdom behind Paul’s habit of recruiting traveling companions to go with him on his journeys, but still, he never knew when he might get jumped by a gang of thugs in some remote stretch of highway or in some city alley.
Paul notes next that threats came both from his own Jewish people/“kindred” as well as from Gentile foreigners from other “nations.”
This means that he interacted with both his own ethnicity as well as with other ethnicities in his travels.
It was natural for him to hang out with Jews at their homes and in their synagogues when he came to preach in a town, because he was Jew, but he didn’t limit his association to Jews; he made sure that Gentiles heard the Gospel too. Often, the Jews he initially hung-out with had a hard time accepting his message that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the Messianic prophecies, so it was usually Jews who mounted opposition to him and persecuted him, like they did at Iconium and Lystra when then they tried to stone him to death during his first missionary journey, and in Thessalonica and Corinth in his second missionary journey.9
These Jews who turned against Jesus and Paul are probably the “false brethren” mentioned at the end of this verse.
The only other place in the Greek New Testament where we read of the threat of “false brethren” is Galatians 2:4, where a group of Jews in Jerusalem tried to force Paul’s traveling companion, Titus, to be circumcised.
Paul commented that it was “...because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage)” (NKJV)
Paul, however, saw that as a fundamental denial of the Gospel to make circumcision mandatory for Gentile Christians, so he didn’t allow it to happen, and he denied that those who were compromising Christianity with Judaism were even his brothers – either spiritually or ethnically.
On the other hand, there were plenty of times when it was pagan Gentiles who threatened Paul,
such as the owners of the fortune-teller in Philippi who got Paul and Silas whipped and jailed in Acts 16,
and the idol-makers in Ephesus who stirred up a dangerous riot in that city in Acts 19.
Why, Paul? What drove you to step outside of safe associations with friends and family and risk upsetting strangers by talking about religion – the most divisive thing in the world to talk about! Why not talk about peace and prosperity or talk about the weather instead? It’s a lot safer! Why?
Because God called him to tell the good news about Jesus to the Gentiles at the ends of the earth.10
Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.” (NKJV)
Jesus promised His disciples in Matthew 10:22 “you [will be] hated by all on account of my name, but the one who has persevered into the end, this one will be saved.” Are you willing to be hated by everybody because they hate Jesus and you love Jesus and you’re not ashamed of Him?
In faithfulness to his call, Paul not only endured unjust punishments, risks, and dangers, but also personal discomfort:
Paul already mentioned “labours” back in v.23, but in v.27 he singularizes it and adds the synonym “pain/toil/hardship.”
That synonym was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to describe Israel’s slavery in Egypt (Ex. 18:8, Num. 20:14, Deut. 26:7), Israel’s exile in Babylon (Neh. 9:32), and other forms of oppression (Lev. 25:43-53).
In 1 Corinthians, Paul used the same Greek word for “labor” to describe what he and others did in church ministry (1 Cor. 3:6-8 & 15:58, cf. 1 Thess. 1:3), but in 1 Thessalonians, where he also combines it with the synonym for “toil/hardship,” it seems to have in view both his ministry work and the work he did making tents to earn a living: 1 Thessalonians 2:9 “For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring11 night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God… 3:8 nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you...” (NKJV)
The middle of v.27 is an almost exact repeat of 2 Corinthians 6:5b except with each word singularized, whereas they were all plural in chapter 6: “in labors, in night-watches, in fastings.12”
The Greek word for “watchings/sleepless nights” is the noun for “sleep” (hypnos) with a negative in front of it, so it literally means “not sleeping,” and it is plural. In Hebrews 13:17, we see the same word describing the practice of church leaders forfeiting sleep in order to pray for church members: “Keep letting yourselves be persuaded by – and yielding to – your leaders, for they are the ones who keep vigil/night-watch over your souls…” (NAW)
“Hunger and thirst” and “fastings” seem to go together.
Fasting generally means to go without regular meals for a time in order to pray more.
Acts 14:23 tells us that, in every city where Paul and Barnabas planted a church on their first missionary journey, “...they... appointed elders in every church, and prayed with fasting, [and] they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” (NKJV)
However, it also sounds like Paul faced situations where regular meals could not be depended-on during his travels and imprisonments. This was a hazard he faced in order to announce the gospel where it had never been heard before.
The final two hardships of “cold and nakedness/exposure” also go together:
The word for “cold” is generally used in the Bible of winter weather when the temperature is relatively-low outdoors.
The only time that the book of Acts mentions Paul suffering in cold weather is many years after he wrote the letter of 2 Corinthians, when he was shipwrecked on the island of Malta on his way to Rome. It says in Acts 28:2 “...the natives showed us unusual kindness; for they kindled a fire and made us all welcome, because of the rain that was falling and because of the cold.” (NKJV)
The word “naked” in the New Testament denotes a minimum of clothing, not necessarily complete nakedness. Paul probably had nothing but the clothes on his back after escaping the shipwrecks he survived. And there were probably other times when items of clothing were lost to him, such as when he was beaten and imprisoned.
A couple of winters later, while Paul was in Rome, he wrote his second epistle to Timothy with its request to “Bring the cloak that I left … at Troas when you come…” (2 Tim. 4:13, NKJV)
The point is that Paul did not say, “Jesus, I’m OK with serving You as long as I am comfortable and have a nice wardrobe.” He said, “Jesus, I will serve You (period). And that meant sometimes not having as many clothes as he would have preferred and enduring feeling cold.
This, however, doesn’t mean we should be abusive to our physical bodies with overwork, sleep-deprivation, malnutrition, and exposure. What it means is that we should be willing to skip some sleep or to miss a meal, or to share your coat now and then. We are not to organize our lives around avoiding hardship or around seeking out hardship; we are just to persevere in faithfulness to God through whatever hardships He puts into our lives. In the 16th century, John Calvin commented, “It becomes all [Christians]... to be of such a disposition as to present themselves to be tried, as Paul was... if the Lord shall see meet.”
As for Paul, he testified in 1 Corinthians 4:11-12 “Even up to this very hour we continue to be hungry13 and thirsty, and we are poorly-dressed and beaten up, and we are vagrants, and we labor hard, working with our own hands. When we are reviled with words, we continue to bless; when we are persecuted, we hold up.” (NAW, cf. Phil. 4:12)
The grammar in v.28 is complex and results in different ways of translating it, but the point is simple: all these hardships which Paul has suffered, happened against a background of Paul being mentally attentive to all the churches he planted and served.
It could be interpreted as saying that in addition to all the discomforts and dangers and run-ins with the law which Paul had suffered, he also struggled with the emotional pressure of feeling responsible for all the churches, so he is complaining of having to suffer that constant stress in the back of his mind.
But I think it’s actually the other way around, that it was that very “concern/care for all the churches” which drove Paul to risk dangers in new frontiers to preach the Gospel and then to risk his life staying-on to disciple converts to maturity in places where there was virulent opposition, so that all the discomforts and dangers and run-ins with the law were just background “noise” for Paul as he remained laser-focused on being an apostle to the Gentiles.
It hinges on which part of Paul’s experience he was calling “external/other/outside/peripheral.”
We read earlier in 2 Corinthians 2:4 “Indeed, out of much stress and worry16 of heart I wrote to y'all, through many tears, not in order that y'all might be grieved, but rather in order that y'all might know the love which I have more abundantly with y'all.” (NAW) There again, you see Paul’s concern for the well-being of the church motivating him to engage in ministry with them.
Whichever way you take it, I don’t think that “anxiety” is the best choice of words here, because that would connote that Paul was sinning by worrying and not trusting God.
God’s will is clear in 1 Peter 5:6-7 “...cast your every anxiety upon Him, because it matters to Him...” (NAW)
Paul’s point in sharing this list and bragging about all the things through which God had sustained him was in order to demonstrate the contrast between a true apostle and a false one.
He was not the lazy, money-grubbing charlatan that slanderers had made him out to be.
He had endured all these hardships simply because he trusted and obeyed Jesus, and he had paid a huge personal price to tell the Corinthians about Jesus without any compensation from the Corinthians in return.
His message about Jesus was (and still IS) something to take with utmost seriousness.
Have you come to terms with who Jesus is and responded appropriately in repentance and faith, baptism and discipleship?
Are there any further steps He is calling you to take of radical obedience and risk-taking for the glory of His name on the earth?
Any Christian today with a bit of experience in church ministry will have endured similar mistreatment, peril, and discomfort.
Their stories may not be as spectacular as Paul’s, but they will have stories to tell of God’s faithfulness.
Paul was hesitant to share his stories, and the leaders you know might also be hesitant, but if you ask the right questions, you may find yourself encouraged and inspired by their testimony.
Similarly, you will be blessed in your Christian life by reading biographies of great Christian leaders – and your whole household will be blessed if you’ll read them out loud! (There is a whole shelf of them in the back of our church building!)
May God give us grace to suffer for him and to tell the stories of God’s faithfulness through our scars.
ByzantineB |
NAW |
KJVC |
RheimsD |
MurdockE |
CopticF |
23 διάκονοι Χριστοῦ εἰσι; παραφρονῶνG λαλῶ, ὑπὲρ ἐγώ· ἐν κόποις περισσοτέρως, ἐν πληγαῖςH ὑπερβαλλόντως, ἐν φυλακαῖς περισσοτέρως, ἐν θανάτοις πολλάκις. |
23 Are they servants of the Anointed One? (I am speaking insanely!) I am moreso. In labors abundantly, in wounds exceedingly, in imprisonments abundantly, [and] in mortal-dangers often. |
23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. |
23 They are the ministers of Christ (I speak as one less wise): I am more; in many more labours, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. |
23 [If] they are ministers of the Messiah, (in defect of understanding, I say it,) I am superior [to them]: in toils more [than they], in stripes more [than they], in bonds more [than they], in deaths many times. |
23
They are ministers of Christ. I |
24 ὑπὸ ᾿Ιουδαίων πεντάκιςI τεσσεJράκοντα παρὰ μίαν ἔλαβον, |
24 Five times I took forty [lashes] less one from Jews. |
24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. |
24 Of the Jews five times did I receive forty [stripes] save one. |
24
By the Jews, five times |
24 by the Jews. [ForB] I received five (times) forty [stripes] saveB/butS one. |
25 τρὶς ἐρKαβδίσθην, ἅπαξ ἐλιθάσθην, τρὶς ἐναυάγησαL, νυχθήμερονM ἐν τῷ βυθῷN πεποίηκα· |
25 I was caned three times. I was punished by stoning once. I shipwrecked three times. (I have made-do for a night and a day in the deep.) |
25
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I
suffered
shipwreck,
a night and a day I have
|
25 Thrice was I beaten with rods: once I was stoned: thrice I suffered shipwreck: a night and a day I wasO X in the depth [of the sea]. |
25
Three times was I beaten with rods: at one time I was stoned:
three times I was in shipwreck, |
25
I was {stretched out forB/beaten withS} the
rod[sS] three times, I was stoned once, I |
26
ὁδοιπορίαιςQ
πολλάκις, κινδύνοιςR
ποταμῶν, κινδύνοις
λῃστῶν, κινδύνοις
|
26 I’ve been on journeys often, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from relatives, in dangers from Gentiles, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the country, in dangers in the sea, in dangers with false brothers, |
26
In
journeyings
often, in
perils
of |
26
In journeyingX
often, in perils
of watersT,
in perils
of robbers, in perils
from [my
own]
nationX,
in perils
from the Gentiles,
in perils
in the city, in perils
in the wilderness, in perils
in the sea, in perils
|
26
In journeyings
many, in perilX
by rivers, in perilX
by robbers,
in perilX
from [my]
kindred,
in perilX
from Gentiles:
I have been in perilX
in cit[ies];
I have been in perilX
in the desert, in perilX
in the sea, in perilX
|
26
in {walkings on (the) roadB/ journeyingsS}
many times; I was in dangerX
inB/ofS
rivers, I was in dangerX
of robbers, I was in dangerX
of {them
ofB/XS}
my nation, I was in dangerX
of Gentiles, I was in danger[XB/sS]
in cit |
27 ἐνU κόπῳ καὶ μόχθῳ, ἐν ἀγρυπνίαις πολλάκις, ἐν λιμῷ καὶ δίψει, ἐν νηστείαις πολλάκις, ἐν ψύχει καὶ γυμνότητι· |
27 in labor and hardship, in night-watches often, in hunger and thirst, in fasts often, in cold and in poor dress. |
27
In |
27 In labour and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness: |
27 In toil and weariness, in much watchingX, in hunger and thirst, in much fastingX, in cold and nakedness: |
27 in toil[sB] and in pain[sB], in [nights ofS] watchings many times, in hunger[sB] and [a] thirst. In fastings [which areS] many times, in cold[sB] and nakedness[esB]. |
28 χωρὶς τῶνV παρεκτὸςW ἡ ἐπισύστασίςX μου ἡ καθ᾿ ἡμέραν, ἡ μέριμνα πασῶν τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν. |
28 Apart from the peripheral things, there is the daily pile-on – my concern for all of the churches. |
28 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. |
28 Besides those things which are without: my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches. |
28
besides
|
28 Without the things which are outside, (the) care[sS] of all the churches isB/[whichS] coming upon me daily. |
1cf. Josephus Antiquities IV. 8, 1, 21, and Mishna Maccoth. fol. 22:10
2“Paul was probably stoned on the pretext that he had uttered blasphemy, as was the case with Stephen (Acts 6:11, 7:57f.), and with our Lord also when the Jews threatened to stone Him (Jn. 10:30f.); for according to the Mosaic law the blasphemer was to be put to death by stoning (Lev. 24:16).” ~P. E. Hughes
3“For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake.” (NKJV)
4Steve Reece, in his article, “By Land or by Sea: Paul’s Preferred Mode of Travel in the Acts of the Apostles” (URL in the next footnote) made a solid case that Paul preferred walking to sailing and avoided Eastbound voyages across the Mediterranean.
5Tyndale Bulletin 76 (2025): 95-129 https://doi.org/10.53751/001c.141398
7Σικαρίων, a synonym for λῃστῶν in 2 Cor. 11:26, the former focusing on their daggers and the latter focusing on their looting.
8Although Paul explicitly mentions “wilderness/desert” as a place he faced danger, no stories of these episodes in Paul’s life were included in the canon of Scripture. The presence of such dangers, however, is substantiated by this verse.
9Acts 9:23 “...Jews plotted to kill him... 13:50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region... 14:19 Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there; and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead… 17:5 But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people… 13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds... 18:12 When Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat... 20:3 ...the Jews plotted against him as he was about to sail to Syria… 19 ...many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews… 27 ...Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him... 21:31 ...they were seeking to kill him... 23:12 ...some of the Jews banded together and bound themselves under an oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul... 25:3 asking a favor against him, that he would summon him to Jerusalem while they lay in ambush along the road to kill him.” (NKJV, cf. 1 Thess. 2:15)
10Acts 9:15 “...chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel… 13:47 For so the Lord has commanded us: 'I HAVE SET YOU AS A LIGHT TO THE GENTILES, THAT YOU SHOULD BE FOR SALVATION TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH... 22:15 ...you will be His witness to all men… 22:21 ...I will send you far from here to the Gentiles... 26:17 ...I now send you… to the Gentiles…” Gal. 2:7 “...they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me…” (NKJV)
11ἐργαζόμενοι, a synonym for κοπω in 2 Cor. 11:27.
12The similarity to the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28:48 is also striking “...in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness…”
13πεινῶμεν a synonym to λιμῷ in 2 Cor. 11:28.
14βάρη has to do with the “heaviness” of what is carried whereas μέριμνα in 2 cor. 11:28 has more to do with the mental “distraction” of a concern.
15ἀγῶνα, a synonym to κόπῳ in 2 Cor. 11:27, the former having more to do with effort exerted in an athletic contest while the latter has more to do with effort exerted in manual labor.
16θλίψεως and συνοχῆς parallel the two words ἐπισύστασίς and μέριμνα in 2 Cor. 11:28.
AWhen
a translation adds words not in the Greek text, but does not
indicate it has done so by the use of italics or greyed-out text, I
put the added words in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a
wording which is different from all the other translations, I
underline it. When a version chooses a translation which, in my
opinion, either departs too far from the root meaning of the Greek
word or departs too far from the grammar form of the original text,
I use strikeout. And when a version omits a word
which is in the original text, I insert an X. I also place an X at
the end of a word if the original word is plural but the English
translation is singular. I occasionally use colors to help the
reader see correlations between the various editions and versions
when there are more than two different translations of a given word.
NAW is my translation. My original chart includes annotated copies
of the NKJV, NASB, NIV, and ESV, but I erase them from the online
edition so as not to infringe on their copyrights.
BThis Greek New Testament is the 1904 "Patriarchal" edition of the Greek Orthodox Church. As published by E-Sword in 2016. The Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine majority text of the GNT and the Textus Receptus are very similar. The Westcott-Hort, Nestle-Aland, UBS, and Tregelles editions, however, are a slightly-different family of GNTs developed in the modern era, focusing on the few manuscripts which are older than the Byzantine manuscripts. Even so, the practical differences in the text between these two editing philosophies are minimal.
C1769 King James Version of the Holy Bible; public domain. As published by E-Sword in 2019.
DRheims New Testament first published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582, Revised and Diligently Compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner, Published in 1582, 1609, 1752. As published on E-Sword in 2016.
EJames Murdock, A Literal Translation from the Syriac Peshito Version, 1851, Robert Carter & Brothers, New York. Scanned and transcribed by Gary Cernava and published electronically by Janet Magierra at http://www.lightofword.org, and published on E-Sword in 2023.
FThis is my conflation of the English translations of the Northern Bohairic and Southern Sahidic traditions published by Oxford Clarendon Press in 1905 and 1920 respectively, neither of which named the translator or editor. The beginnings and ends of multiple-word variants are marked out with brackets, with a superscript “S” for Sahidic or “B” for Bohairic. The editor of the Sahidic compilation did not have manuscripts for some verses and I have not discovered a published English translation of the subsequently-discovered manuscripts, so variants in that section for that tradition are not listed.
GThe only other instance of this word in the Greek Bible is in Zechariah 7:11.
HThis is the reading of the majority of Greek manuscripts (the oldest being the 4th century Sinaiticus), so it is the reading of the Textus Receptus, the Greek Orthodox, and Tischendorf’s editions of the GNT, as well as the ancient Peshitta and Bohairic Coptic versions. But 8 Greek manuscripts (including the oldest-known one from the 3rd Century) switch the order of the last two items on this list. The ancient Vulgate and Sahidic Coptic versions follow that variant, while the ancient Peshitta and Bohairic Coptic versions don’t, but ultimately it makes no difference in meaning.
IThe only other occurrence of this word in the Greek Bible is in 2 Kings 13:19 “If thou hadst smitten five or six times...”
JThe majority of Greek manuscripts spell this number this way, so the Textus Receptus and Greek Orthodox editions also spell it this way, but the oldest manuscript with the majority spelling is from the 9th century. All four manuscripts from before the 9th century (plus a couple more) read with an epsilon instead of an alpha here (τεσσεράκοντα). It doesn’t seem to make any difference in meaning, so I would suggest it has to do with changes in spelling conventions over the course of hundreds of years – perhaps like English Bibles from 1611-2025 spell it “forty,” but the Geneva Bible published in 1587 spells it “fourtie,” the Coverdale Bible published in 1535 spells it “fortye,” and the Wycliffe Bible published in 1394 spells it “fourti.” This is the only time that the number 40 is associated with a whipping.
KThis is the spelling of the majority of Greek manuscripts, including all the oldest-known ones, and it is the reading of most Greek editions of the New Testament (St. Spiridon, Patriarchal, Alford, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Robinson-Pierpont, Hodges & Farstad), but curiously, the Textus Receptus, Nestle-Aland, and UBS editions of the Greek New Testament double the rho (ἐρραβδίσθην), following seven manuscripts dated between the 9th and 16th centuries. It makes no difference in meaning, however.
L“Navigate” is derived from this word, found only here and 1 Tim. 1:19 in the Bible. From nau (“ship”) + agnumi (“break”). The perfect tense verb which follows does not indicate an additional situation, but an enduring memory associated with one of these three occasions.
MHapex legomenon.
NThis is the only instance of this word in the GNT, but it is found several times in the LXX referring to the deep water where the Egyptian army was drowned in the Red Sea and the floods that threatened to overwhelm the Psalmists (Exod. 15:5; Neh. 9:11; Ps. 67:23; 68:3, 16; 106:24). Matthew Henry’s interpretation (following Theophylact) that this was some “deep dungeon” is an outlier among the commentaries I read.
OThe latin fui is perfect tense, like the Greek verb, but the English translator changed it to past tense.
PThe translations by Etheridge and by Lamsa are more accurate “a day and a night.”
QCompound of the Greek words for “road” and “go” - only here and John 4:6 in the Greek Bible (although there are Apocryphal uses in 1 Ma. 6:41; Wis. 13:18; 18:3; 19:5)
RThis word is found once in the Greek OT to translate the Hebrew word מצרי translated “pangs/terrors/anguish” in Psalm 114:3, and once in the Greek NT among the things which cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ in Rom. 8:35. (The Apocrypha contains another dozen uses of the word.)
SIt is curious that although all the Greek manuscripts say “in,” the Peshitta (ܕ݁ܡܶܢ) and Coptic versions say “from.” The Vulgate renders it in, but, for some reason, Rheim’s English translation of the Vulgate rendered it “from.”
TThe Vulgate fluminum more properly designates “rivers.”
UAlthough this explicit preposition “in” is in the majority of Greek manuscripts (the earliest of which is dated to the 9th century), and it is in the Textus Receptus and Greek Orthodox editions of the GNT, it is not in the contemporary critical editions of the GNT because it is not in any of the four pre-9th century Greek manuscripts. It makes no difference in meaning because the dative case of the noun for “weariness/labor” makes it a prepositional phrase starting with “in” whether or not there is an explicit preposition. Almost all English versions, whether they follow the critical or the traditional Greek text start with the English word “in.” The NIV and NLT, in trying to make a point of it, had to change the Greek dative noun into an English verb to avoid using a preposition!
VThe adverb and three noun phrases which intervene between this definite article (“the things”) and the phrase it modifies (“of all the churches”) is an unusually-large construction. It is generally accepted that the second of the noun phrases (“the according to day”) is adjectival, modifying the first noun phrase (“my crowd/the pressure on me”). The King James, RV, and ASV (following the Vulgate) correctly recognized that the third noun phrase is in apposition to the first (i.e. “the concern/care” is “the daily pressure/that comes on me”), although contemporary versions read as though the third noun phrase were in the genitive case (It’s actually nominative case.) and make it dependent upon the first with an “of,” and the Geneva (following the Peshitta), separated it out by inserting an “and,” as though it were a second subject and not the same thing.
WRobertson’s
Grammar states that this “is an adverb used as a
substantive (with the article…)”
Vincent said it should be
translated “the things which are left out in the enumeration, as
Matt. 5:32; Acts 26:29.”
XThis is the reading of the majority of Greek manuscripts (and thus of the Textus Receptus and Greek Orthodox editions), but the oldest manuscript with this traditional reading is 9th century. All the contemporary critical editions read with a simpler form of the same verb ἐπίστασίς μοι, following 7 Greek manuscripts (including the three oldest-known, partially supported by a few more medieval manuscripts). The only other place either form of this verb occurs in the Greek Bible is Acts 24:12, where the variant plays out along the same lines, with the simpler form supported by a minority of the oldest manuscripts and the more complex form supported by the Byzantine majority. The more-complex form adds the idea of “togetherness” to the root idea of “standing on,” but either way it is translated “stir/riot/uproar.”