What kinds of perils and hardships did Paul experience?
Paul endured scourging, receiving thirty-nine lashes five times without antibiotics or hospital care. He was beaten with rods three times, stoned once, shipwrecked three times, and spent a night and a day in the deep. He faced perils from robbers, countrymen, heathen, wilderness, and sea, plus weariness, hunger, thirst, cold, nakedness, and fastings.
Les explains that Paul’s hardships were not abstract. Paul underwent scourging five times; normally a man could not take thirty-nine lashes and would die, so they stopped short, yet Paul endured it without antibiotics or hospital care. He was beaten with rods three times, comparable to the caning of a young man in Hong Kong that made the world cry out “brutal” and “inhuman,” though Paul was not guilty. He was stoned once, in Asia Minor. He suffered shipwreck three times and was dumped into the ocean, spending a night and a day in the deep. He also faced perils of robbers, from his own countrymen, from the heathen, in the wilderness, and in the sea. Weariness, hunger, thirst, cold, nakedness, and fastings marked him too. Les notes Paul was human: he got tired, hurt, and ached like we do. These things show why he could write what he wrote, and we can rest on them.
In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;