| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 14 |
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He called these records of his persecutions and toils marks of Jesus, because they had been received in the service of Christ. It was because he was a Christian that he had been scourged, beaten with rods, and stoned. It was in missionary journeyings that he had suffered shipwreck, hunger, and cold. If he had continued the life of a popular Jewish rabbi, receiving honours, enjoying wealth, dwelling in luxurious conditions, the idol of his nation, there would have been none of these tell tale lines of care, suffering, and persecution. These were the price marks of his Christian consecration and life.
Yet he was not ashamed of his scars. His tone is even triumphant as he speaks of bearing about, branded on his body, these stigmata. He wore them as decorations. The patriot soldier is not ashamed of his wounds received in his county’s cause. He does not try to hide them, or to have them obliterated; but is proud of them, and loves to show the, and tell in what battles he received the wounds of which these scars tell. Says an old writer, “It is not gold, precious stones, and statues that adorn a soldier, but a torn buckler, a cracked helmet, a blunted sword, and a scarred face.” So St. Paul gloried in his sufferings for Christ, and in being branded slave of Christ. He never thought of the marks of his sufferings as being in any way marks of dishonour.
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