Thread by @FatherChrisVor1

1/15 🧵
Come with me. Let’s go back and walk with Saint Paul.
Not the Paul of grand sermons or bold missionary fire.
But the tired Paul. The wounded one.
The one who’s had enough, and still keeps going.

Today’s reading—2 Corinthians 11:18, 21–30—is for the weary.

2/15
Paul is writing to a church he loves. But they’re drifting—pulled in by smooth-talking men who call themselves “super-apostles.” Flashy, confident, powerful.

And Paul? He looks like nothing compared to them. Just a man who suffers.

3/15
So he does something strange.
He starts to “boast”—but not like they do.

He doesn’t boast in power.
He boasts in pain.

Come closer. Let’s listen to what he says.

4/15

“Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes less one.”
“Three times I was beaten with rods.”
“Once I was stoned.” (2 Cor 11:24–25)

Can you see him?
His back scarred.
His hands calloused.
His voice shaking—but steady.

5/15

“Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day adrift at sea.”

We picture Paul on fire for the Gospel, but we forget the days he was floating alone in the dark, soaked and cold, praying not to drown.

This is his resume.

6/15
He keeps going:

“In danger from rivers… from robbers… from my own people… from Gentiles…”

Look around. This isn’t prestige.
This is a man who has lived on the edge of death for love.

And still he says, “I kept going.”

7/15
And then he says something that stops me in my tracks:

“And, apart from all this, the daily pressure of my anxiety for all the churches.” (v.28)

Do you hear that?
This is a shepherd’s heart breaking wide open.

8/15
It’s not just the beatings or the prisons.
It’s the burden of souls.
The nights he stayed up worrying.
The names he whispered in prayer.
The communities he couldn’t forget.

This is the cost of love.

9/15
St. John Chrysostom said Paul didn’t glory in miracles, but in weakness, so that Christ alone would shine.

He boasted—not in triumphs, but in the bruises he took for the Body of Christ.

Because that’s what makes an apostle.

10/15

“If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” (v.30)

Not the things that make him look strong.
The things that prove he bled for us.
That he didn’t quit.
That he showed up anyway.

11/15
We live in an age that still chases the super-apostles.
Charisma. Strategy. Influence. Visibility.

But real apostolic life still looks like Paul:
weathered, limping, and carrying others’ sorrows in silence.

12/15
Maybe you’ve been there.
Maybe you’re there now.
Carrying weight no one sees.
Waking up with someone else’s pain on your mind.

That’s not weakness. That’s Christ in you.

13/15
The Church doesn’t move forward because of polished leaders.
It moves forward because of people like Paul—
and people like you—
who keep going when it hurts.

14/15
So today, I don’t ask you to boast in what you’ve built.
Boast in what you’ve endured for love.
Boast in what you carry that no one else sees.
Boast in the fact that you didn’t walk away.

15/15
That’s what Saint Paul did.
That’s what Christ did.
And maybe, just maybe—
that’s what real apostleship still looks like.

Come, Lord Jesus. Make us faithful, even when it hurts.