who today hate and persecute me. I was so much in earnest that I imposed
upon my body more than it could stand. I honored the pope as a matter of
conscience. Whatever I did, I did with a single heart to the glory of God.
But our opponents, well-fed idlers that they are, will not believe what I
and many others have endured.


VERSES 15, 16, 17. But when it pleased God, who separated me from
my mother's womb, and called me by his grace. To reveal his Son in
me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I
conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to
them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and
returned again unto Damascus.

Here Paul relates that immediately upon being called by God to preach the
Gospel to the Gentiles, he went into Arabia without consulting a single
person. "When it had pleased God," he writes, "I did not deserve it. I had
been an enemy of Christ. I had blasphemed His Gospel. I had shed innocent
blood. In the midst of my frenzy I was called. Why? On account of my
outrageous cruelty? Indeed not. My gracious God who shows mercy unto
whom He will, pardoned all mine iniquities. He bestowed His grace upon
me, and called me for an apostle."

We also have come to the knowledge of the truth by the same kindness of
God. I crucified Christ daily in my cloistered life, and blasphemed God by
my wrong faith. Outwardly I kept myself chaste, poor, and obedient. I was
much given to fasting, watching, praying, saying of masses, and the like.
Yet under the cloak of my outward respectability I continually mistrusted,
doubted, feared, hated, and blasphemed God. My righteousness was a filthy
puddle. Satan loves such saints. They are his darlings, for they quickly