Hated, Yet Loved


And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Today we honor the conversion of Paul. You might know that Paul, also known as Saul, was a devout Jew who was a persecutor of the early Church. Then one day he had an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, and overnight he went from persecutor to evangelist and is one person who did more to spread the gospel than perhaps anybody else. He made three missionary journeys across the ancient world, sowing the faith and planting churches wherever he went, despite all the obstacles and hindrances that came his way. 

In addition to the challenges of travel that included shipwrecks, he faced cultural resistance, imprisonment, beatings, sleepless nights, false prophets, and much else. Yet he remained undeterred in his zeal to see Christ proclaimed. We honor men like Paul, often not realizing that the commission Jesus gave him is also a commission that Jesus gave us. Every single gospel ends with a command — and it is a command, not a request — to go into all the world and proclaim the good news to all of creation. We have some wonderful assurances given to us as well. One is that Jesus will be with us; two is that through him signs and wonders will take place.

At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus gives us — notice I said “us” — the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, he concludes with the words, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Anyone who has chosen to follow Jesus can expect persecution as certainly as we can expect the sun to rise in the morning. Jesus said, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John 15:20). But we can also expect Jesus to be with us through it all and give us victory at end. “I will prepare a banquet before you in the presence of your enemies,” he says (see Psalm 23:5).

And at the end of today’s Gospel, as we read, signs and wonders will follow us. These need not always be healing and deliverance, although Jesus tells us these will take place too, but also by means of the lives that are changed by the word sown into their heart. They are born again, no longer living according to the rules of the world but by the rules of heaven. This will, of course, bring persecution in turn because Jesus also said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

Let it not bother us. It didn’t bother Paul. And look at what he did.

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