See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand! Galatians 6:11
Did the apostle Paul wear glasses? Of course he didn’t, you idiot! - they didn’t have glasses in those days. Oh, of course... silly me. Well, do you think he might have worn glasses if they had been available? Haven’t a clue. What are you burbling on about?
(As Paul himself once said: “I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness” (2 Corinthians 11:1)...)
It’s just that as Paul brings his letter to the Galatian Christians to an end, he suddenly bursts into an almost childlike excitement: “See what large letters I use...!” He’s like a child running out of school waving a piece of paper: “Mummy, look what I did today!”
Could it be that Paul’s “large letters” indicate that he had an eyesight problem? I received an email not long ago from a friend I hadn’t seen for some years, and was surprised by the enormous font he used. Then, it dawned on me - yes, of course, he had always had bad eyesight; I later discovered that he was now in fact registered blind.
This is pure speculation, of course. But there are in Paul’s letters one or two little indications that this might have been the case with him too. So I invite you to reach for your Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass and deer-stalker hat and join me as we follow up these clues...
For a start, we know that when Paul first came preaching in Galatia he had some kind of illness; that this illness was “a trial to you”; and that in fact “it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you” (whatever exactly that may mean). (Galatians 4:13-14.)
Paul doesn’t tell us the nature of his illness. But... wait a minute, what’s this in verse 15? - “I can testify that if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me...”
When you stop and think about it, isn’t that rather a strange thing to say? Why would he choose this particular way of expressing how much they loved him? It certainly suggests that his illness could have been some kind of eye problem.
A further clue is that Paul, sometimes at least, used a scribe - a kind of personal secretary - to write his letters for him at his dictation: on one occasion this person even pops his head above the parapet and tells us his name: “I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord” (Romans 16:22).
True, this would not have been unusual in the world in which Paul lived. But, certainly, having someone on hand to do the donkey-work would have been very helpful for a man with poor eyes.
Well, all this is only speculation, of course. And ultimately it doesn’t really matter very much.
But there are, I think, a couple of ways in which it can help us to build up a picture of the early church.
First, it helps us to see the “big names” of the New Testament more clearly.
Christian tradition over two thousand years has tended to put people like Peter, John, Mary, Paul and the rest on a pedestal - not least by giving them the misleading title “Saint”. (Every follower of Jesus, including you and me, is a “saint” in the true sense of a person set apart for the service of God).
I suspect that many people, when they hear mention of “Saint Paul”, picture somebody they have seen in a cathedral’s stained-glass window. Very possibly he will have a halo round his head and an expression of rapt adoration on his face.
But this simply isn’t what Paul and the rest were like. They were ordinary human beings like you and me, with similar physical frailties and problems - possibly including weak or diseased eyes.
Second, focussing on these hints of physical weakness in Paul reminds us that bodily deterioration is just a fact of life. So let’s get used to it!
Yes, God can heal; and yes, sometimes God does heal. But clearly he didn’t heal in the case of Paul’s problems in Galatia. Nor, come to that, did he heal in the cases of Trophimus (2 Timothy 4:20) or of Timothy himself (1 Timothy 5:23). (And, regarding illness in general, is it any coincidence that Paul regularly travelled with a doctor - Doctor Luke...?)
No. As long as we are on this earth we are subject to what the old hymn called “change and decay”. Listen to Paul again in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “... outwardly we are wasting away”. (There speaks a man conscious of his physical decline!)
But what does he go on to say? “... yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day”.
Yes! - a day is coming when that daily inner renewal will give way to a final, complete renewal - we will be perfect in body, mind and spirit. Just like Jesus himself, in fact.
So, whatever the frustrations and difficulties, let’s aim to keep praising!
Lord God, thank you for the many frailties of the great men and women you chose to serve you in key moments of history. Thank you indeed for the weakness and weariness of Jesus himself. Help me to remember this when I get anxious or frustrated with my body, and to remember that “I shall be like him, for I shall see him as he is”. Amen.
Did the apostle Paul wear glasses? Of course he didn’t, you idiot! - they didn’t have glasses in those days. Oh, of course... silly me. Well, do you think he might have worn glasses if they had been available? Haven’t a clue. What are you burbling on about?
(As Paul himself once said: “I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness” (2 Corinthians 11:1)...)
It’s just that as Paul brings his letter to the Galatian Christians to an end, he suddenly bursts into an almost childlike excitement: “See what large letters I use...!” He’s like a child running out of school waving a piece of paper: “Mummy, look what I did today!”
Could it be that Paul’s “large letters” indicate that he had an eyesight problem? I received an email not long ago from a friend I hadn’t seen for some years, and was surprised by the enormous font he used. Then, it dawned on me - yes, of course, he had always had bad eyesight; I later discovered that he was now in fact registered blind.
This is pure speculation, of course. But there are in Paul’s letters one or two little indications that this might have been the case with him too. So I invite you to reach for your Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass and deer-stalker hat and join me as we follow up these clues...
For a start, we know that when Paul first came preaching in Galatia he had some kind of illness; that this illness was “a trial to you”; and that in fact “it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you” (whatever exactly that may mean). (Galatians 4:13-14.)
Paul doesn’t tell us the nature of his illness. But... wait a minute, what’s this in verse 15? - “I can testify that if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me...”
When you stop and think about it, isn’t that rather a strange thing to say? Why would he choose this particular way of expressing how much they loved him? It certainly suggests that his illness could have been some kind of eye problem.
A further clue is that Paul, sometimes at least, used a scribe - a kind of personal secretary - to write his letters for him at his dictation: on one occasion this person even pops his head above the parapet and tells us his name: “I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord” (Romans 16:22).
True, this would not have been unusual in the world in which Paul lived. But, certainly, having someone on hand to do the donkey-work would have been very helpful for a man with poor eyes.
Well, all this is only speculation, of course. And ultimately it doesn’t really matter very much.
But there are, I think, a couple of ways in which it can help us to build up a picture of the early church.
First, it helps us to see the “big names” of the New Testament more clearly.
Christian tradition over two thousand years has tended to put people like Peter, John, Mary, Paul and the rest on a pedestal - not least by giving them the misleading title “Saint”. (Every follower of Jesus, including you and me, is a “saint” in the true sense of a person set apart for the service of God).
I suspect that many people, when they hear mention of “Saint Paul”, picture somebody they have seen in a cathedral’s stained-glass window. Very possibly he will have a halo round his head and an expression of rapt adoration on his face.
But this simply isn’t what Paul and the rest were like. They were ordinary human beings like you and me, with similar physical frailties and problems - possibly including weak or diseased eyes.
Second, focussing on these hints of physical weakness in Paul reminds us that bodily deterioration is just a fact of life. So let’s get used to it!
Yes, God can heal; and yes, sometimes God does heal. But clearly he didn’t heal in the case of Paul’s problems in Galatia. Nor, come to that, did he heal in the cases of Trophimus (2 Timothy 4:20) or of Timothy himself (1 Timothy 5:23). (And, regarding illness in general, is it any coincidence that Paul regularly travelled with a doctor - Doctor Luke...?)
No. As long as we are on this earth we are subject to what the old hymn called “change and decay”. Listen to Paul again in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “... outwardly we are wasting away”. (There speaks a man conscious of his physical decline!)
But what does he go on to say? “... yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day”.
Yes! - a day is coming when that daily inner renewal will give way to a final, complete renewal - we will be perfect in body, mind and spirit. Just like Jesus himself, in fact.
So, whatever the frustrations and difficulties, let’s aim to keep praising!
Lord God, thank you for the many frailties of the great men and women you chose to serve you in key moments of history. Thank you indeed for the weakness and weariness of Jesus himself. Help me to remember this when I get anxious or frustrated with my body, and to remember that “I shall be like him, for I shall see him as he is”. Amen.
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