2 Corinthians 11:32–33

If the Apostle has to boast, he does not speak of his mighty miraculous powers. He does not even speak of the revelations he had received. In those things he stood alone as an apostle. He boasts instead of the things that concern his infirmities — things in which it is possible for others to share in their little measure. So if others boasted in their gifts, their knowledge and their fine speech, he could glory in his infirmities and weaknesses. These became the occasion of displaying the power of God. God can keep and use His servant despite all weakness, and in the middle of the most distressing circumstances.

No doubt it was a remarkable escape at the beginning of his ministry. But it was the last thing a man who sought his own glory would have told again and put on record for ever. No angel came to open the bars and bolts of massive doors. No angel blinded the eyes of the guards. The apostle was let down in a basket through a window in the city wall. He gloried, not in the great deeds or sayings of his ministry, but in his weakness and the Lord's grace.

In the New Testament there are three Greek words used: sarganē, "a hamper," in which Paul was let down by the wall, 2 Cor. 11:33, though Acts 9:25 uses a different word for the same event, spuris, which also means "a hamper."

The basket must have been a big one to hold a full-grown man — the sort you often see filled with dirty washing! A few years before he had been the proudest of the proud Pharisees of Jerusalem, and now he has come down to this! He himself writes, "I was let down in a basket."

It is very striking that the letting down in a basket comes in the eleventh chapter of Second Corinthians. The twelfth chapter then records how he was caught up into glory. There things were opened to him that a man cannot put into words. Here Paul had nothing but weakness, so that he had to get out of the city in a basket, let down from the wall. Yet he was caught up into glory, to see there what was really his, and really ours. Then, when he comes down from that height, the Lord explains why He will not let him have strength of his own. It is so that Christ's strength may be for him, and that strength is made perfect in weakness.

Notice he does not speak of himself as Paul; this is very blessed. If he has anything humbling to say of himself, he speaks of Paul. He will say, "I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall." There was nothing very elevating to a man in that. It was a humbling position, so he says "I." But the moment he comes to speak of what is elevating, it is no longer "I." It is "a man in Christ" — which is true of every Christian. "I know a man in Christ."

It may be worth noting the extra information in 2 Cor. 11:32-33. The hostility he met was not confined to the synagogue. The governor under the king at that time shared in it, no doubt to do the Jews a favour, as others in a similar position did later on. The point of quoting this is not to confirm the truth of Luke's account, as if the inspired word of God could be inaccurate, or as if a believer needed such support. It is to give a fresh instance of the moral purpose that governs all Scripture.