by Hugh DeLong<\/p>\n
“Then Paul answered, ‘What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus’<\/em>” (Acts 21:13).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Paul, the last of the apostles selected by Jesus, was to join the rest of the apostles in dying while serving the Lord. According to traditional thought, only John died of natural causes; the others were martyred.<\/p>\n
The other disciples feared for his life. He had given up his life to serve the Lord. Such was the teaching of Jesus:<\/p>\n
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it’<\/em>” (Matthew 16:24-25).<\/p>\n
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple<\/em>” (Luke 14:26).<\/p>\n
“He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal<\/em>” (John 12:25).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Paul had earlier made up his mind that ‘to die is gain<\/em>‘ (Philippians 1:21). Thus, he was willing to give himself completely to serving Jesus and the gospel. While Paul escaped such martyrdom on this occasion, he was later martyred.<\/p>\n
Do you think his life was wasted? Did he die in vain? Did he live <\/b>in vain? We don’t necessarily have to be a martyr, but we have to be willing to die to self<\/strong>, to crucify self<\/strong>, to “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship<\/em>” (Romans 12:1-2). Does that describe our dedication to living for Christ?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Hugh DeLong “Then Paul answered, ‘What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus’” (Acts 21:13). Paul, the last of the apostles selected by Jesus, was to join the rest of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[1177],"class_list":["post-95583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-commitment"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":55867,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/disciple-or-dabbler\/","url_meta":{"origin":95583,"position":0},"title":"Disciple or Dabbler?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jim Ward via Lost River Bulletin, Vol. 57, No. 3, October 2007 In his book, Basic Christianity, John Stott wrote, \"The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict half-built towers. The ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. Thousands of people still\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12624,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-matthew-1627-refer-to-judgment-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":95583,"position":1},"title":"Does Matthew 16:27 refer to Judgment Day?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 9, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have difficulty understanding Matthew 16:27. Does it refer to the Day of Judgment or is it an allusion to Daniel's prophecy in Daniel 7? I read two articles on your site and there are different views on both of them. How Could a Loving God Send Me to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":791,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/were-the-apostles-baptized-in-the-name-of-jesus\/","url_meta":{"origin":95583,"position":2},"title":"Were the apostles baptized in the name of Jesus?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 14, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Were the apostles baptized in the name of Jesus? Answer: Right after telling Nicodemus that no one can enter the kingdom unless they are born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5), we read in\u00a0John 3:22, \"After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92479,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/lessons-from-the-limited-commission\/","url_meta":{"origin":95583,"position":3},"title":"Lessons from the “Limited Commission”","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Samuel Matthews \"And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease\u2026 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3866,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/on-praying-to-jesus\/","url_meta":{"origin":95583,"position":4},"title":"On Praying to Jesus","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"by Nathan Ward If you haven\u2019t yet, you will likely encounter a person who believes Christians should not pray to Jesus. The position is often accompanied by what seems like reasonable logic, at least on a surface level. We ought not to pray to Jesus, it is said, because he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46600,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/serve-to-be-great\/","url_meta":{"origin":95583,"position":5},"title":"Serve to Be Great","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Dennis Stackhouse Notice the statement made by Paul in I Corinthians 4:1:\u00a0\"Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.\"\u00a0 Be especially careful to recognize that Paul identifies himself and his fellow workers as \"servants of Christ.\"\u00a0 Does that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}