“Oh, let us beware of self-righteousness! Open sin kills its thousands of souls. Self-righteousness kills its tens of thousands. Go and study humility with the great apostle of the Gentiles. Go and sit with Paul at the foot of the cross. Give up your secret pride. Cast away your vain ideas of your own goodness.
“Be thankful if you have any grace, but never glory in it for a moment. Work for God and Christ, with heart and soul and mind and strength, but never dream for a second of placing confidence in any work of your own.”
~ J.C. Ryle
Old Paths, “The Cross of Christ”, 243.
Except in an entirely figurative sense, Paul never sat at the foot of the cross.
A) Jesus was impaled on a stake (stauros).
B) Paul (Saul) tormented Jesus’ followers.
C) this continued until the manifestation of the Christ on the road to Damascus.
D) Paul, while having a special ministry with the Gentiles, also preached to the Jews.
E) at several points in his writing, Paul announces that some of the words are his own, and not those of the Holy Spirit.
I’ll buy the sentiment, but the facts are lacking.
Good word!