<p>11:27 <em>In toil and hardship</em>- Literally, weariness and pain. Perhaps Paul's traumatic life resulted in some form of M.E. or similar disease, causing pain and sucking his energy, resulting in insomnia.</p><p><em>In many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, in frequent fastings, in cold and nakedness- </em>Paul loved Israel with the love of Christ: he describes his hunger, thirst, nakedness, insomnia and loss of all things in the very language used about Israel's condemnation (2 Cor. 11:27 alludes Dt. 28:48). In other words, he saw himself as somehow bearing their punishment for apostasy in his own life, as if he was some kind of suffering representative for them. His sufferings were the very opposite of what the Judaists believed should accompany an accredited spiritual teacher, for they practiced a form of the prosperity Gospel, having a proverb that &quot;a goodly house, a fair wife, and a soft couch&rdquo; were the prerogatives of the &ldquo;disciples of the wise&rdquo;. Paul is in a way confirming their secular view that he was 'unwise'. But as he has stated in 1 Cor. 1, there is a total inversion of secular wisdom and blessing for those who are of the Spirit.</p>