<p>3:8 <i>To me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ</i>- Twice (also in :7) Paul marvels at the grace we have received in order to share the Gospel with others. Preaching is not therefore a mere duty, to be performed in the spirit of glum witness to a disinterested world. It is a wonderful grace given that we should have the honour of inviting others to eternity. Whenever Paul talks about preaching, he talks of humility. In one of his earliest letters, Paul stresses that he felt like the least of the apostles, he honestly felt they were all better than he was (1 Cor. 15:9). However, he reminisces that in his earlier self-assurance, he had once considered himself as not inferior to &quot;the very chiefest apostles&quot; (2 Cor. 11:5). Some years later, he wrote to the Ephesians that he felt &quot;less than the least of all saints&quot; (Eph. 3:8). This was no Uriah Heep, fawning humility. He really felt that he was the worst, the weakest, of all the thousands of believers scattered around the shores of the Mediterranean at that time. As he later faced his death, he wrote to Timothy here that he was &quot;chief of sinners&quot; (1 Tim. 1:15), the worst sinner in the world, and that Christ's grace to him should therefore serve as an inspiration to every other believer, <i>in that</i> none had sinned as grievously as he had done. Paul coins a word here to emphasise his humble status in contrast to the honour of being a preacher: &quot;less than the least&quot; (<i>elachistotero</i>). He was a preacher despite the fact he was chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15); only through mercy / forgiveness had he received the commission he had (2 Cor. 4:1).</p><p>Paul felt he was&nbsp; less than the least&quot; of all saints, that he would be the least in the Kingdom (Eph. 3:8). He uses a closely related word to that used by John when he spoke of how he must &quot;decrease&quot; (Jn. 3:30). It was as if he felt like John at his most 'decreased', in prison fearing death; and remember that Paul wrote Ephesians from prison too. But John was weak in prison; he doubted (momentarily) whether Jesus was the Messiah, &quot;him that should come&quot; (Lk. 7:19). Yet Paul seems to allude to this when he says that &quot;he that shall come will come&quot; (Heb. 10:37)- as if to say 'John, my hero, you had your weak moments too, but I've tried to learn the lesson from them'.</p>