It has become quite common, since Dean Farrar suggested the thought, to hear men speak of three years which Paul spent in Arabia reflecting on his new situation and preparing for his work, as though it were one of the fixed facts of sacred history. I heard it alluded [248] to in this way in an address delivered before our great Convention in Indianapolis. The widespread acceptance of the idea is a striking illustration of the way in which a startling thought, uttered by a popular author, is caught up and echoed round the world as if it were true beyond doubt, when it may be a mere conceit.

      What are the facts in this case? Paul, in Gal. 1:15-18, says: "But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me even from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia; and, again, I returned to Damascus. Then, after three years, I went to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and tarried with him fifteen days."

      This is the passage which is relied on for the thought that Paul was in Arabia three years. But Paul makes no such assertion. If three years are counted from his return to Damascus, which was after his sojourn in Arabia, he says nothing at all about the length of that sojourn, but puts the three years in between that and his journey to Jerusalem. If, on the other hand, the three years are counted from the time of his conversion, which is the more probable, then his stay in Damascus is included, and it would be impossible to determine from this passage where he spent the most of the time, whether in Arabia or in Damascus. But when we turn to the account in Acts, a part of this uncertainty is removed. In this account nothing is said about the journey into Arabia; but it is said that after his baptism "he was certain days with the disciples at Damascus. And straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God" (9:19, 20). These words [249] show that his journey into Arabia did not follow immediately upon his baptism, as we might infer if we had only the account in Galatians; but that he "straightway" preached in the synagogues of Damascus. The plural number of the word "synagogues" shows that there was a number of these; and that he preached in all of them implies a stay of some considerable length. This fact thoroughly refutes Farrar's conceit that before he entered at all upon his ministry he went out into the Arabian desert to meditate on his new relation to Christ, and on the plans of his future life-work. The further statement is made in Acts, that "Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this is the Christ" (v. 22), and the account closes with this statement: "And when many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel together to kill him;" and this is followed by the account of his escape through the wall (23-25). Most naturally the excursion in Arabia took place in the interval between his first preaching, in which no violence was attempted, and this last in which the Jews took counsel to kill him, and he escaped to Jerusalem. But this last preaching continued through "many days," which may have been a year or more, and certainly the first preaching which followed immediately after his baptism must have occupied a considerable portion of the three years mentioned in Galatians. It is entirely certain, then, that the excursion into Arabia, instead of occupying three years, occupied but a comparatively small part of that time. Let us hear no more, then, of Paul spending three years in Arabia.

      Put where was Arabia, and for what purpose did Paul go thither? It has been suggested that Arabia Petrea was meant, and that Paul went to Mount Sinai, whither [250] Elijah fled, and where the law of Moses was given. But in order to do this he would have had to pass through Judea, and close by Jerusalem. It would have been a journey of about four hundred miles--a long distance to go for meditation. These dreamers forget that at the time of which we speak Damascus itself was under the dominion of the king of Arabia. Aretas was king of Arabia then, and Paul, in giving an account of his escape from Damascus, says: "In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes in order to take me" (2 Cor. 11:32). Anywhere in the vicinity of Damascus was then in Arabia, and Paul went out of Damascus into Arabia just as Jesus, in the style of John, went out of Jerusalem into the land of Judea (John 3:22). He doubtless went into some of the villages in that part of Arabia to preach the gospel which he had been preaching already in the city. Paul was the last man who ever lived, to be spending a year, or two, or three, after learning what his duty was, in meditating about the execution of it. The thought of his doing so could enter into the mind of none who had not learned to admire the useless monachism of a much later age.

[SEBC 248-251]