2 Corinthians 11:5 For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.

The Apostle Paul was a man entrusted with a message. He was an ambassador for his Master, Jesus Christ. And to accomplish his Master’s mission, he had to testify of his embassage, that he was commissioned and sent. His mission was in danger of being derailed by the enemies of the gospel. He had to prove his credentials that his mission might not be thwarted. He claimed that he was an apostle – one commissioned and sent by his Master Jesus Christ. And his rank, we say he had to “pull rank”, was by no standard inferior to the calling and mission of the other Apostles of Christ. He met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was gloriously saved and later commissioned.

He understood the gravity of his mandate and sought to accomplish the work, not by his ingenuity but by the grace that his Master would accord him for the work that He sought for him to accomplish.