12-14. (a) Were the followers of Christ excluded from trials? (b) What did Paul have to say about his maintaining integrity? (c) What did Dr. Mosheim have to say about Christians following Paul’s time?

¹² The followers of Christ were not spared from trials of integrity-keeping even while Jesus was alive. Peter was told by Christ: “Simon, Simon, look! Satan has demanded to have you men to sift you as wheat.

¹³ Paul, too, was sifted by the Devil and his agents. He faced false apostles, deceitful workers who transformed themselves into apostles of Christ. Paul tells what he endured in the Christian ministry. He writes: “In labors [as a minister] more plentifully, in prisons more plentifully, in blows to an excess, in near-deaths often. By Jews I five times received forty strokes less one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I experienced shipwreck, a night and a day I have spent in the deep; in journeys often, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from highwaymen, in dangers from my own race, in dangers from the nations, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers among false brothers, in labor and toil, in sleepless nights often, in hunger and thirst, in abstinence from food many times, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things of an external kind, there is what rushes in on me from day to day, the anxiety for all the congregations.” (2 Cor. 11:21-28) The way of Christian integrity was not an easy course for Paul, neither is it today. In fact, Paul warned Christians: “Let him that thinks he is standing beware that he does not fall.” (1 Cor. 10:12) Remember, Judas and Demas and others who once stood rather firmly but fell.​—2 Tim. 4:10.

¹⁴ After Paul’s time, persecution continued against the Christians, even though they were peace-loving people.