A Humbling Testimony

And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, "He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." And they glorified God because of me.
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.

Galatians 1:22 - 2:2

Let us learn with [Paul], to acknowledge simply the offenses that we have committed, when it stands upon the honoring of God and let us not be loath to receive some shame before men. For that is the way for us also to have our sins buried before God, so as they may never come to account, nor to remembrance more: that is to wit, if we be contented to sustain some mark of infamy before men if need be, that God may have his due.

Calvin's Sermons on Galatians, 142

One of the elders at my church recently retired and plans to move to warmer climes. In his final address to the session, he remarked on the fact that his conversion was extraordinary because he had not been brought low to receive Christ. He was a very successful lawyer in a town where lawyers are a dime a dozen; while I don't remember the details of his story, it basically amounts to meeting some Christians, learning the gospel, believing it and converting. Spectacularly unspectacular.

We know that Paul was successful. His conversion was also extraordinary - not by being brought low but by literally being knocked off his horse by God himself. Two millenia later we see Paul in such an exalted state that we fail to realize that the rest of his life was an utter humiliation in the eyes of the world. He had all the advantages that his world could offer: pure Hebrew lineage, excellent Hebrew education from one of the most brilliant Hebrew teachers of the age in addition to a quality Greek-Roman education, and even Roman citizenship. His crusade against the church had full sanction of the Jewish authorities, and he was good at it. Converting and becoming an apostle was not an improvement for him; he was not climbing corporate or social ladders.

Not only was Paul not moving up in the world, but here we see him defending himself against people who were probably less educated and of less social stature than he should have been. And it's hardly as though this were an isolated incident, for we read in 2 Corinthians 11:21-29 another defense of his ministry: "Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I." and so on...

Paul dismissed the honors of his life before Christ, saying they were rubbish compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. He does not use that pedigree to impress his readers with any credibility he might have in the eyes of the world. Instead, he honestly and simply admits his role as persecutor of the church, accepting the shame of his sin so that God might have all honor.