“... Paul uses theatron, which can mean ‘a theater’ (as in Acts 19:29, 31) or ‘a play, spectacle,’ what one sees in a theater. The latter sense of the term is found in Stoic philosophical writings about the philosopher’s struggle with fate as a spectacle (spectaculum) for gods and men (Seneca, De providentia 2.9; Epistle 64.4–6). There is, however, a difference for Paul, because the term expresses the fate that has come about for him and other apostles whom people consider to be a wretched ‘spectacle,’ like gladiators fighting in an arena, when in reality they are viewing what God has ordained, who depicts the apostles as weak in the struggle of Christian missionaries in the world (TDNT, 3:43). Compare Psalm 69:12, for a Jewish mode of expressing the same idea. For the first time, angelos appears; see further 6:3; 11:10; 13:1. In each case, the word does not denote merely a ‘messenger’ or ‘envoy,’ but rather a transcendent being, connected in the Greco-Roman world with the nether realm, but depicted in Jewish literature as a messenger sent from God ...”