Strength in Weakness

The Corinthians have finally done it.  They've finally pushed Paul over the edge.  They've been constantly questioning Paul's authority as an apostle and Paul has steadfastly refused to give them the kind of confirmation for which they've been looking; he has refused to boast to Corinthians about his qualifications.  But now in 2 Corinthians 10, Paul's tone changes drastically - so drastically, in fact, that most scholars believe that chapters 10-13 of 2 Corinthians are actually a separate letter written later than chapters 1-9, at time when Paul's relationship with the Corinthians had deteriorated even further.  Now, in these chapters, Paul finally begins to boast.

This boasting reaches its climax in chapter 12.  There Paul says he knows a man (a roundabout way of talking about himself) who 14 years prior to the writing of this letter was caught up into the third heaven, into paradise, and heard things so majestic that he can not repeat them.  This is exactly the kind of thing the the Corinthians have been looking for all along.  We can gather from 1 Corinthians that this church was one which highly prized rapturous spiritual experiences.  In that letter, Paul is constantly reminding them that the real mark of the Spirit's presence among them is not showy, ethereal experiences like speaking in tongues but the ordinary, every day task of loving each other.  It seems that because the Corinthians were having these great spiritual experiences and Paul never talked about having any such experiences of his own, the Corinthians began to believe they might actually be more spiritual than the apostle who brought them the gospel in the first place.  In spite of these accusations and the tension that runs through the Corinthian correspondence, Paul refused to reveal that he had exactly the kind of visions which the Corinthians valued so highly - until now.

But even here, in his boasting, Paul turns the discussion back to weakness.  He gives into the Corinthians demands just for a moment to let them know that he has a whole life of spiritual experiences that he has not boasted to them about because he doesn't believe those experiences are what make him an apostle.  Rather it is imitating the weakness and vulnerability of his Lord which makes him a true messenger of the good news.  So Paul says he will rather boast in his weakness.

Specifically, Paul speaks of his weakness as a "thorn in the flesh".  He doesn't tell us exactly what this thorn was (see commentaries for endless speculation:  sexual temptation, being small of stature, persecutions, weak public speaker, some other physical or even mental illness) but he does tell us that it was given to him to keep him from becoming conceited because of the greatness of his revelations and visions.  Contrary to the Corinthians opinion, Paul's spiritual experiences are actually so extraordinary that he needed an affliction of some kind just to check his ego.

Even more remarkably, the great Apostle Paul asked God on three separate occasions to take away this thorn and his request was never granted.  Instead, Christ responded by saying "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Paul concludes this paragraph by saying

"Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

This is not a pithy little word of encouragement destined for a refrigerator magnet to remind us that God is still with us even though we are having a crappy day.  It is fundamental to Paul's understanding of Jesus and his own ministry as one of Jesus' ambassadors.  It is a foundational conviction of Paul's post-road-to-Damascus life that when God wanted to demonstrate his world-changing, reality-altering strength he did it through the weakness and vulnerability of his Christ hung on a Roman instrument of execution.  Likewise, as followers of this Messiah we are meant to imitate his example.  It is not that this powerful God merely happens to be with us in our weakness, true and important though that is.  It is that Christ reveals to us that God's very way is weakness.  It is not something God merely tolerates but something God chooses.  That for all the glory and might of the Triune God, there is eternally and permanently weakness within the life of this God as well and in the upside down kingdom which Christ establishes weakness is actually strength.

We often think of weaknesses as obstacles to ministry.  We don't have enough money or space or people in our church to do certain things.  The people who are here feel like they can't contribute because they are too old and their bodies ache too much.  And so we pray repeatedly for God to bless us.  And we should.  But after we've offered that prayer a number of times and the blessing we are seeking hasn't come maybe we should begin to consider that our very real weaknesses are not obstacles to ministry but the very means by which God intends for us to minister.  So that we might imitate and embody the weakness of our savior.  So that God's power might be displayed instead of ours.  So that we may lean forward into the coming kingdom of our crucified and risen Lord.

Economics of Salvation

Asking someone for money can often make for an awkward situation.  Most of us probably wouldn't even try it unless we were already fairly confident that our request would be met favorably.  We certainly wouldn't ask someone who was already questioning our trustworthiness. 

But the apostle Paul would.  His relationship with the Corinthian church was already a troubled one but in 1 Corinthians 8 Paul adds to the complexity of that relationship by asking the Corinthians for money.  Of course, the money is not for Paul himself.  It is part of a larger offering; one that Paul is organizing among all of his gentile congregations for the saints in Jerusalem. And it is an offering for which the Corinthians have already started collecting.  Nevertheless, Paul knows that he must walk a fine rhetorical line if he is to simultaneously mend his relationship with the Corinthians while also urging them to give to this offering which is such a vital piece of his own ministry.  Paul uses a number of different tactics to encourage the Corinthians toward this end as he toes that line. 

His first strategy is to let the Corinthians know how graciously other churches have given toward this cause -even beyond their means, Paul says.  Surely, the Corinthians who "excel in everything" do not want to be left behind when it comes to giving.  But Paul also knows that his authority in this community is a little shaky at the moment.  So Paul says in v.8 that he is not commanding the Corinthians to give but is simply giving them an opportunity to prove their love for others.  He then reminds the Corinthians of the grace they themselves have experienced in Jesus Christ.  Paul even expresses this salvation in economic terminology saying "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich."  Paul is calling upon the Corinthians to share their wealth with those who are poor precisely because Christ shared his wealth with the impoverished Corinthians in order to make them rich. 

Obviously, Paul has no problem moving directly from spiritual reality to financial reality.  In fact, even making that distinction in the first place may say more about the holes in our understanding of the gospel than anything.  Particularly insightful is what Paul says in v.13-15:

"For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. As it is written, 'Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.'"

"Fairness" or "equality" seem to be central to Paul's economic vision for the Church.  Of course, fairness can be understood in a number of different ways.  Often,  as Americans, we think of fairness in terms of what we have "worked for" or "earned".  Alongside those values we might also speak of "equal opportunity" so that equality exists when everyone who is willing to work hard has the same opportunity to earn a living.  Paul even seems to endorse those ideas to some degree when he says in 2 Thessalonians "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat."  But we must also weigh those words of Paul with these in 2 Corinthians where "fairness" seems to be more about need than work or anything else.  Paul's argument is quite simply that the Corinthians have more than they need and those in Jerusalem have less than they need and that alone should be enough reason for the Corinthians to give generously.  There is no rebuking the wealthy simply for being wealthy and there is also no blaming the poor for their poverty.  Instead, the primary question seems to be "Are everyone's needs being met?"

Paul reinforces this point by quoting Exodus 16:18.  God provided manna for the Israelites in the wilderness when they had no other food.  God also instructed them to gather only what their families needed for that day; no more, no less.  The Israelites always had to trust that God would provide again the next day.  As long as they gathered only what they needed, no one was hungry.  But if anyone tried to gather extra then "it bred worms and stank."

It is no wonder that Paul thought of this story as he sought to persuade the Corinthians to contribute to this offering for it provides a poignant picture of the economics of salvation: a recognition that it is God who provides for us and not ourselves (no matter how hard we work), trusting that God will continue to provide, resisting the temptation to take more than we need, and everyone's need being met.  These beliefs and practices form the core of our economics as we participate in the economy of salvation. 

If you'll take a look at my resume...

I mentioned in my previous post that much of 2 Corinthians is Paul defending his own apostleship.  Much of this defense consists not of Paul defending his own actions but pointing to the transformative power of God's word exhibited through Paul's preaching among the Corinthians.  But in 2 Corinthians 6, Paul does speak about some of his own actions.  He says in v.4  "as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way...".  Is Paul finally going to give the Corinthians the proof of apostleship they've been looking for?  After denying them the letters of recommendation and official signs of authority they have so earnestly sought, is Paul now going to give in and commend himself after all?  Not exactly.  Paul says he and his co-laborers are commended by "great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger..." and the list just goes on like that. 

Paul, maybe you misunderstood the question.  We are looking for signs of your authority, not more proof that you are a weak little man who is too easily mistreated and pushed around to live up to a title like "apostle".  We already have more evidence to that effect than we know what to do with.  Who fills out a resume this way?  Getting beaten, going hungry and sleepless, and enduring imprisonment and menial labor aren't exactly highly touted accomplishments. 

Of course, Paul knows exactly what he is doing.  He intends to redefine the Corinthians' conception of power and authority in Christ.  In fact, Paul has been doing this for several chapters already in this letter.  When speaking of his knowledge about God in Christ Jesus, he said "we have this treasures in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us."  Paul then goes on to list the number of hardships he has faced for the next several verses much as he does in chapter 6.  And in 2:14, Paul says "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere."  The Greek of this verse is a bit ambiguous but it seems likely that Paul is referring to the Roman practice of victory parades.  After a successful military endeavor, a Roman commander would lead his captives through the city, making a shameful spectacle of them before the mocking crowds.   Full of irony and at the height of his rhetorical skill, Paul uses this image to combat the Corinthians expectations of authority and apostleship.  Although Paul is Christ's apostle and co-victor with Christ in his triumph, discipleship in this world is not a victory lap.  Rather, to be an apostle of the Messiah who won his victory by being crucified will more likely mean being subjected to public humiliation and mockery.  This is why Paul presents beatings, imprisonments, and other humiliations as his very odd set of apostolic credentials.  They show that he is indeed following the example of his publicly shamed and executed savior and by doing so he is preaching the way of that savior not only with his words but by his very own life and humble existence.

This interplay between the power of God's word and Paul's own weakness captures in a nutshell how Paul routinely describes his own ministry throughout his letters.  It is not just an accident of Paul's argument in 2 Corinthians.  It is essential to Paul's self-understanding as an apostle of Jesus Christ.  As evangelical Christians, we have often spoken tirelessly about the beauty, power, and authority of the Word of God.  But how much attention have we given to the other side of Paul's understanding of ministry?  Rather, than exhibiting the power of God's word through our own weakness, it seems we often try to demonstrate the power of God's word by being powerful ourselves.  But it was clear to Paul that human power only stood in the way of God's power being demonstrated.  It is in the weakness and vulnerability of Christ on the cross that God's power is manifest.  Likewise, it is in our own weakness and vulnerability that Christ's power will be evident among us.  The best credentials we can put forward for our apostolic witness are not are own signs of power and strength but Christ's power shining through our weakness. 

Is the Love of Christ Leading to New Creation?

For the most part, 2 Corinthians is one long defense of Paul's apostleship.  Paul's relationship with the church at Corinth was apparently a rocky one.  Between the writing of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul made an unplanned visit to Corinth which turned out to be painful for him.  After this painful visit, Paul wrote another letter to the Corinthians.  Since this letter is now lost, it is impossible to determine its exact content but Paul says that he wrote it "out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears." In addition to this painful visit and letter, Paul also has to account for a promised trip to Corinth which he never made.  As we read the beginning of 2 Corinthians, we get the sense that the Corinthians are clamoring for an explanation of Paul's seemingly unreliable actions...and if Paul is unable to give such an explanation then he will likely lose all credibility with the Corinthians as their apostle and pastor. 

Paul answers the Corinthians' concern in a number of ways in the first 5 chapters of 2 Corinthians but there is one resounding theme throughout those chapters: the Corinthians are judging Paul's apostleship by the wrong standards.  The Corinthians question the trustworthiness of Paul's word because he changed his travel plans so many times but Paul's says in chapter 1 that his word is trustworthy not because his itinerary never changes but because the word he preached transformed the Corinthians themselves.  The Corinthians question Paul's authority because he didn't come with letters of recommendation (apparently other missionaries to Corinth did) but in chapter 3 Paul says that the Corinthians themselves are Paul's letter of recommendation.  This train of thought comes to a climax in chapter 5 where Paul says that the "love of Christ controls us," not an itinerary or official signs of authority.  The love of Christ is the one and only thing that determines Paul's actions.  And Paul says that the love of Christ can be summed up this way:

"and he died for all; therefore all have died; and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.  From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.  Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ - new creation!" 

The Corinthians keep looking for signs of Paul's authority and apostleship but Paul is saying to them "Look no further than yourselves!  I preached the death and resurrection of Christ to you and that message made you new creatures in Christ!  What more proof do you need?"  Paul's changed travel plans and letters of recommendation are small beans compared to the miraculous work of the Spirit that has already taken place among the Corinthians.  It is God's new creation already taking root among them which is the one true sign that Paul speaks for God as he has claimed. 

It is sooooooooo tempting for us to look for any other way to validate our ministry.  We find countless ways to measure and quantify; to provide letters of recommendation to prove to others that our ministry is the real thing.  But there is really only question that we should be asking:  Is the love of Christ leading to new creation among us?

Church and Trinity

This Sunday is the day known as Trinity Sunday in the Church Calendar. It is one Sunday a year that is set aside to talk about this central doctrine of the Christian faith. Unfortunately, I think that for most Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity is anything but central to our faith. Instead, it is often seen more as a theological abstraction that most Christians are certain has nothing to do with real life. It is more likely to be an impossible mathematical conundrm (how can God be 3 and 1?) than it is to shape our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ in anyway.

This problem is then compounded by the fact that the Trinity is never spoken of in Scripture, at least not by that name (which can be a real problem for folks like us who want everything we believe and do to be "biblically" based). There are passages like Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14 (and many others, those are just two of our readings for this week) where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are listed together and seem to somehow be treated equally and yet also differently from one another. But those limited references don't seem to give any explanation of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to each other or why the Church believes in something called the Trinity.

In spite of that, the Trinity is the central doctrine of the Christian faith. It is the essense of the shape of the Nicene Creed, the most basic confession of Christianity. It is the very first article of faith in our Nazarene Manual (as it is in the manual or handbooks of nearly every other denomination). It is the doctrine that most fully captures the identity and character of the God that we serve (although all doctrines fail to do this at some level).

So how did this seemingly abstract and unbiblical doctrine become the central confession of the Church's faith? It did so because it is neither abstract or unbiblical. The doctrine of the Trinity did not begin as an exercise in philosophical reasoning or lofty ideals. It began in the lived experience of the Apostles and the early church, who were predominantly Jewish and therefore, adhered to a radical monotheism. One of the most firmly held beliefs of any Jew in Jesus' day was that God was one and that there were no other true gods (see Deut 6:4). Yet these early Christians knew that the one God that they believed in was present in some special way in the person of Jesus Christ and later in the presence of the Holy Spirit among them. They knew that God was one but they also knew that God had revealed Godself in these two distinctly new ways. In essence, the doctrine of the Trinity actually contains the story of our salvation. It tells the story of the God who created us and sent the Son to redeem us and the Spirit to transform us. It was this reality, which is the overarching story of all of Scripture, that would lead the Church over the first several hundred years of its existence to work toward articulating its belief about God in the doctrine of the Trinity.

Not only was this doctrine borne out of the lived experience of the Church. It continues to guide the Church in its life together today. This is true because we believe that as humans beings we were created in God's image and we believe that we, as the Church, are the people on whom God's Holy Spirit has been poured out in a special way so that God's image might be redeemed in us and so that we might be about the business of seeing God's image redeemed in others. As we say in our mission statement every week, we are called to be a community that is a faithful image of God's love. In other words, we are to be an image of the Trinity. The love that exists between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a model of the kind of love that we are called to exhibit as the Church; an intimately interconnected, missional, self-giving love that so binds us together that we become one body, the Body of Christ.