“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10.
At the time of writing 2 Corinthians, Paul had endured thirty-nine lashes from his own people five times, three rod beatings, one stoning, three shipwrecks, a night and a day adrift at sea, the exhaustion of frequent journeys filled with constant danger, discomfort, and deprivation, and alongside all of these things, a constant anxiety for the churches.
The last thing Paul needed was being scoffed at by professing Christians, but his letter was occasioned by just that. Various would-be Christian influencers were poor stewards of their platforms and potential. They added to the gospel, collapsing the distinction between the law and the gospel, and elevated their teachings and ministry philosophies as “sound”, “spiritual”, and “faithful”, while claiming that Paul’s was not and that he was insincere and unspiritual. They prized human wisdom and power, seen in a certain kind of speaking and writing, and displaying a cultural standard of physical strength. They mocked Paul’s personal appearance, his writing and speaking style, and other perceived inadequacies. They called him a liar and a coward. They said he was weak.
And Paul proceeds to boast in his weakness. His suffering. His poverty. The things he has been through. The very things they mock he energetically claims for himself! The forces of humanity, of weaponised religion and politics, of nature, of body and of mind, have come against him. Why does he put up with it all? Why doesn’t he give up? How can Paul say he is content? Because he belongs to Jesus. Paul knows who he is in Christ, but most importantly he knows whose he is. “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content...” And so he focuses on his weaknesses as they amplify the message of God’s power. There were things his opponents didn’t know about that he could have leveraged to improve their perception of him... like the time he went to heaven. Amusingly, he sets his audience up to learn more about this unusual experience, but then says he can’t and won’t talk about it or the revelations he received there!
Instead, he chooses to boast about when he hid, when he was hurting, harassed, and helpless. The preacher of the God-man Messiah bleeding and gasping his life out on a cross was not embarrassed to talk about when he was lowered out of a window in a basket. There was one unidentified thing that he prayed God would take away, a constant source of harassment and frustration poking away at him like a thorn. But its abiding presence became an enduring reminder of the sufficiency of God’s grace.
Grace is not only for the mountain top experiences, but the hiding in a basket being lowered out a window moments. Grace is enjoyed in flowers, but it is often experienced through thorns. But God’s Grace is enough. And it is worth it.
We know very well what it is to be weak - even for that weakness to be exploited by others. But in and through that weakness, God is teaching us contentment, and with contentment a determination not to be limited by a crippling over-awareness of our weakness, but to be emboldened and empowered by the sufficiency of his grace. Through your prayers and giving, you are partners with God in extending his grace, even to us.
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