What anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. 22Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I. 23Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
30If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying. 32In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. 33But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.
Dig Deeper
I had only been a Christian for a short time, and I had never been to a men’s devotional and prayer meeting. On the way to the event, I imagined that the meeting would be full of testosterone and inspiring talks from men who had faced the world and overcome it for Christ in powerful and impressive ways. Once we arrived and the meeting began, however, that is not at all what happened. I was quite surprised when the first speaker got up and began to talk of his weaknesses and failures. He spoke of intimate details and made himself extremely vulnerable in front of a room of men who did nothing but support and encourage him. My first thought was “what kind of encouraging men’s meeting is this?” Instead of getting a pep rally that demonstrated the strength of the Christian men, I got a confession session that put all of their weaknesses on display. Yet, as the night went on, I realized that there was a strange sort of dignity, strength, and power that would not make sense to the world, but was still very real. It was the strength and power of Christ that was being displayed through the weakness of these men who had entered into Christ.
It is this same counterintuitive sort of strength in weakness that Paul will put on display for a people that are having great difficulty with the concept of the strength of Christ being made manifest through suffering, persecution, and weakness. In the Roman culture, in which Corinth was deeply steeped, suffering and persecution were a sign of being in disfavor with your gods. This was why Paul’s experiences were so difficult for them to comprehend and why they were so vulnerable to the wealth and health gospel being proffered by the opponents of Paul.
Paul knows, however, that if he simply presents his weakness and suffering, that it will leave him open to the assaults of his detractors. They will simply charge that Paul is arguing for weakness and suffering, because he does not have the blessing of God upon him, and has no choice but to turn around the gospel to fit his impotent life. Thus, Paul will take away that ground from which to launch an attack. He will boast in a worldly manner just to show them that his ministry of weakness in self and strength in Christ is a choice not an excuse. Everything that they might want to brag about to make them look good in the eyes of the world, Paul can match. He could play that game if he wanted to, and he does just long enough to make that point clear. His weaknesses are not because of his own inadequacy, but because he is willing to suffer for Christ and identify with those to whom he has shared the gospel.
The true power of the life in Christ is not that Christians don’t have a self-reliance or personal strength that they could rely on and that would match up with almost anyone in the world, but that we recognize the folly of that way of self. Christians, Paul would argue, don’t make a way of life of emptying ourselves and relying on the strength of Christ because we are incapable and need a crutch to prop us up, but because we know that true strength lies in admitting our weakness and living through the power of the life of Chrsit.
Once Paul’s credentials on a worldly level has been demonstrated, however, Paul will begin to show the things that a Christian should boast about, if one is going to boast at all. It’s not about the things that might impress the people of Corinth, in fact, it’s the things that would horrify them. If you could make a list of everything that would show disfavor with the gods in the eyes of pagan Corinth, this would be it. Paul says that he has been in prison (seven times according to the early church writing, 1 Clement 5:6), flogged, and exposed to death repeatedly. He had subjected himself to the authority of the Jewish synagogue so that he might continue to share the gospel with his fellow Jews, and had subsequently received 39 lashes five times. He had been in constant danger, gone without sleep, food, and basic shelter. On top of all of that, Paul has had to deal with his own worry and concern over the state of the churches that he has helped to plant. When they are weak, Paul is weak. When they are in sin, Paul burns with shame. Paul realizes that when we enter into Christ, we become one body with out fellow believers and we share in their joys and their sorrows. The fact is, Paul would rather not boast at all, since any kind of boasting other than boasting in Christ is foolish, but the situation in Corinth requires it, so he will boast in such a way to reveal his weakness and demonstrate the power of Christ in his life.
If the false apostles insist on playing a game of boasting, Paul will do that, but he boasts of all the wrong things. This is a strategy that would make a clear distinction between these two versions of the gospel and force the Corinthians to choose between which one sounded more authentic and in keeping with the life and ministry of Christ. Paul will appeal his veracity to the very God of the universe, would his opponents be willing to do the same?
Paul has shown that he doesn’t need to display any sort of human strength in order to show the approval of Christ in his life. Now he will finish it all off with an example that is over the top, so to speak. The Roman Empire gave an award of bravery called the corona muralis, ‘the crown of the wall’. It was given to the first brave soldier who went over the wall of a city that was under siege. If the person lived to actually receive the award, they had to return to Rome and swear a solemn oath to the gods that they were actually the first over the wall.
Rather than being like a culture that made a practice of listing one’s great accomplishments and bragging about how brave or successful you were, Paul will continue to brag about things in his life in Christ that are quite the opposite.
He, in effect, gives himself a reverse corona muralis. Throughout his two surviving letters to Corinth, Paul has encouraged his spiritual children to resist the dangers of being sucked back into the their surrounding culture. Paul has listed his achievements the way anyone in their society might, but he has assembled a list of all the wrong achievements. These were things that anyone in the Roman world would be ashamed of, let alone put together in a public letter. Paul has topped it off with his achievement of being the first over the wall, but in the wrong direction. In order to continue his work of spreading the true gospel, he was willing to engage in an act that would be considered cowardly and then boast about it because it shows his commitment to the cause of Christ and his disdain for the things that bring honor in the world. The gospel turns things upside down. He had gone to Damascus to persecute Christians, now he would leave Damascus in a basket as a persecuted Christian.
What Paul has put so boldly on display is his fervent belief that esteem and honor in the eyes of the world mean nothing in the kingdom of God. He will avoid the temptation to boast of things that would bring him respect from the world around him and will instead boast of the things that demonstrate his weakness. He is so willing to do so, because as he will explain later in the letter, when his weaknesses are on display the most, they simply serve as open ducts for the strength and power of God.
Devotional Thought
One of the great battles of the Christian life that we all face, is to resist the urge to be exalted in the eyes of men. Have you been willing to advance the cause of Christ by being vulnerable about your weaknesses or do you still try to get other people to see your strengths and accomplishments?
No comments:
Post a Comment