Strength in Weakness

When Paul came to Corinth to preach, he came admittedly with much fear and trembling. His fleshly timidity was not denied but rather acknowledged. However, he did not wallow in self pity nor lean on his perceived weakness as an excuse for ineffective or impotent ministry. In fact, he did just the opposite. He gloried in that weakness.

Paul’s weakness was in fact three-fold. He considered his own being, his own person to be lacking in charisma, eloquence, and fleshly appeal. Tradition suggests that Paul was likely short, unattractive, bald, visually challenged and donned an unappealing and unusually distinctive crooked nose. He readily noted that his oratory in Corinth was not with flowing and enticing words, exuding with characteristics of human wisdom and intellect. Rather he somewhat transparently acknowledged that he stood before them with a sense of fear and trepidation.

Not only was Paul’s weakness personal, the very clientele to which he had been called would be viewed by many as the outcasts, the down-and-outers. They were the weak, the uneducated, and the poor, those discarded by other movements and unwelcomed by the masses. Not many noble, wise, or strong were among the numbers of that early Corinthian church.

And what about the message of the pitiful apostle? It was a message of the cross, of a man seemingly too weak to fend for Himself, brutalized by the authorities, abandoned by His motley crew of low-life followers, and so poor He had to be placed in a borrowed tomb. This was the message for which Paul had been summoned to Corinth to deliver. He was weak and unlikely to succeed, his followers lacked much potential, and his message was not one likely to draw a crowd. Yet Paul said when he preached he did so in the demonstration of the Spirit and Power. How could that be?

Paul had learned the paradoxical hope of the Christian believer. In our weakness, His strength is forever strong. When we die, we live; when we are broken we can be used; when we are humbled, we are exalted. The Christian would do well to remember that today. It is not the mighty, the wise, the strong, and the powerful to which God looks when He wants His work done. He looks to the weak and powerless who know that without Him they can do nothing and who run to the strong name of Jesus in times of trouble and find Him to be their strong tower.

This is the hope of the Christian today. In the early chapters of the Revelation of John, in the very center of God’s throne which is the symbol of Divine power and sovereignty, stands a Lamb who had been slain, the paradoxical and poignant sign of power through weakness; a lamb, slain, but now standing. It is a dramatic declaration of power through weakness revealed in the Lamb on the throne, of God raised high on a humiliating cross. This lies at the very heart of the Christian message and must be embraced by those who would hope to succeed in providing leadership to the people of God. They must be determined to follow the Lamb wherever He leads and know that God’s might and purpose will be exhibited and carried out not in displays of power but rather through their weakness.