This is our final post on 2 Corinthians. And here, perhaps, comes the heart, the ultimate gift to each of us, of the entire letter.
At 10:1 Paul’s tone changes dramatically. Bruce suggests that even as he was writing, reports came in of new follies in the Corinthian church. And the way Paul responds is another example, another outworking, of the vital spiritual principles he has expounded before. Ch10 makes clear that Paul’s method for dealing with a difficult church situation (as most of us will, sooner or later) is still the `broken pot spirituality’ we explored recently in ch4: trust in God, in the midst of his own weakness. `We do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.’ (Lord, what methods am I tempted by that are really the `weapons of the world’?)
We can apply this to the traps we can easily fall into in today’s Christian communities: internal politics, manipulation and building of `parties’; minor deceptiveness, slander; power-plays and self-aggrandisement. These can even be what’s advocated (`as the world does’) in secular assertiveness-training; and we may relish feeling `tough’ and `uncompromising’, whether that is a `sermon on the mount’ approach to our situation or not. The modern management ethos can be shot through with such attitudes, and church leaderships (and `management teams’ of Christian groups) have no automatic shield from infection. Roger Mitchell, expounding Luke 4, sees the power-temptation as so ubiquitous in spiritual warfare that it should be a regular prayer concern to see where we’re succumbing.
God’s grace is the issue. `We have conducted ourselves in our relations with you’, says Paul in 2 Cor 1:12, `in the holiness and sincerity that are from God… not according to worldly wisdom, but according to God’s grace.’ Grace, because, if we renounce the political and self-aggrandizing methods of the world, we may be left with nothing but our own weakness and (10:10) `unimpressiveness’; and only faith can assure us that this `way of the cross’ will produce whatever results God actually wants. But in contrast, to work by `human wisdom’, `as the world does’, may well be to do without God’s power. (Lord, please help me in my life to discern these issues; to trust you; and to live accordingly…)
And so it is in a very practical context of conflict, criticism, and his own possible failure (13:7), that we find Paul setting out the principle that has run through 2 Corinthians. He speaks now of a major problem that `tormented’ him. Three times, he says, he `pleaded’ with the Lord for deliverance. `But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong’ (12:8-10). Paul knows that this is the Way, because it means conformity to the ultimate pattern of the cross: `Christ… was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you’ (13:5). The cross makes it clear: our weakness is our strength; our suffering is our glory…
Here is the faith by which, as we saw at the letter’s beginning, Paul lives and survives. Faith strengthened by the vision we noted in Ephesians 1, of God’s `incomparably great power for us who believe’; faith, therefore, that in situations of our weakness and difficulty we can say to God, `Lord, I don’t enjoy what you’re doing, and I don’t understand it, but go on.’ Faith that, then, sets out somehow to `give glory to God’, like Abraham in a similar situation: `Without weakening in his faith, he faced’ (yes, while struggling with doubt and depression, only just maintaining his faith, as Gen 15 makes clear) – `he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead… He was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God’ (Rom 4:19-21). Presumably that deliberate, difficult giving of thanks, that `giving glory’, matches the `most gladly… delight’ here in 2 Cor 12:9-10?
Such a deliberate choice to trust God, and then to express that by praising him, falls back on Paul’s deep conviction that God’s weakness is stronger than human strength; and that therefore God has actually chosen the weak and foolish things of the world to be his partners (1 Cor 1:25,27). Having our own resources can be perilous; numerical strength, financial strength, resources of technique or manpower, gifts of intellect or experience can all dilute our sense of the need to live by faith alone. (The lukewarm church of Laodicea is a good example: `You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked'(Rev 3:17). As Jesus said, it can be hard for those who are rich to truly enter into heaven’s reign (Matt 19:23); indeed sometimes, as we see with Jacob and with Gideon, God has to weaken us, reveal our weakness, leave us stripped of contingency plans and thrown back on his grace – so as to make room for his power. I remember Hans Burki challenging an IFES leaders’ event that leaders often want to appear strong and omnicompetent; but that is an unhelpful model for those they lead; so if we aim for that as our image, there will be times when God has to shatter it.) Thus the way of the cross, says Paul, is often the way, not of resources and of strength, but of weakness, so that it is clear that the `all-surpassing power’ is from God and not from us (2 Cor 4:7). `I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling… so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power’, he wrote earlier (1 Cor 2:3,5).
This definition of the way in which `Christ’s power rests upon us'(12:9) is Paul’s gift to us in 2 Corinthians. When we get to heaven we’ll realise that some of the best times, the triumph times, were ones when things seemed worst and when we felt weakest. Jesus went the way of the cross to secure the certainty of this for us; and now the `Calvary principle` – if (if) we’re members of God’s kingdom, cross will always lead to resurrection, suffering will always lead to glory – means we can grasp meaning in the pressures, and even the disclosures of our weakness; because that is where God’s power is so often released…
And as we grasp this, it is ultimately liberating, peace-bringing. Yes, we are truly weak, imperfect people; cardboard containers for God; tin cans, broken clay pots. But we `do not lose heart’, because we trust that God is indeed shining his light and ministering his Spirit through us. We pray – we are weak, but the Spirit who answers prayer is strong. We share our Christian life – we are imperfect, but the Spirit’s living water that flows through us is real. We share what we’re discovering as we `pioneer’ in the Bible – we don’t understand it all, but the Spirit makes it his `sword’ that pierces darkness, revealing `the glory of God in the face of Christ’. Broken pots: we suffer, our weakness is revealed – and even here, such is his creativity, as the `clay pots’ show signs of cracking, so the glory, somehow and somewhere, is released. In these situations we may not be able to `delight’ quite the way Paul does, but at least we can set out in that direction; holding to faith that actually it is God’s own plan that `when I am weak, then I am strong’.
Such `broken pot spirituality’ is central to Christian life because it is cross spirituality. And following Jesus is about the cross (John 12:23-26). In 1 Corinthians, Paul summarizes Christianity in two words: `Christ, crucified‘(1:23, 2:2). `The cross alone’, said Luther, `is our theology’; the cross embodies the very heart of our faith and life. It is the centre of history, the place where all roads meet; throughout eternity earth will be remembered as the place where the cross happened. We will never `outgrow’ a deepening grasp of the cross, because the cross, above all, reveals God, what he is like and how he acts. If we want to know how God’s glory is revealed, it is by the cross; when Jesus said `The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’, it was the cross he meant (John 12:23,31-33). `’Tis in thy cross, Lord, that we learn/ What thou in all thy fullness art’ (Denny). So too it is in the cross that we understand the meaning of much that happens in our own lives; and how, as Jesus-followers, to respond…
