They had forced Paul into a corner where he didn’t want to be. Some “super apostles” had rode into Corinth and started beguiling the church there with their array of “credentials” and their “new and approved” teaching concerning the gospel and other foundations of the faith. And in order to build themselves up in the estimation of the Corinthians, they were putting Paul down. And so Paul was pulled into a “bragging match” . . . and Paul felt like a fool being pulled into such tactics (2Cor. 11:16-21) . . . but if those were the weapons of this duel, then Paul would engage. And in that, he played “the ace up up his sleeve” . . . he pulled out his “big guns” . . . he showed his “signs of weakness.”

“If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. . . . I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. . . . [Jesus] 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 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.” (2Corinthians 11:30, 12:5b, 12:9-10 ESV)

Paul was in a duel . . . a gunfight at high noon . . . the weapons of choice not 45’s but bragging . . . they would brag about their stature and oratory and accomplishments . . . Paul would brag about being a slave for Christ . . . of having received five times, from the hands of the Jews, the forty lashes less one . . . three times beaten with rods . . . stoned . . . repeatedly shipwrecked . . . toil and hardship . . . sleepless nights (2Cor. 12:23). They spoke of their self-sufficient power . . . Paul talked of his powerlessness . . . and the all sufficient power of the Christ who lived within him. The super apostles bragged of their signs of strength . . . the “least of the apostles” (1Cor. 15:9), when forced to do so, boasted of signs of weakness.

My natural inclination is to, if not outright deny, then at least to hide, any sign of weakness. Paul laid his feebleness and neediness out on the table. I’m thinking it’s my pride that tries to mask or minimize my weakness . . . Paul’s boasting, however, was in that which would manifest Christ’s grace and power. I want to do everything I can to get out of a position of weakness and back to a position of strength . . . Paul, on the other hand, was, for the sake of Christ, content with weaknesses. For Paul possessed that divine perspective that when he was weak, then he was strong through the power of all sufficient grace.

And so it has me thinking this morning about signs of weakness . . . and a heavenly perspective on those situations where I feel powerless, without strength, and short of the means I think I need to get through . . . and in that state, to be content. The NIV translates it, “I delight in weaknesses” . . . the NKJV, “I take pleasure in infirmities” . . . Peterson in the MSG puts it this way, “Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer.” None of these quite align to my natural disposition when I’m taking a licking. Contentment, pleasure, delight, good cheer do not exactly describe my view of being run through the ringer. Oh, that the mind of Paul . . . that mind of Christ . . . would prevail. And that in my weakness, I would see opportunity for His strength and power to be manifest.

Not that I’m looking to get beat about the ears . . . but I do want to ready with the same kind of “bragging” should (or more accurately, when) the trials and testing come along. I do want the mind of Christ to be so operational that I see earthly impotence from a heavenly perspective . . . recognizing that, for those who abide in Christ, every situation is an exact placement of the Master designed to manifest His all sufficient grace and enabling strength. I want the pride that would deny and hide my sign of weakness to give way to a divine boasting in that feeble condition which declares that prevailing is not by my might, nor by my strength, but by the active agency of the Spirit of God which infuses divine power from within (Zechariah 4:6).

I desire, by the grace of God, that my signs of weakness be for the glory of God. Amen?