RESUME OF WEAKNESS
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 17, 2021 under 2021 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; October 17, 2021 from 2 Corinthians 11:16-33
Theme: It’s our weakness through suffering—rather than our confidence in the flesh—that qualifies us the most in ministry.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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Many years ago, I worked as a freelance graphic designer. And among the things that I enjoyed doing in that line of work was the designing of custom resumes for people.
A resume—as you know—is a written summary of a list of someone’s skills and qualifications and accomplishments as they would relate to a particular job or position. That’s what the French word résumé means, by the way—’a summary’. Nowadays, most resumes are digital products. But back in those days, I created printed resumes for people.
A resume—as I had always understood it—has a very specific kind of purpose. It’s not necessarily meant to—by itself—get someone a job. Rather, it’s meant to make an initial impression on whoever might be doing the hiring, so that they will grant an initial interview. It’s meant to give a potential employer the basic information that they need in order to be able to say, “This person seems like they might be what we’re looking for. I want to talk to them further.” So I designed them to catch the eye and to evoke interest and get that person ‘the first foot in the door’ with a potential employer. I had fun designing them. And I was also gratified to know that they often helped someone get that first interview—and sometimes also the job.
Now; that’s what has always made this morning’s passage—from 2 Corinthians 11—particularly interesting to me. It contains what I have grown to think of as the apostle Paul’s ‘resume’—his summary of skills and qualifications and accomplishments with regard to his ministry in the gospel. But it’s a remarkable resume. It doesn’t contain the kind of things that you would ordinarily expect that someone would list in order to make a positive first impression. I certainly wouldn’t have known how to design it for him.
After all, if you were looking to hire someone for a ministry position in your church, would you hire someone who described themselves in this way?
… in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— (2 Corinthians 11:23-27).
If you were looking to hire someone for a ministry position, would you want to hire someone who began by telling you how often they’d been to prison? Or how often they’d been beaten? Or how hungry and naked and thirsty and cold they’ve been? And yet, that’s how the apostle Paul sought to commend himself to the Corinthian Christians. And he was intentionally doing this in order to distinguish himself from others who were presenting themselves to the Corinthians as ‘superior apostles’—and who were able to boast in high academic credentials and in impressive speaking abilities—and who, humanly speaking, could have presented some far more encouraging resumes.
If Paul’s list is supposed to make a positive first impression, then it’s the strangest resume ever submitted! But we can clearly see what it was that Paul was seeking to do in it by what he said in 2 Corinthians 11:30. In the course of laying out this list of skills and qualifications and experiences, he said,
If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity (v. 30).
The word “infirmity”, by the way, can be translated as “weakness”. And that one verse is the key to understanding why Paul was saying the things that he said in this ‘resume’ of his. It’s the kind of thing that Paul says elsewhere in this later portion of the New Testament letter of 2 Corinthians. In 12:5-6, for example, he wrote;
… of myself I will not boast, except in my infirmities. For though I might desire to boast, I will not be a fool; for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me (12:5b-6).
He had impressive things that he could have said about himself. They would have all been true. But he wouldn’t talk about those things. Instead, he boasted in his infirmities—his weaknesses. And why? In verses 9-10, he wrote;
Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong (vv. 9b-10).
Paul wrote the way he did about his own ministry qualifications—emphasizing his weaknesses and frailties and sufferings and trials and needs—because he wanted to do something that those other self-proclaimed ‘eminent apostles’ would not do. He wanted to minimize himself in order to glorify Christ. He wanted the Savior, Jesus Christ, and the message of His cross—plain and unobscured—to be the central thing upon which his Corinthian brothers and sisters trusted and relied. He wanted to do for them what he said that he had first come to them for do back in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5;
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).
And that leads, dear brothers and sisters, to you and me. When it comes to our own identification as a devoted follower of Jesus Christ—when it comes, as it were, to our ‘ministry resume’—when it comes to the things we would point to in order to bring credibility to the gospel message—what do we emphasize? Would we point most of all to our education? Or our personality style? Or our remarkable capabilities and talents? Or our practical skills and know-how? Or our list of accomplishments? Would we seek to give an ‘impressive’ impression of ourselves?
That’s what the false teachers who were plaguing the Corinthian church were doing. They were trying to turn the Corinthian believers away from a simple faith in the message of salvation through the cross of Jesus alone, and to get the people instead to try to earn their salvation through doing the religious works and keeping religious rituals and ceremonies and laws that they gave to them. These false teachers were seeking to do this by boasting in their superior ‘fleshly’ qualifications—and were, at the same time, trying to discourage the Corinthians from listening to the apostle Paul. It was as if the credibility of their message was based on how impressive they could make themselves look on their resumes.
But instead of doing that, would you and I be willing to do what Paul did? Would we be willing to turn people away from our own fleshly talents and skills and accomplishments so that people didn’t look so much at us? Would we prefer instead to boast in the things that made us weak and frail and unimpressive in the eyes of this world so that the glory and power of Jesus Christ might shine through clearly?
Paul’s resume, then, is a very good thing for us to study. It sets a good example before us. It teaches us that—even when it comes to such a remarkable man as the apostle Paul—it’s our weakness through suffering, rather than our confidence in the flesh, that qualifies us the most in ministry.
This means that you and I don’t have to be concerned about whether or not we are ‘qualified’—in a fleshly sort of way—for whatever the Lord Jesus calls us to do for the advancement of His kingdom’s cause. If He calls us into His service, then those fleshly qualifications—as the world thinks of them—are not the important thing. They’re not the final qualification in God’s work. What’s important is whether or not we are weak enough for the Lord Jesus to be able to work in and through us.
We should praise our Lord for the things that make us weaker in ourselves—and that make us need Him more!
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; let’s look a bit closer at this section of Paul’s letter as a whole. He began in verses 16-21; where he wrote,
I say again, let no one think me a fool. If otherwise, at least receive me as a fool, that I also may boast a little. What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly, in this confidence of boasting (vv. 16-17).
It seems like a strange introduction to a resume; doesn’t it? “Please don’t think of me as a fool; but I’m about to speak like a fool anyway.” In fact, he even began by saying that what he was about to say was not from the Lord, but was as if it came from the lips of a fool. But we need to understand this carefully. He was not saying that he was now turning off his dependency upon the Lord and was now no longer writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit with the authority of an apostle. Rather, he meant that he was about to speak rhetorically—playing the part of a foolish boaster in order to stress an important spiritual point.
He needed to do this. He was responding to others who were speaking foolishly and who were boasting in the flesh in order to turn the Corinthians away from the truth. He put it this way at the beginning of Chapter 11;
Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it (vv. 1-4).
It must have been terribly irksome for a Christ-centered man like Paul to have to boast of his own spiritual credentials in this seemingly foolish way. He didn’t want to do it. But he felt that he must. He did it in order to counter-attack the boasting of those who were foolishly exalting themselves against the message of the gospel. The danger to the souls of the Corinthian believers was very great; and so he went on—in words that were rich in a kind of ‘sanctified sarcasm’—to write;
Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast. For you put up with fools gladly, since you yourselves are wise! For you put up with it if one brings you into bondage, if one devours you, if one takes from you, if one exalts himself, if one strikes you on the face. To our shame I say that we were too weak for that! (vv. 18-21a).
This highlights to us one of the things that the apostle Paul wanted to stress; and that is …
1. THE DANGER OF EXALTING IN THE FLESH.
Look at the things that the false teachers were doing to the Corinthians. In the way that they exalted themselves, they were putting the Corinthian believers ‘into bondage’”. That meant that they were drawing them away from the liberty that they enjoyed in Christ, and bringing them again into bondage to their religious rules and regulations. They also ‘devoured’ them in the sense that they took advantage of the Corinthians—adding nothing to them. They ‘took from’ the Corinthians; making the Corinthians poorer while they made themselves richer. They ‘exalt themselves’; setting themselves up not as the servants of the Corinthians’ spiritual needs, but as spiritual superiors that the Corinthians needed to serve. And Paul said that they even ‘struck them on the face’; which may mean that they insulted and shamed and humiliated the Corinthian believers … but could actually mean that they physically struck some of them.
Those false teachers had been saying that Paul was weak; and he admitted to the Corinthians that, in a sense, what they said was true. He sarcastically agreed that he was ‘far too weak’ to ever abuse the Corinthian brothers and sisters in the way that these false teachers were doing. And the particularly sad thing about it all was that the Corinthians were repeatedly and willingly putting up with it—and were even thinking that they were ‘wise’ for doing so. How deceived they had become!
By the way, dear brothers and sisters; whenever someone makes spiritual leadership and ministry success something that depends upon things that they can boast of in the flesh—their education, their popularity, their dazzling personality, their superiority—beware! When such people take the focus off of Jesus Christ and make themselves the central focus instead, they will end up resorting to all kinds of intimidating and abusive means of keeping that focus on themselves. It’s a pattern that has been repeated over and over in church history—and it’s always harmful to the cause of Jesus Christ.
* * * * * * * * * *
So then; that’s what was happening to the Corinthians. These false teachers were exalting themselves—boasting in the flesh—and all at the expense of the people they claimed they were serving. Paul would not do that. He had a message from God; and he was determined not to let anything obscure the truthfulness of that message. That’s why he played the part of a fool, and boasted just like the false teachers boasted.
But the things he boasted in were quite a bit different from the things that they boasted in. His resume showed …
2. THE REALITY OF SUFFERING FOR THE GOSPEL.
He began by saying—in verse 21;
But in whatever anyone is bold—I speak foolishly—I am bold also (v. 21b).
And then, he begins in verse 22 to match the false teachers boast-for-boast;
Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I (v. 22).
Those false teachers had been boasting to the Corinthian Christians about their Jewish pedigree. But they had no advantage over Paul in that. He boasted that he was every bit as Jewish as they presented themselves to be. But then, he boasts of how he exceeded those false teachers. In verse 23, he said;
Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more … (v. 23a).
It pained him to talk like this. He hated boasting like a fool. But he wanted to show the truthfulness of the gospel message by the fact that he proved himself to be a better minister of Christ than they were. And that was because he suffered more like Jesus than they did. He went on to list those qualifications that we read about earlier—things that, if we’ve followed the life of Paul from the Book of Acts, are already familiar to us. He went on to say that he was more of a minister of Christ;
… in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation? (vv. 23-29).
Dear brothers and sisters; I have worked as a minister of the gospel for most of my adult life. But when I read of the things that the apostle Paul endured for the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it makes me wonder if I have ever really been a minister at all! Doesn’t he give proof here that he’s the real thing? None of those false teachers would have suffered for their message like this! This is what reveals a real minister of Christ; because this is what Christ did for us. In another context, another apostle who also suffered greatly for the gospel—the apostle Peter—wrote these words about suffering;
For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:
“Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;
who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls (1 Peter 2:21-25).
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; Paul truly hated having to boast at all. But if he had to boast, those were the kind of things that he boasted about; because they clearly identified him as belonging to Jesus Christ—and demonstrated the truth of his message in contrast to the vain boasts of the false teachers. These were the kinds of things that Paul put on his resume—the kinds of things that those false teachers would have sought to avoid altogether.
His resume, then, was a matter of …
3. BOASTING IN WEAKNESS UNDER CHRIST.
In verse 30—which is truly the key verse of this passage—Paul said;
If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity (v. 30);
that is, in his weakness. That is so that the Lord Jesus Christ can shine through him powerfully—through all of that weakness—to show forth the greatness of the gospel toward all who put their faith in the cross.
And as if to add just a bit more emphasis to his weakness—as if to show forth one more boast that would be unlike anything that the false teachers would boast in—he adds one more experience to his resume. In verse 31, he writes;
The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying (v. 31).
Its as if he writes these words in order to make his readers lean in expectantly; as if he’s about to tell them an amazing story that proves how superior he is to all the other false apostles—as if he’s about to prove how strong, and dignified, and excellent he is. And what does he say?
In Damascus the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me; but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands (vv. 32-33).
You read those words and think to yourself, “Wait a minute … Is that it? That’s what he boasts in? That—??” You recognize that story, don’t you? That’s the story we read about in Acts 9—not long after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and was converted. He had been going to Damascus in order to arrest Christians and drag them to prison by the authority of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. But the Lord Jesus transformed him along the way. And shortly after he arrived, and he began to preach powerfully and persuasively about Jesus, the Jewish leaders sought to kill him. He had to be let down in a basket by a rope, in the middle of the night, in order to escape being murdered. There’s nothing dignified about that. If anything, it would ordinarily be the kind of thing that you wouldn’t want to talk about. It would—in a fleshly sense—be humiliating. It’s certainly not the kind of thing that you’d put on your resume! “I crouched down in a basket and was lowered from a window in order to escape from the religious leaders who wanted to kill me.” Compared to the proud fleshly boasts of the false teachers, that sounds embarrassingly weak, doesn’t it?
But actually, it’s appropriate to a true minister of Christ. After all, Paul would argue, if the strength of Jesus Christ is made perfect in my weakness, then—if I must boast—I will boast in my weaknesses so that the glory of Jesus may shine forth more clearly.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; when we look at the kind of things Paul boasted in, it’s time to reevaluate what it is that we boast in as followers of Jesus. When we read his resume, it’s time to reexamine—and perhaps completely revise—our own resume when it comes to our Lord’s service.
Let’s follow the example of Paul. And better still, let’s follow the example of our Master—who Paul also followed. Jesus once said to His disciples;
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25-28).
EA
