Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in straits, for Christ for when I am weak, then I am powerful.
Paul names five kinds of trouble, and then says he is glad of them. Painful experience had taught him a paradox: when his own strength ran out, Christ's strength worked through him.
Why Paul Needed the Weakness
Paul had been taken up to the third heaven. What that visit did to him is not what we would expect.
Having been in the third heaven did not give the strength. In a sense it made the weakness necessary, and then the strength came in. We do not know how to be weak, and that is our weakness.
A thorn in the flesh came with that privilege. One writer weighs it against what Paul would have had without it.
At first, Paul longed to be rid of the thorn in the flesh, whatever it was. He begged the Lord three times that it might depart from him. But the thorn in the flesh was better than pride in the heart. It was better by far to be afflicted than puffed up — better to have Christ's sympathy with him in his trial than the power of His hand to deliver him out of it.
The Meaning of "Take Pleasure"
Where the ESV says Paul is content with weakness, older translations read that he takes pleasure in it. That is more than putting up with trouble.
This is far more than defeating mighty enemies by faith and patience. It is taking pleasure in what is most trying and overwhelming to nature, so that Christ's strength may be displayed. Where the flesh might rise up, it is put down. This way of dealing with us is the life of the Spirit. But Christ makes the bitter sweet. His power can make its home in us when we accept our nothingness and rejoice in it, if only it brings Him praise and glory.
The Five Things Named
The hardships on the list are not random. Each came for Christ's sake, and each did two things at once.
This weakness keeps the flesh from boasting. It becomes the occasion for the display of the grace and power of Christ. So from now on the Apostle boasts in the very weakness he had wanted taken away. So he can take pleasure in the very things that our natural selves hate — weaknesses, insults, needs, persecutions and distresses. All these things were for Christ's sake. They showed the weakness of the body, and they showed the power of Christ too. That is why the Apostle can say, "When I am weak, then I am strong."
Weakness as the Channel of Service
One writer sets two reasons for welcoming trouble side by side.
The Apostle had learned to take pleasure in these various forms of adversity. In Romans 5 he tells us that he boasted in tribulations because he knew what they were designed to produce in Christian character. Here he takes pleasure in tribulations for a different reason. He had discovered that they were the way the power of Christ became active through him in service. The very weakness he was plunged into made him a fit channel for that power to flow out.
What he learned reversed everything he thought about his own usefulness.
It was a great revelation to him that his ability for service lay in his weakness... in his imagined strength he was weaker than water; but in his weakness he was invincible, for the power of Christ rested upon him... He says, as it were, to His servant: the weaker you are, the better for Me. It is only the weak I can use.
Not Misery but Happiness
A life stripped of self-confidence sounds bleak. The record says otherwise.
You may say, "That must be a miserable experience." Well, Paul was not miserable; he was supremely happy... He was happy to have all his own strength reduced to nothing, so that instead he might prove the sufficiency of the Lord's grace and Christ's strength.
The Rule for Every Believer
What Paul learned is not just for apostles. The rule also works in reverse.
We are never so strong as when we feel ourselves weak, even like "water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again." On the other hand, we are never so weak as when we imagine we are strong. Peter never showed more pitiful weakness than when he imagined he had unusual strength.
Summary
- Cause. Great privilege made the thorn necessary. Heaven's height called for lowness on earth, because "we do not know how to be weak."
- Exchange. God did not take the thorn away; He gave something better — Christ's sympathy in the trial instead of rescue out of it.
- Reach. The five words — weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities — cover every kind of pressure, and each one is borne for Christ's sake.
- Result. Emptiness is not the end of usefulness but the condition of it. Christ uses only the weak, and in that weakness Paul was invincible.
- Rule. We are never so strong as when we feel weak. We are never so weak as when we think we are strong — as Peter found out.