Tuesday, December 17, 2013

For Power is Made Perfect in Weakness

“For Power is Made Perfect in Weakness”
Brief Exegesis on 2 Corinthians 12, 7-10


St. Paul preached the Gospel in Corinth for eighteen months (50-52 A.D.), and founded a flourishing church there.[1] He left for Jerusalem and returned via Antioch to visit the churches founded in Asia Minor and Greece. While he was away from Corinth some "intruders”, some other self-appointed preachers, had come there and were upsetting the Christians. They evidently were belittling Paul and boasting of their own superior qualifications. In this letter, which Paul sent to the Corinthians from Ephesus or Macedonia (about 57 A.D.), he felt forced to prove that he was a true Apostle: who suffered much for Christ and his Gospel and who also had been given the privilege of special visions and revelations. He devoted chapters 10-12: 6 to this subject.[2]
In Cor. 12:7-10, as if to make atonement for speaking so boastfully about himself, he went on now to describe some weakness he had which troubled him very much. He prayed fervently to have it removed, but was told by the Lord that he would get the grace necessary to bear with it. He concluded that he is content with weakness and sufferings because the power and strength of Christ, working through a weak instrument, will be all the more visible and convincing.
Displaying admirable humility, St Paul now referred to the weakness God allowed him to experience to ensure his supernatural gifts did not make him proud and independent of God. He was given a “thorn in the flesh” to humble him. The Fathers of the Church and commentators of the past have put forward many suggestions to clarify the meaning of “thorns in the flesh”, and so far no clear-cut meaning has emerged.[3] The earliest reference is found in Tertullian who mentions that it was said that Paul’s malady was earache or headache (physical ailment)[4] with reference to Gal. 4:13. Others, like St John Chrysostom and St Augustine, are of the view that he is referring to the pain which continual persecution caused him. Others suggests that it was psychological illness or the torment of sexual temptation. Paul regarded his thorn in the flesh as a messenger that came from Satan to frustrate him (cf. Job 2:1-10). Nevertheless God had permitted it and would use it to bring good out of evil (Rom. 8:28).[5]
St. Paul pleaded God three times to take this "thorn" away, but the heavenly answer he received is very revealing: God's grace is enough to enable him to cope with this difficulty—which serves to reveal God's power. And so it is that he boasts of and is content with his weaknesses and the persecution he suffers: in these circumstances he is stronger than ever, thanks to God's supernatural aid, the grace of God.
The three occasions on which Paul besought the Lord for deliverance were most probably suggest urgency or three separate and severe assaults of this messenger of Satan. Paul’s specific request was granted but something much better is bestowed, namely, grace which is perpetually sufficient, good for his life.[6] To this answer, in which the will of God is revealed, Paul submits. He welcomes it, “most gladly”, with full existential eagerness.[7]
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”[8] This is the summit of the epistle, the lofty peak from which the whole is viewed in true proportion. From this vantage-point the entire range of Paul’s apostleship is seen in focus—his calling, his conversion, his weakness, his trials, and his labors, his conquest and his exaltation—all fall into place.[9] All is grace (1 Cor. 15: 10); the glory belongs to God alone (10:17).
Now, in the last verse, the apostle summed up all that had gone before by explaining that, because the divine power is made perfect in human weakness, he is well pleased with weaknesses, insults and afflictions of every kind. Human weakness provides the opportunity for divine power.[10]



[1] Cf. Acts 18:12
[2] Michael J. Taylor S.J., Paul: His Letter, Message and Heritage, (Makati City: St Paul’s, 2007), 103-104.
[3] Dr. Sebastian Kizhakkeyil, The Pauline Epistles: Exegetical Study, (Bandara, Mumbai: St Paul Press Training School, 2008), 141.
[4] Tertullian, De Pudic, xiii, 16
[5] Sydney H. T. Page, "Satan: God's Servant," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 50:3 (September 2007):449-65.
[6] Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 449.
[7] Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 451.
[8] NAB, 2 Cor. 12:9
[9] Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 451.
[10] Rev. Alfred Plummer, M.A.,D.D., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, (Great Britain: Morrison and Gibb, 1960) 354. 

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