Power Made Perfect in Weakness
Paul boasts of escaping in a basket and of a thorn he could not get rid of. This is not an inferiority complex. This is the only honest account of how God actually works.
Henry David Thoreau once said, “If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.” I like that. But what if my mind was so reoriented that I could boast even about my weaknesses? This is the invitation of the wisdom of the Faith.
Most of us raised with an expectation of decorum, dignity, and virtue were taught to avoid boasting as unbecoming of a humble man. And usually that is true. Boastful people tend to be all talk and no action, inflating their accomplishments to prop up their egos. Certainly not the character of a person who realizes that his very life is a gift and that gratitude, not pride, is the proper response to that gift.
And yet there is a boasting that actually leads to humility and gratitude. And the counterintuitive nature of this particular boasting reveals something powerful about God and the salvation He has provided.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Today, the Apostles ’ Fast ends. We have fasted and prayed these weeks in preparation for this feast, the celebration of the two men who, more than any others, laid the foundation for the reorienting of the whole human race toward God and His Christ.
So, we honor the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, the princes of the Apostles. And appropriately, Paul gives us the most honest self-portrait in all of Scripture.
Today’s Lesson: 2 Corinthians 11:21-33; 12:1-9 (key section)
If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for ever, knows that I do not lie. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped his hands.
I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows, and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Paul is writing to a congregation that had been impressed by self-promoting teachers who boasted of their credentials, their visions, and their spiritual superiority. His response is not to “outboast” them.
It is to show them an entirely different kind of boasting.
He does have credentials. He has visions. He has been caught up to the third heaven. He mentions these things, awkwardly, in the third person, as if embarrassed to claim them directly. And then he puts all of it aside and boasts about the basket.
He escaped through a window, like luggage in a basket! (What a great word picture)
This is not a heroic image. This is the image Paul chooses to lead with. And then the thorn in the flesh he could not get rid of despite asking three times.
This is the most honest self-portrait in all of Scripture. And it is the key to everything.
What Can We Take From This?
First, boasting about weakness is not an inferiority complex. It is the only honest account of how God actually works.
Our modern culture has elevated self-image to the point that it has drowned out wisdom and honest self-knowledge. We are gripped by the notion that we must hide our weaknesses and emphasize our strengths. But what is really happening when we do this is that we are poisoning our strengths with delusional arrogance.
True freedom and wisdom are the ability to see both my strengths and my weaknesses soberly and dispassionately, without guilt and without arrogance.
Frankly, if I could practice this wisdom consistently myself, I’d be a better Christian.
This is not low self-esteem. This is honest self-knowledge. And it is extraordinarily rare.
St. Paul calls all his accomplishments before Christ “dung” in another letter. This sounds extreme until you understand what he means. He is not saying he was worthless. He is saying that everything he had accumulated and achieved by his own power, his pedigree, his scholarship, his zeal, his position, was exactly as useful as dung for the purpose of actually knowing God and being known by Him.
The moment I stop pretending I have no weaknesses, I stop needing to perform. And the moment I stop performing, God’s grace actually has room to work.
Next, the thorn in the flesh is not a problem God forgot to fix. It is a gift He chose not to remove.
“Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me.”
Three times. St. Paul, the man caught up to the third heaven, the man who healed others, the man through whom extraordinary miracles occurred, asked three times for his own thorn to be removed.
And the Lord said, “No.”
Not because He was unable. Not because He was indifferent. But because the thorn was doing something the removal of it could not do.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
God’s power is not made perfect in our strength. It is made perfect in our weakness.
This is one of the most theologically dense sentences in the entire New Testament, and we rush past it constantly.
When we are strong in our own estimation, we attribute outcomes to ourselves. When we are weak and know it, and the thing happens anyway, everyone can see whose power it actually is. The thorn keeps Paul honest about the source. Without it, he might start believing his own press.
Your thorn, whatever it is, the weakness you have prayed about repeatedly and not been delivered from, is not evidence that God has abandoned you or that your faith is insufficient. It may be precisely the instrument by which God is keeping the channel clear between His power and your life.
Finally, both St. Peter and St. Paul stumbled badly and became pillars of the Church. This is the point of the feast.
St. Peter walked with Christ during His earthly ministry. He confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He walked on water, briefly. And then, when his own safety was at stake, he denied three times that he even knew the Lord, cursing and swearing to make the denial convincing.
St. Paul was a respected Pharisee, a scholar of the Torah, a Roman citizen, and a man of standing. He gave legal cover to the mob that killed St. Stephen, the first martyr of the Church. He dragged Christians from their homes and had them imprisoned.
Both men were confronted by the Risen Christ. Both were transformed. And both became the princes of the Apostles who changed human history forever.
Their weaknesses were not erased. They were redeemed. Peter’s threefold denial became a threefold restoration at the Sea of Galilee. Paul’s persecution of the Church became the fuel for his relentless drive to build it in every corner of the world. The wounds became the credential. The weakness became the boast.
The Holy Apostles Peter and Paul
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy and Chief Apostles Peter and Paul. St. Peter, the fisherman from Galilee. St. Paul, the tentmaker from Tarsus, the Apostle to the Gentiles, the man who carried the Gospel to the ends of the known world. Two men of utterly different backgrounds, temperaments, and gifts. Two men who had quarreled publicly were reconciled. Two men who were both martyred in Rome, St. Peter was crucified upside down, and St. Paul was beheaded.
The Church honors them together, not because they were identical, but because together they show the breadth of what God can do with human weakness fully surrendered to His grace. The impulsive fisherman and the meticulous scholar. The man of action and the man of letters. One who denied and was restored. One who persecuted and was transformed.
Together, they are the model of what St. Paul boasts about in today’s reading. Not their accomplishments, though the accomplishments were extraordinary. Their utter dependence on the grace that was sufficient when their own strength was not.
Your Response Today
Today, on this feast of the Chief Apostles, ask yourself honestly what you boast about.
Consider what it would look like to boast about the ways God’s grace has shown up precisely in your weaknesses. The places where you know, because you were there, that you did not produce that outcome by yourself.
Then pray simply:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Your grace is sufficient for me. Let my weaknesses become the very places where Your power is most visibly at work, so that no one who watches my life will ever conclude that I did this by myself. Let me boast only of what You have done with what I could not do.”
Being Orthodox on Purpose means surrendering the performance of strength and learning instead to boast of weakness, so that the power of Christ has room to rest upon you and do what your own strength never could!
P.S. O Lord, receive unto the enjoyment of Your good things and Your rest, the steadfast preachers of Godly words, the pinnacle of Your Disciples. Receive their pain and death above every sacrifice, for You alone know the hearts of men.
Please pray for Fr. Barnabas and family as we travel. We are thrilled our daughter is going to participate in the Summer Camp at Ionian Village. Here’s the website to learn more -
https://www.ionianvillage.org/
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Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV
Thank you for this post Father, grace and peace to you!
Holy Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us!