2 Corinthians 11:16 - 12:10

This passage is quite a hard hitting one. Yet remember that Paul is defending the gospel from ciritcs. He is defending Christianity in the hope that those in the Corinthian church do not lose faith.

Do not boast in strengths

Paul takes the tactic that his opponents follow - they were boasters and self-promoters. Paul boasts about his weakness.

Paul the show off

Paul at the end of chapter 11 "out boasts" the boasters. He points out that the very same things they boast about also apply to him! He also points out his heroic acts in the name of the gospel. Paul boasts about his low times, his risk, and danger rather than his "Christian acheivements".

The reason he does this to show the Corinthians that it is not by his own strength he endured all those things. He boasts about his weakness, in order to show the strength of God behind him.

Paul the mystic

The gentiles expected a spiritual leader to be someone who is constantly connected to the gods and constantly shared their experiences.

Paul boasts about a similar spiritual experience with God. Yet there is a major difference between Paul and the gentile spiritualists. Paul is reluctant to share the details. Paul's reluctance is partly due to the difficulty to process it, and partly because yet again, he is humble about his experience.

The result of that temporary experience was a permanent "thorn" in Paul's side. A character flaw that helped keep him grounded in reality. It helped him remove pride and stay humble.

Paul the weak

We don't know what Paul's thorn was. He was tormented by it. We are not immune to similar problems.

It might be disheartening to read that Paul's thorn was never removed. God did answer his prayer though. God reminded Paul through the pain that His grace is sufficient for him.

God may not take away pain and torment, but He will give you grace and His presence. God wants to bring us to the place where we can say "bring it on!" to our weakness so that His power can rest on us.

Suffering is undesirable, but as suffering invades our life we see the good in pain through the power of Jesus Christ that rests on us. We find Christ in our pain. Through our weakness can come strength.