TWO Power Through Weakness
T W O Power Through Weakness 1 Corinthians 1:18—2:5
1 C O R I N T H I A N S 1 : 1 8 — 2 : 5
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not
many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
Power Through Weakness At first sight 1 Corinthians 1:17—2:5 focuses on power.
• Paul fears "lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power"
(1:17).
• "For the message of the cross," he continues, "is . . . to us who are being saved . . . the power of God" (1:18).
• "To those whom God has called . . . Christ [is] the power of God" (1:24).
• "My message and my preaching were . . . with a demonstration of the Spirit's power" (2:4).
• This was "so that your faith might . . . rest . . . on God's power' (2:5).
Further, for the sake of completeness, we must add two verses from 2 Corinthians.
• "We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this allsurpassing power is from God" (2 Cor 4:7).
• The Lord said to Paul, "My power is made perfect in weakness." In consequence, the apostle said he would boast in his weaknesses "so that Christ's power may rest on me"
(2 Cor 12:9).
Here are eight references to power: the power of God, the power of Christ, the power of the cross and the power of the Spirit.
This concentration on power makes an immediate appeal to us today, for we live in a society that worships power. Not that this is new. The lust for power has always been a characteristic of the human story, at least since Adam and Eve were offered power in exchange for disobedience.
Basic Christian Leadership Still today the three major human ambitions (the pursuit of money, fame and influence) are all concealed drives for power.
Indeed, we see this thirst for power everywhere—in politics and public life, in civil conflict and the resort to arms, in big business and industry, in the professions in which professional expertise threatens those without it, and in primitive societies in which the shaman or witchdoctor trades secret power for money.
Unfortunately, we see the same power-hunger in the church: in top-level ecclesiastical power struggles, in denominational disputes, in some local churches driven by market forces and others in which the clergy hold all the reins of power and refuse to share it with the lay people (and especially the young people), in parachurch organizations that dream of expanding into world empires and even in the pulpit, which is an exceedingly dangerous place for any child of Adam to occupy.
Power! It is more intoxicating than alcohol, more addictive than drugs. It was Lord Acton, the nineteenth-century British politician, friend and adviser of Prime Minister William Gladstone, who composed the epigram "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Acton was very disturbed in his day to see democracy being undermined by power struggles.
He was also a Roman Catholic who, in 1870, strongly opposed the decision of the First Vatican Council to attribute infallibility to the pope. He saw it as power corrupting the church.
Turning from the Roman Catholic to the evangelical scene, I confess to being frightened by the contemporary evangelical hunger for power, even the quest for the power of the Holy
Spirit. Why do we want to receive power? Is it honestly power for witness (as in Acts 1:8) or holiness or humble service? Or is
Power Through Weakness
it in reality a mask for personal ambition, a craving to boost our own ego, to minister to our self-importance, to impress, to dominate or to manipulate?
Even some evangelism is a disguised form of imperialism, since it builds human empires instead of the kingdom of God.
Only one imperialism is Christian, and that is a concern for His Imperial Majesty the Lord Jesus Christ, a longing for the glory of his kingdom, for the honor of his name.
So the Bible contains clear warnings about the use and abuse of power. In the Old Testament we read about Uzziah (alias Azariah), king of Judah, that "he was greatly helped until he became powerful. But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall" (2 Chron 26:15-16). In the New Testament the Lord Jesus himself warns the apostles against exercising the "authority" and "lordship" that characterize leadership in the secular community. "Not so with you," he declared, for Christian leadership is marked rather by humility and service (Mk
10:42-44). And the apostle Peter clearly echoed this teaching when he urged church elders to shepherd God's people, "not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock" (1 Pet 5:2-3).
At no point does the Christian mind come into more violent collision with the secular mind than in its insistence on humility, with all the weakness it entails. The wisdom of the world values power, not humility. We have drunk in more of the power philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche than we realize. Nietzsche dreamed of the rise of a daring ruler-race—tough, masculine and oppressive. Nietzsche worshiped power; he despised Jesus for his weakness. The ideal of Nietzsche was the Übermensch, the superman; but the ideal of Jesus was the little child. There
Basic Christian Leadership is no possibility of compromise between these two images; we are obliged to choose.
After this long introduction, we are ready to return to the central theme of Paul's Corinthian correspondence, which is not power (as you might think at first sight) but power through weakness, divine power through human weakness. Paul brings together in 1 Corinthians 1—2 three striking illustrations of the same principle.
• First, we see power through weakness in the gospel itself, for the weakness of the cross is the power of God (1:1725, especially vv. 18, 24).
• Second, we see power through weakness in the Corinthian converts, for God had chosen weak people to shame the strong (1:26-31, especially v. 27).
• Third, we see power through weakness in Paul the evangelist, for "I came to you," he said, "in weakness and fear" but "with a demonstration of the Spirit's power" (2:1-5, especially vv. 3-4).
Thus the gospel, the converts and the preacher (or the evangel, the evangelized and the evangelist) all exhibited the same principle. God's power operates best in human weakness. Weakness is the arena in which God can most effectively manifest his power. Consider now how Paul develops his threefold theme.
1. POWER THROUGH WEAKNESS IN THE GOSPEL
ITSELF (1:18-25)
Every communicator has to answer two basic questions. First, what have I got to say? Second, how shall I say it? The first concerns the message we have to communicate, the second the method of our communication.
Power Through Weakness
In the first-century world of Greco-Roman culture these two questions received a ready answer. The "what" of communication was philosophy, and the "how" was rhetoric, an elaborate ornamentation of language and style. Moreover the Corinthians
(even after their conversion) were still enamored of popular rhetoric. They thought of the gospel as so4phia (wisdom), and they considered that it should be presented with appropriate ornamentation. Paul strongly disagreed. He renounced them both.
He refused to preach the gospel "in wisdom of word" (as in v.
17). In place of human philosophy and human rhetoric he put the cross, for the cross is both the wisdom of God and the power of God. Paul now enlarges on his position twice over, first in verses 18-21 and second in verses 22-25. In both paragraphs he begins with the cross (vv. 18, 23), and in both he continues with the different responses people make to the message of the cross.
Verses 18-21. The message of the cross receives diametrically opposed reactions. It is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (v. 18). And Paul endorses this from Scripture. He quotes from Isaiah 29:14 to the effect that God destroys and frustrates human wisdom, and even makes it foolish (1 Cor 1:19-20).
What comes next is a beautifully chiseled sentence. Verse 21 rests on the fundamental fact that human beings cannot reach
God by themselves. On the one hand, God is infinite, whereas we are finite. On the other hand, God is holy, whereas we are sinners. In consequence, we are doubly cut off from God. So God has taken the initiative to do what we cannot do, namely, to bridge the gulf between us.
In order to explain this, verse 21 contains three contrasts that emerge when we ask three questions.
Basic Christian Leadership Question 1: Who took the initiative to reach us? Answer: God did.
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not (and could not) know him, God was pleased to take saving action on our behalf.
Question 2: What was the result of God's initiative? Answer: Salvation. God was pleased . . . to save those who believe.
Question 3: How was the initiative taken? Answer: Through the gospel. For since the world failed to reach God through its own wisdom, God was pleased to save us through the foolishness of what was preached (the ke4rygma or message).
Here then is the summary of verse 21. Wherever the world failed through its own wisdom to know God, God was pleased to save believers through the folly of the gospel. The contrast stands out starkly between the world and God, between not knowing God and being saved, and between the world's wisdom and the foolishness of the gospel.
Verses 22-25. In the next paragraph Paul elaborates the same thesis: wisdom through the folly of the cross and power through the weakness of the cross. In order to do so, however, he divides the human race into three sections—Jews, Greeks and Christians—and pinpoints the essential differences between them.
First, Jews demand miraculous signs (v. 22). They were expecting a political Messiah who would drive the Roman legions into the Mediterranean Sea and reestablish the lost national sovereignty of Israel. So from every revolutionary pretender they demanded appropriate evidence, especially signs of power, to give plausibility to his messianic claims.
That is why they kept asking Jesus, "What signs do you do
Power Through Weakness
that we may believe?" (e.g., Mt 12:38; 16:1; Mk 8:11; Lk 11:16; Jn 2:18; 4:48; 6:30).
Second, Greeks look for wisdom (1 Cor 1:22). Greece had had a long tradition of brilliant philosophy. The Greeks believed in the autonomy of the human mind. So they listened eagerly to every new idea, every speculation, so long as it seemed to them
"reasonable."
So Jews demanded power and Greeks sought wisdom. As Gordon Fee has put it, "The demand for power and the insistence on wisdom . . . are still the basic idolatries of our fallen world."1
Over against "the wonder-seeking Jew" and "the wisdomseeking Greek"2 there is a third category, namely, Christian believers. We preach Christ crucified (v. 23). Notice the contrast implied in the three verbs. Jews "make demands," and Greeks are
"seeking." What then is the characteristic of Christian preachers? It is neither "demanding" nor "searching" but "proclaiming" the gospel of Christ crucified.
But "a crucified Messiah was an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms,"3 a uniting of opposites. For "Messiah meant power, splendor, triumph; crucifixion meant weakness, humiliation, defeat."4No wonder the message of "Christ crucified" provoked different reactions.
First, Christ crucified was a stumbling block to Jews (v. 23).
They were expecting a powerful military Messiah riding on a war horse at the head of an army. What were they offered instead? A pathetic, crucified weakling! It was an insult to their national pride. How could God's Messiah end his life under the condemnation of his own people and even under the curse of God? It was impossible. The cross was an absolute
Basic Christian Leadership stumbling block to those who worshiped power.
Second, Christ crucified was foolishness to Gentiles (v. 23).
Crucifixion in the Roman world was not only a painful execution; it was a public humiliation. It was reserved for the dregs of society, slaves and criminals. No free man or citizen was ever crucified. It was inconceivable therefore that God's Son should end his life on a gibbet. In his eloquent speeches Cicero several times spoke of the horror of crucifixion. For example, "The very name of the cross is absent not only from the body of Roman citizens, but also from their mind, eyes and ears."5 In other words, citizens would never even look at, listen to or think about a crucifixion.
Third, Christ crucified was to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, . . . the power of God and the wisdom of God (v.
24). In spite of what the cross may seem to be, it was not weakness but God's power, not foolishness but God's wisdom. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength (v. 25).
It may be good now to pause and reflect on the contemporary application of Paul's thesis. This whole text is embarrassingly relevant today. To be sure, there are no first-century Jews or Greeks in the world, but there are many modern equivalents.
First, the cross is still a stumbling block to all who, like Nietzsche, worship power and are confident in their own power to save themselves, or at least to contribute substantially to their salvation. Like the Jews of Paul's day, they seek to establish their own righteousness (Rom 10:3). They imagine that they can accumulate merit and so put God in their debt. But the cross tells them it is impossible. Christ died to save us precisely because
Power Through Weakness
we cannot save ourselves, and if we could, then "Christ died for nothing" (Gal 2:21).
Second, the cross is still folly to the intellectually proud. It makes no sense to them. One example may suffice: the late A. J. Ayer
(later Sir Alfred Ayer), Oxford University philosopher and author of Language, Truth and Logic, was scathing in his denunciation of Christianity. He was especially scornful of the cross. In an article in The Guardian he wrote that of all the historic religions there is a strong case for regarding Christianity as the worst. Why? Because it rested on "the allied doctrines of original sin and vicarious atonement, which are intellectually contemptible and morally outrageous."6
Third, the cross is still to God's people the power of God and the wisdom of God. It is the power of God because through it
God saves those who cannot save themselves. It is the wisdom of God because through it God has solved not only our problem (sin and guilt) but his own. It is not wrong to speak of a divine problem or dilemma solved at the cross. It arises from God's character of holy love. How could he express his holiness in punishing evil without compromising his love?
How could he express his love in forgiving sinners without compromising his justice? How could he be at one and the same time "a righteous God and a Savior" (Is 45:21)? His answer to these questions was and still is the cross. For on the cross he took our place, bore our sin, died our death and so paid our debt.
Thus on the cross God demonstrated both his justice (Rom 3:25) and his love (5:8). And in this double demonstration the wisdom of God is displayed: his wisdom in the foolishness of the cross, his power in its weakness.
Basic Christian Leadership
2. POWER THROUGH WEAKNESS IN THE
CORINTHIAN CONVERTS (1:26-31)
Paul has been inviting the Corinthian Christians to reflect on the gospel and its weakness; now he invites them to reflect on themselves and their own weakness. Brothers, he dictates, or "my dear Christian family," as Anthony Thiselton renders the word,7 think of what you were when you were called. He proceeds to remind them. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth (v. 26).
That is to say, wisdom and power were not conspicuous among the Corinthian Christians. Indeed, the opposite was the case.
God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are (vv. 27-28). The same theme is evident in them as in the cross, namely, wisdom through folly and power through weakness.
What was the purpose of this divine action? Why did God choose foolish, weak and lowly people? It was so that no one may boast before him (v. 29). The credit for their salvation belonged to God alone. It is because of him (God) that you are in Christ Jesus
(v. 30). God the Father had united them to Christ, and so (Paul now associates himself with them) Christ has become for us on the one hand wisdom from God and on the other hand our righteousness, holiness and redemption (v. 30). These three great blessings we enjoy in Christ are surely the three tenses of salvation: past (our justification), present (our sanctification) and future (our glorification, including the redemption of our bodies; cf. Rom 8:23; Eph 1:14; 4:30). They are due to God's sheer grace, to his wisdom and power displayed in and through Christ crucified.
Power Through Weakness
Therefore, Paul concludes his argument, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord" (v. 31), for all other boasting is excluded. As Jeremiah put it:
Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD. (Jer 9:23) It is evident from these verses that most of the Corinthian converts were drawn from the lower ranks of society. Mostly they did not belong to the intelligentsia, or to the city's influential leaders, or to its aristocracy. No, on the whole they would be regarded as uneducated, insignificant, poor and socially despised, being probably slaves (cf. 1 Cor 7:21). The fact that the gospel reached, saved and changed them was another dramatic illustration of the principle of power through weakness—God's power exhibited in human weakness.
Is the apostle saying that God never calls and saves people who are clever, wealthy, influential or socially prominent?
Clearly not. Saul of Tarsus, with his brilliant intellect, was himself an exception to his own rule. Even in Corinth, Luke tells us, Crispus (the ruler of the synagogue) was converted (Acts
18:8). And in Romans 16:23-24 (a letter written from Corinth) Paul sends greetings from both Gaius (wealthy enough to give hospitality to the whole church) and Erastus (described as "the city's director of public works"). Moreover, both 1 and 2 Corinthians imply that some Corinthian Christians were well-to-do
(cf. 1 Cor 11:22; 16:2, 15, 19; 2 Cor 8—9).
Basic Christian Leadership The key to interpreting these verses is that Paul does not write "not any of you" but "not many of you." Origen, the midthird-century church father, noticed this. When Celsus, an early critic, sneered that Christianity was for the uneducated, the stupid and the ignorant, Origen pointed out Paul's phrase "not many." Then Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, the eighteenthcentury evangelical aristocrat and friend of John Wesley and George Whitefield who sought to introduce the British upper classes to the gospel, said, "I thank God for the letter 'm' in 'many.'"8
What then are we to conclude from this text? Is it wrong to take the gospel to such elitist groups as students and professional people? No, it is not wrong. Paul's emphasis is that God's power operates only in the salvation of the weak. Therefore, if the strong hope to be saved, they must acknowledge their weakness. Otherwise the grace of God cannot reach them. As Jesus put it, the kingdom of God belongs only to children. If therefore adults want to enter it, they have to become like children themselves (Mk 10:13-16).
Luther understood this well:
Only the prisoner shall be free; Only the poor shall be rich; Only the weak shall be strong; Only the humble exalted; Only the empty filled; Only nothing shall be something.9
3. POWER THROUGH WEAKNESS IN THE
EVANGELIST (2:1-5)
Not only were Paul's Corinthian converts weak and feeble, but
Power Through Weakness
he, the apostle, though in a somewhat different sense, was weak and feeble too. As Hudson Taylor affirmed in the nineteenth century, "all God's giants have been weak people."10 This was in contrast to the false teachers, whom Paul dubbed "super-apostles" (2 Cor 11:5). They were proud and self-confident, and boasted of their wisdom, authority and power.
It is necessary to understand the cultural background to the situation in Corinth, especially in regard to rhetoric. "Rhetoric was a systematic, academic discipline taught and practised throughout the Graeco-Roman world."11 In fact, in the first century A.D. "rhetoric became the primary discipline in Roman higher education."12 In public debates, in the law courts and at funerals "the rhetoric of display and ornamentation" was tremendously popular as "a form of public entertainment."13
Gradually it "became an end in itself, mere ornamentation, with a desire to please the crowd . . . but without serious content or intent."14 A "sophist" was an orator who "emphasized style over substance,"15 form over content. The goal was applause, the motive vanity and the casualty truth.16 "It is difficult for us at the end of the twentieth century," wrote Donald Carson, "to appreciate how influential this allegiance to rhetoric was."17
So this was the situation in Corinth. The Corinthians had assimilated the rhetorical culture of the day and were evaluating
Paul's speech according to the commonly accepted criteria. But Paul made a double negative resolve, which he repeated. He determined to preach in Corinth not with words of human wisdom
(1:17) and not with eloquence or superior wisdom (2:1), which Anthony Thiselton renders "not with high-sounding rhetoric or a display of cleverness."18
In both texts Paul uses the same vocabulary: so4phia (wis-
Basic Christian Leadership dom, i.e., human philosophy) and logos (utterance, i.e., human rhetoric). The Corinthians loved both, but Paul rejected both. In place of human philosophy he resolved to know nothing while he was with them except Jesus Christ and him crucified
(2:2). In place of human rhetoric he came to them in weakness and fear, and with much trembling (v. 3), or "nervous and rather shaky" (J. B. Phillips). In consequence he relied on a demonstration of the Spirit's power (v. 4).
I fear that these words would not be an accurate description of many contemporary evangelists. Weakness is not their most obvious characteristic. No, seminary homiletics classes aim to inculcate self-confidence in nervous students. If Paul had enrolled in one of our seminaries today, he would have been regarded as very unpromising material. Since he was supposed to be a mature Christian, we might even have rebuked him, saying
"Paul, you've no business to feel nervous. Don't you know what it means to be filled with the Spirit? You ought to be strong, confident, bold!"
But Paul was of a different opinion. He was not afraid to admit that he was afraid. True, he had a massive intellect and a powerful personality. But he was physically frail (whatever his
"thorn in the flesh" may have been, 2 Cor 12:7) and emotionally vulnerable (prone to the ups and downs of fluctuating feelings). According to a second-century tradition he was unattractive, small, even ugly, with bald head, beetle brows, bandy legs and a hooked nose.19 Moreover, his critics said that his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible
(10:10). So he was nothing much to look at or to listen to.
These disabilities would have disqualified him from succeeding as a sophist or rhetorician, or as a popular evangelist today.
Power Through Weakness
Consequently Paul looked elsewhere for his enabling. In his human weakness he relied on the power of God, on a demonstration of the Spirit's power (1 Cor 2:4). "It is possible but not probable," writes Gordon Fee, "given the context of 'weakness,' that it [the demonstration of power] reflects the 'signs and wonders' of 2 Corinthians 12:12. More likely it refers to their actual conversion."20 For every conversion involves a power encounter between Christ and Satan, in which the superior power of Christ is seen. The Holy Spirit takes the evangelist's words, spoken in human weakness, and carries them home with power to the mind, heart, conscience and will of the hearers, in such a way that they see and believe. This is the powerful apodeixis
(demonstration or proof) of the Spirit.
We must not misunderstand this reference to human weakness. It is not an invitation to suppress our God-given personality, to pretend we feel weak when we do not or to cultivate a fake frailty. Nor is it an exhortation to renounce arguments, since Luke tells us that Paul continued to argue and persuade when he reached Corinth (Acts 18:4-5), and Paul later summed up his evangelistic ministry with the words "we . . . persuade men" (2 Cor 5:11). No, to agree that arguments are insufficient is not to say that they are unnecessary. The Holy
Spirit brings people to Christ not in spite of the evidence but because of it, when he opens their eyes to attend to it. Here then is an honest, humble acknowledgment that human beings cannot save souls. Only the power of God can give sight to the blind and life to the dead. But he does it through the gospel of Christ crucified, proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the power in every power encounter is in the cross of Christ (for content) and in the Holy Spirit (for commu-
Basic Christian Leadership nication), irrespective of the weakness of the evangelist.
Perhaps an illustration or two would be in order. C. H. Spurgeon is a notable historical example of the "power through weakness" principle. In his early years as a preacher he sometimes stuttered. All his life he struggled with depression. Later he had regular attacks of gout and occasionally was in such pain while preaching that he had to put one knee on a chair and cling to the pulpit rail. Usually, he said, he felt "terribly sick" before preaching, as if he were crossing the English Channel. And in addition to these physical symptoms, he suffered slanderous attacks from the press. He was only nineteen when he came to London. The Saturday Review called him "a coarse, stupid, irrational bigot" and later "an ignorant, conceited fanatic." Many cartoons and caricatures made fun of him. But he persevered, and astonishing power attended his ministry.21
Although I am of course no Spurgeon, perhaps I may share an anecdote from my own experience. In 1958 I was privileged to lead an eight-day mission in the University of Sydney, Australia. On the last night the meeting was due to be held in the imposing great hall of the university. But I had caught what the Australians call a "wog" (bug) which had deprived me of speech. Shortly before the meeting some student leaders gathered around me, and one of them read the words of Jesus to Paul: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." "Therefore," Paul continues, "I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2
Cor 12:9-10). Then the students prayed that these words might be fulfilled in me that night.
The hall was packed. But I could only croak my address into
Power Through Weakness
the microphone in a monotone, unable to assert my personality or modulate my voice in any way. When the time came for the invitation, however, there was an immediate and eager response. I have been back in Australia ten times since then, and every time somebody has accosted me somewhere, asking, "Do you remember that meeting in the great hall of Sydney University when you had lost your voice? I came to Christ that night."
CONCLUSION
The central theme of Paul's Corinthian correspondence, and especially of 1 Corinthians 1:17—2:5, is "power through weakness." We have a weak message (Christ crucified), proclaimed by weak preachers (full of fear and trembling), received by weak hearers (the socially despised). For God chose a weak instrument (Paul), to bring a weak message (the cross) to weak people (the Corinthian working class). But through this triple weakness the power of God was—and still is—displayed.
We see this principle supremely in Jesus Christ and his cross.
For when in the Judean desert the devil offered him power, he declined the offer. Instead, he gave himself voluntarily to the ultimate weakness and humiliation of the cross. Therefore God has exalted him to the supreme place of power and authority in the universe.
Further, according to Revelation 4—7, at the very center of God's throne (symbol of power) stands a slain Lamb (symbol of weakness). In other words, power through weakness, dramatized in the Lamb on the throne or God on the cross, lies at the very heart of ultimate reality, even of the very being of God himself.
So may this mind be in us which was—and still is—in Christ
Basic Christian Leadership Jesus. The Christian leaders needed in the world and the church today are those who have seen the Lamb on the throne and are determined to follow him wherever he goes (Rev 14:4); they know that God's power will be exhibited not in displays of power but in their weakness.