Proclaimer Blog
Weakness and authority in preaching
I have been reading very slowly through 2 Corinthians in my personal bible reading; it has been doing me a lot of good. In chapter 13, Paul is grappling with the tension between weakness and strength in a matter of apostolic discipline in the church. They were asking (v3) for proof that Christ was speaking through Paul. Then he says of Christ that, "He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live with him in our dealing with you."
We are not apostles. But there is a sense in which all gospel ministry is an extension of apostolic ministry. So there is an application of this to preaching. I think the argument runs like this: In his earthly ministry, Christ had emptied himself of power and lived and died in weakness. But he is not weak now. In his risen and ascended glory, he is filled with power. For the minister of the gospel, we live with a tension between the two ages. In our bodily existence in this age, we are "weak in Christ", walking in his footsteps in weakness and not strength. But in our gospel ministry we speak with the authority of the risen and ascended Christ; "by God's power we will live with him" – with the ascended Christ – "in our dealing with you."
On the one hand we must be characterised by personal humility and the shunning of all self-seeking and self-glorification (pandering to the celebrity culture). But on the other we must learn to preach conscious that our apostolic message comes with the authority of the ascended Christ.