The Clothed Strength

Introduction

Background: Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell) is the obnoxious manager on the hit TV show The Office. Michael, the manager of Dunder Mifflin's office in Scranton, Pennsylvania, is known for his inability to see his own faults.

In an episode from Season 3, Michael Scott is invited to interview for a position at Dunder-Mifflin corporate headquarters in New York City. During the interview with David Wallace, Dunder Mifflin's Chief Financial Officer, the following conversation ensues:

David Wallace: So, let me ask you a question right off the bat. What do you think are your greatest strengths as a manager? Michael Scott: Why don't I tell you what my greatest weaknesses are? I work too hard. I care too much. And sometimes I can be too invested in my job. David: Okay. And your strengths? Michael: Well, my weaknesses are actually … strengths. David: Oh. Yes. Very good. Michael: Thank you.

Source: The Office, "Beach Games," Season 3, Episode 23. Directed by Harold Ramis and written by Jennifer Celotta & Greg Daniels

our society lift the strength high, rather than weaknessses

nobody want to boast about our weakness

What is Paul’s thorn? We will further discuss on that, but it definitely means some kind of weakness he has.

are you ashame with your weaknesses?

our strength is a lot of time clothed with weaknesses.

Our weaknesses humbles us (v5-7)

some of us boast about ourselves becuase of the pressure our society gives to us. everyone around us is living as such. that is what Paul experienced in his time. He faces the “strong apostle” and “boastful congregation”. Yet, he has no interest to boast about his extraordinary experience being brought to paradise, though it would add benefit to him by establishing his authority as an apostle. We even hardly find this record in any of his other letters in the Bible. The only time he mentioned here, he use the third person to describe the experience. and it was fourteen years ago, that he only mentioned it now.

Paul’s special spiritual experience. Having felt forced into the futile exercise of boasting about spiritual experience, Paul returns (cf. 11:30) to the one safe ground of boasting—his personal weakness, and this idea he develops in vv. 7–10. However, before he does that he makes a point of saying, Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth. Paul’s meaning seems to be that if he did wish to boast on his own behalf of that experience, he would not, in one sense, be acting foolishly, because all he has said about it is true.

to avoid others to think more of us. The apostle’s reason for making less of his past experience than he might is that he wishes people’s evaluation of him to be based upon what they see of him and hear from him now. Both the verbs sees and hears are in the present tense, emphasizing that it is upon present performance that Paul wants to be judged. This stress upon the present lends some support to the suggestion that Paul’s use of the third person in the account of his experience of fourteen years ago was a device to distinguish between the Paul of that past experience and the Paul as people see and hear him now. It is on the latter, and in the light of all his weakness, that he wishes any evaluation of him to be made.

to avoid ourselves from becoming conceited. A thorn (skolops) was given him in the flesh. The word skolops, found only here in the New Testament, was used for anything pointed, e.g. a stake, the pointed end of a fish-hook, a splinter or a thorn. The fact that Paul speaks of a thorn in the flesh suggests that the imagery is of a splinter or a thorn, rather than a stake, as some have argued. In the LXX skolops is used figuratively in Numbers 33:55 (‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as pricks [skolopes] in your eyes’), Ezekiel 28:24 (‘And for the house of Israel there shall be no more a brier [skolops] to prick or a thorn to hurt them among all their neighbours who have treated them with contempt’) and Hosea 2:8 (ET, 5:6) (‘Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns [skolopsin]; and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths’). In each case skolops is used to denote something which frustrates and causes trouble in the lives of those afflicted. That Paul’s thorn was a trouble and frustration to him is clear from his thrice-repeated prayer for its removal (v. 8).

The apostle further describes the thorn in his flesh as a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. In the story of Job, Satan is allowed to harass that great hero of faith and endurance, but only within the limits set by God (Job 1–2). In 1 Thessalonians 2:17–18 Paul tells his readers how he longed to revisit them after he was forced to leave Thessalonica (cf. Acts 17:1–10), but could not do so because Satan hindered him. And in the present context Satan is allowed to harass the apostle by means of a thorn in the flesh. It is important to recognize that, in both the Old and New Testaments, Satan has no power other than that allowed him by God. In the Gospels Jesus has complete power over all the forces of darkness. Satan has no power over him (John 14:30–31), and demons must obey his will (Mark 1:21–28; 5:1–13). This power Christ gave to his disciples (Mark 6:7). And yet we see in the case of Paul that Satan is allowed to hinder the apostle’s plans and harass him with a thorn in the flesh. However, it must be said that in both cases the actions of Satan, while in themselves bad things, are made to serve God’s purposes. In the first case the hindrance kept Paul on the move and that meant the gospel came to Beroea, Athens and Corinth. In the second case, the harassment served to keep Paul spiritually well-balanced. It was a weight upon his spirit preventing him from being blown away by excessive elation. Many suggestions have been made concerning the nature of Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh’. They fall into one of three broad categories: (a) some form of spiritual harassment, e.g. the limitations of a nature corrupted by sin, the torments of temptation, or oppression by a demon, (b) persecution, e.g. that instigated by Jewish opposition or by Paul’s Christian opponents, (c) some physical or mental ailment, e.g. eye trouble, attacks of fever, stammering speech, epilepsy, or a neurological disturbance. However, the plain fact is that there is simply insufficient data to decide the matter. Most modern interpreters prefer to see it as some sort of physical ailment, and the fact that Paul calls it a thorn in the flesh offers some support for this. Galatians 4:15 is appealed to by those who want to identify it as an eye problem.

Our weaknesses glories Christ (v8-9)

glorifies God’s grace and power.

Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me. Although there is no essential similarity between Paul’s experience and that of Jesus in Gethsemane, nevertheless it is interesting to note that both prayed three times that something be removed, and in both cases the removal requested was not granted. However, just as Jesus was strengthened to face his dreadful and unique ordeal, so encouragement and strength were made available to Paul: but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you’.

the sufficiency of God’s grace is made known. Paul uses the perfect tense in the expression but he said to me (eirēken), which indicates that the Lord’s response to his prayer, once made, assumed continual applicability for him. In the response itself the use of the present tense is sufficient (arkei) denotes the continual availability of grace. Essentially the word of the Lord to Paul was that while the thorn would not be removed, his grace would enable him to cope with it

the perfection of God’s power is manifested. Having been taught that Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness, Paul is glad to boast of his weaknesses. This does not mean he enjoys weaknesses as such; what he delights in is the power of Christ that rests upon him in these weaknesses.

Paul prayed that it might be taken from him, but God answered that prayer as he answers so many prayers—he did not take the thing away but gave Paul strength to bear it. That is how God works. Paul’s threefold prayer parallels Jesus’ threefold prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, which also culminated in confidence that the prayer had been answered, even though the cup of suffering remained. That is our attitude towards our weaknesses.

He does not spare us things, but makes us able to conquer them. To Paul came the promise and the reality of the all-sufficient grace. Now, let us see from his life some of the things for which that grace was sufficient.

(1) It was sufficient for physical weariness. It made him able to go on. John Wesley preached 42,000 sermons. He averaged 4,500 miles a year. He rode sixty to seventy miles a day and preached three sermons a day on an average. When he was 83, he wrote in his diary: ‘I am a wonder to myself. I am never tired, either with preaching, writing, or travelling.’ That was the work of the all-sufficient grace.

(2) It was sufficient for physical pain. It made him able to bear the cruel stake. Once, a man went to visit a girl who was in bed dying of an incurable and a most painful disease. He took with him a little book of cheer for those in trouble, a sunny book, a happy book, a laughing book. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said, ‘but I know this book.’ ‘Have you read it already?’ asked the visitor. The girl answered: ‘I wrote it.’ That was the work of the all-sufficient grace.

(3) It was sufficient for opposition. All his life, Paul was up against it, and all his life he never gave in. No amount of opposition could break him or make him turn back. That was the work of the all-sufficient grace.

(4) It made him able, as all this letter shows, to face slander. There is nothing so hard to face as misinterpretation and cruel misjudgment. Once, a man flung a bucket of water over Archelaus the Macedonian. He said nothing at all. And when a friend asked him how he could bear it so serenely, he said: ‘He threw the water not on me, but on the man he thought I was.’ The all-sufficient grace made Paul care not what people thought him to be but what God knew him to be.

It is the glory of the gospel that in our weakness we may find this wondrous grace, for always that which is the greatest challenge to our strength is God’s opportunity. While Paul does not mention his special encounter, he repeatedly referred to his conversion experience as an essential part of his preaching. His preaching does not derive from these mystical experiences but from his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus.

For Paul, both his rapture to paradise and his thorn are the work of God. our suffering can never outstrip God’s supply of grace. For this reason, Paul with all the more gladly boast in his weakneses in order that the power of Chrsit may dwell on him. The promise of God’s grace and power leads Paul to be pleased in his sufferings rather than continuing to pray for their removal, becuase he now knows that when he is weak, then he is strong.

Elisa Morgan, president of MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International, writes:

I'm probably the least likely person to head a mothering organization. I grew up in a broken home. My parents were divorced when I was 5. My older sister, younger brother, and I were raised by my alcoholic mother.

While my mother meant well—truly she did—most of my memories are of my mothering her rather than her mothering me. Alcohol altered her love, turning it into something that wasn't love. I remember her weaving down the hall of our ranch home in Houston, Texas, glass of scotch in hand. She would wake me at 2 a.m. just to make sure I was asleep. I would wake her at 7 a.m. to try to get her off to work.

Sure, there were good times like Christmas and birthdays when she went all out and celebrated us as children. But even those days ended with the warped glow of alcohol. What she did right was lost in what she did wrong.

Ten years ago, when I was asked to consider leading MOPS International, a vital ministry that nurtures mothers, I went straight to my knees—and then to the therapist's office. How could God use me—who had never been mothered—to nurture other mothers?

The answer came as I gazed into the eyes of other moms around me and saw their needs mirroring my own. God seemed to take my deficits and make them my offering—"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9).

Conclusion

What is your weaknesses? We live in a world full of people struggling to be, or at least to appear, strong in order not to be weak; and we follow a gospel which says that when I am weak, then I am strong. And this gospel is the only thing that brings healing.

when we are weak, then we are strong (v10).

Boasting about our weakness rather than our strength is something Christian community needs to learn today. We are all human beings with weaknesses, none of us is in any sense a special kind of Christian that is perfectly alright. when we boast about our strength, we lift ourselves up. but when we boast about our weaknesses, we lift God up.