In Friedrich Nietzsche’s provocatively titled 1895 treatise, The Antichrist, the German philosopher sets the stage for the modern world’s obsession with strength: What is good? Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man. What is evil? Whatever springs from weakness. . . . The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it. What is more harmful than any vice? Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity. Reading this 130 years later, it’s easy to dismiss it with a shudder. The 20th century bears witness to the horrific consequences of ideologies that viewed “the weak and the botched” as dispensable—from gas chambers to gulags. Yet Nietzsche wasn’t saying anything new. H. L. Mencken was right to call him “a Greek born two thousand years too late.” Indeed, this worldview is as old as the Canaanite fertility cults. And we still valorize the powerful. But the apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, offers a counternarrative that cuts through centuries of human bravado. In 2 Corinthians 12:1–10, he introduces a theology of weakness that’s as countercultural now as it was then. Inoculation Against Pride Suffering will either break us or humble us. It’ll either turn us bitter or turn our hearts to the Lord in greater dependence. Paul is clear that this unnamed suffering was given to him by God to keep him from being “puffed up.” After all, Paul had experienced extraordinary visions. Such high spiritual privileges come with a lurking threat: spiritual pride. Suffering will either break us or humble us. Theologians have speculated for two millennia about what Paul’s “thorn” actually was. Was it poor eyesight? Malaria? Epilepsy? A specific persecutor? I believe the vagueness is by design. By remaining nonspecific, the principle becomes universally applicable. If Paul had specified his ailment, we might conclude, “I’m not like Paul,” and move on. But the ambiguity allows us all to see our struggles in his story. We’re all susceptible to pride, and we all experience the discipline of a loving Father. There’s mystery here too. Paul refers to his suffering as both ordained by God and “a messenger of Satan” (v. 7). That seems odd, until we think back to Job, where Satan torments Job but does so only by God’s permissive will. The suffering was meant to test Job. There’s mystery in this, but nothing that enters our lives, not even the most excruciating agonies, does so apart from God’s sovereign control. And because of who he is and how he demonstrates his infinite love for us, he can be trusted in those seasons and moments. How do we know that? The purpose reveals it. This suffering isn’t intended to torture Paul but to protect him, to keep him from conceit, to keep him close to God. God’s love for us is often proven not simply in delivering us from threats. It’s proven when he uses suffering to turn us away from pride and toward deeper dependence on him. Sufficiency of Grace Paul repeatedly pleads for the removal of the thorn. He doesn’t get the answer he wants, but he receives the assurance he needs: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9). This is the great exchange. The way of the Christian is the way of weakness. It’s among those who know themselves as they truly are—frail and dependent—that God’s power is most vividly on display. And that’s why Paul then turns the whole theme of boasting upside down. His suffering, his weakness, isn’t a blemish on his ministry or his Christian walk—it’s a gift. Paul’s calculus is upside down: More suffering in my life means more of Jesus at work in me. This logic collides with our culture’s instincts. We’re obsessed with bravado, with bullying, with pathetic claims to power that must look so small to the God of the universe. Suffering is hard to post on Instagram with a #blessed hashtag. But God isn’t impressed by our posturing. More suffering in my life means more of Jesus at work in me. Our churches aren’t immune to this either. We prize and make heroes of pastors of the biggest churches with the biggest budgets and the biggest platforms. We track podcast downloads, conference invitations, book deals, and social media engagement as if they were measures of spiritual authority. That’s how we identify the strong ones. But we seem blind to those who are faithful and true, even if they serve in anonymity. This is nothing more than baptized paganism. The old Canaanite religions were obsessed with power, strength, virility, and fertility. The Greco-Roman gods weren’t much different. And tragically, we have the potential to fall into this pattern of thinking, too, if we take our eyes off the gospel. Boast in the Limp Some are well acquainted with the sort of suffering Paul describes. They may have hardship they’ve pleaded with the Lord to change. But he hasn’t. The diagnosis remains. The anxiety and depression always seem to be there like a shadow. The prodigal child hasn’t returned. The loneliness seems inescapable. Those are forms of weakness. For others, weakness shows up in constant failures: susceptibility to temptation, the failure to live up to our own standards, and the nagging guilt that haunts us for stumbling. We may look strong, but we feel ourselves to be so weak. Yet this feeling of weakness should be normal for Christians. As J. I. Packer puts it, Paul “demonstrates a sustained recognition that feeling weak in oneself is par for the course in the Christian life and therefore something one may properly boast about and be content with.” Nietzsche was wrong. It’s in our weakness that God’s strength shows up in the most powerful ways. The gospel message isn’t one of human conquest but of divine condescension. The crucified and risen Christ, who still bears the nail marks on his hands and feet, promises that his power rests on us in our suffering. When we feel our failures and frailty, the empty tomb testifies to God’s power to raise Jesus from the dead as a testimony that his sacrifice was enough. As we limp along, bruised and mangled by this life, we can return to the simple truth many of us learned as children. It’s a truth with deeper theology than many volumes by venerable scholars: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong; they are weak, but he is strong. We don’t belong to Christ because we’re strong. We belong to him because he loves us. Our weakness isn’t a disqualification. It’s the place his strength is perfected.