Summary: I began reflecting on today's text in the midst of a family member's medical crisis. A routine test had quickly turned into a medical emergency. After two weeks of riding a medical roller coaster, my loved one was stable enough for me to return home. On the drive, I reflected on all that had happened. Paul's words about finding strength in weakness came to mind. The previous two weeks had felt like a crash course in weakness. Where was the strength in it? Today's verses come at the end of what some scholars call Paul's "Foolish Speech." In it, the apostle defends himself against the false teaching of so-called "super-apostles." These teachers, who had arrived after Paul's departure from Corinth, boasted often of spiritual visions. They cited these fantastic encounters with the divine as their credentials for being apostles. Employing the super-apostles' methods, Paul also begins to boast. He too knows a man - a thinly-veiled reference to himself - who had a fantastic vision where he encountered the divine. But it's not the vision about which Paul boasts. Instead, he boasts of his weakness. That is Paul's "foolishness." He turns boasting on its head. His best credential for apostleship is not special visions, but his thorn in the flesh. When Paul is weak, he says, that's when he's strongest. Strength in weakness? What could Paul possible mean here? He explains. Paul finds weakness to be his greatest source of strength because it is in weakness, he says, that the power of Christ becomes real. It is in his weakness that he experiences God's grace most profoundly. "My grace is sufficient for you," Paul hears God say.
