Power Through Weakness
January 17, 2021
Preached by David McHale
Scripture Reading
Acts 18:1-17
1 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, 3 and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. 4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.
5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. 6 And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” 7 And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue.8 Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. 9 And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, 10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” 11 And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, 13 saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.” 14 But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. 15 But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things.” 16 And he drove them from the tribunal. 17 And they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of this.
A number of years ago, I visited some friends in New York City. We spent time all over Manhattan, rented bikes, walked through central park, ate good food, but the moment I remember the most was when we walked through Times Square. It was like walking into another world. Lights, sounds, and images were all over the place. Everywhere I looked, there was some kind of advertisement. The people were always moving. Everyone looked different. It seemed like there was a store for anything you wanted. I remember being overwhelmed. I remember being sad and even a bit frightened by the allure of it all and the fallenness that pervaded the square. I imagine a similar feeling would come if I walked down the strip in Las Vegas. In cities like these, our voices feel like whispers in a sea of noise, and it is easy to expect that words about Jesus might be the same. We might feel powerless to make any sort of impact for good.
The Weakness of Paul
In our text for this morning, Acts 18 (turn there), Paul comes to such a city. (I want to give us a clear picture of this city because I think it is really important to understand what goes on here). The city of Corinth had a lot going on! It was a capitol city. It was a gateway city, situated right at the intersection of two bodies of water and two regions of land, both highly trafficked trading routes. Because of this, it was home to the largest population in the region at the time, compromised of Romans, Jews, Greeks, and a number of other ethnicities which created a melting pot of cultures. Like NYC, Corinth was a mecca for entertainment. It hosted the famous Isthmithian games during which athletes and musicians from all over the region came to compete. Like NYC’s Wall Street, Corinth was a hub of trade for people from all over the region.
Religious diversity ranged from Judaism to various kinds of cults to the worship of classic Greek gods, most notably Aphrodite, the goddess of sex. The temple of Aphrodite was perched up on the “high place” and it housed temple priestesses that were enslaved prostitutes. At night, they descended from the mountain in order to find “worshippers” of Aphrodite. It isn’t surprising then, that Corinth was infamous for its sexual immorality so much so that the title “Corinthian” became synonymous with promiscuity.
Paul comes to Corinth and finds a home with a couple named Aquilla and Priscilla, whom, we would later find out, became dear friends of Paul’s (Rom. 16:3-4). They shared the same trade, so he was able to work alongside them during the week. His income provided him the opportunity to persuade the Jews about Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Eventually, Silas & Timothy come with encouraging word of the faith and love of the church in Thessalonica and a financial offering from the church in Macedonia. This provision made it possible for Paul to commit himself to preaching exclusively. He was “occupied” with the word – constrained by it, unable to abstain from speaking about Jesus to the Jews in the synagogue.
The Jews reject the gospel once again here in Corinth. They degrade Paul. What is Paul’s response? He washes his hands of them. He says, “If I wouldn’t have preached the gospel to you, your blood would have been on my hands, but I did what I needed to do, so the bleakness of your future without Jesus isn’t on me, but on you.” (Ezekiel 33). He makes a marked shift from the Jews in the synagogue to the Gentiles. The ironic thing is that the Gentiles live right next door. We see a clear contrast between the response of the Jews and that of the Gentiles. The Jews come against Paul, reviling him and the gospel he proclaimed, while many Gentiles come to faith in Jesus and are baptized.
At this point, there is a lot that seemed to be going well. The church is growing and many were coming to know Jesus. He heard good news about other churches. He has been provided for practically. Yet, we get a sense that he is afraid, which isn’t much of a surprise. Think about it: so far in his travels, he has faced major opposition to the gospel. He has been reviled, mocked, driven out of towns, beaten, imprisoned, stoned and left for dead. He has endured some of the same here in Corinth. And sometimes in the past, when it rained it poured. We have to wonder whether amid the success, Paul was looking over his shoulder waiting for opposition (and later on in this section we see that very thing – the Jews return and ask the Roman government to intervene in the ruckus Paul was creating). But Paul is not harmed – for the Lord was protecting him. But the Lord comes to him in a vision and says:
“Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:9-10).
Paul is weak here. We get an even clearer look at his weakness in his first letter to the Corinthian church when he writes “I was with you in fear and weakness and much trembling” (1 Cor. 2:3). Think about a time when you stood before your life and felt dreadfully inadequate and fearful that you’d be able to do what needed to be done: maybe it’s providing for your family, or loving your kids, or persevering in a specific ministry that the Lord has called you to that just feels too much too bear and that it just might break you.
That is Paul here in Corinth. And Paul joins a long line of people in the Bible who experienced fear in the face of the Lord’s call and needed encouragement. Paul needed strong encouragement to lay aside his fear and keep preaching the gospel. He needed to be recommissioned. And the Lord did so with gentle rebuke, a promise of his presence and full protection from harm, AND a declaration that He had already set His heart on people of the city who had yet to hear the gospel. Unbeknownst to Paul, God was stirring in the hearts of people, preparing them to hear the good news of His grace in Jesus Christ.
In the vision, we see a picture of Jesus enthroned in power, yet near to his people, fully able to protect his people in the midst of their weakness and fear – We see the Lord eager and ready to work in and through their weakness to show His power. All Paul had to do was go on preaching.
The Power of God
And he did. For the next year and a half, Paul went on preaching and teaching the word to the Corinthian church. So, think back to about July of 2019 until now. That is how long Paul remained in Corinth, faithfully obedient to the Lord’s commissioning, building strong ties (no wonder he wrote two of his longest epistles to the Corinthians). But what was it that Paul was teaching and preaching? In Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry here in Acts 18, we don’t get a clear word of what it was he was speaking. We don’t get a sermon like we do elsewhere in Acts.
Yet, get a glimpse into the content of Paul’s ministry in Corinth in his letters to the Corinthian church that he wrote just a few years after his time in Corinth while he was ministering in Ephesus. Specifically, the first two chapters of Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth help us understand more about what Paul experienced there and the content of his teaching. Turn to 1 Corinthians 2:1-5.
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Power and wisdom were prized in Corinth. It was common during that time for well-known orators would come to Corinth to speak about how to advance socially, offering wisdom about how to climb the social ladder. They were the first-century self-help gurus and charged their listeners no small fee to hear their wisdom about how to succeed and gain the security that comes with it. Furthermore, one of the primary cults in the region was the cult of Isis, which placed an emphasis on wisdom. The Greek historian Plutarch describes Isis as "a goddess exceptionally wise and a lover of wisdom, to whom, as her name at least seems to indicate, knowledge and understanding are in the highest degree appropriate..." Again, Corinth is not so different from NYC, where success is king and knowledge is the means of getting there.
But Paul came to Corinth in a manner unlike the cities beloved orators. He didn’t speak to grandstands of paying customers with eloquent words of wisdom on how to get a better life, how to increase their hidden potential, or get a bigger pay check. He didn’t even spout some form of higher spiritual knowledge only reserved for the spiritually elite” He didn’t come as a strong sage, but a weak man eager to share a simple message for free – Jesus Christ crucified. Paul speaks more about the good news he brought to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15:1-5.
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you…of first importance…that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,”
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was Paul’s message. He declared to them that the Lord of heaven, who possessed supreme power gave it up and became weak, dependent. He departed from his lofty throne to take up the lowly places of the world. He came to his own people in love and they despised him, rejected him, and crucified him. Yet, they didn’t take his life, he laid it down and he was glad to do so, because he knew that his weakness and sacrifice would bring new life to those who would believe in him.
For on the cross, Jesus died in the place of his enemies, taking the bullet of God’s justice. He bore our sin so that we wouldn’t have to. He willingly suffered defeat that those who believe would find victory over the real enemy, which is not flesh and blood, but sin and death. Christ triumphed over sin and death by enduring the weight of both on our behalf, laid them both in the grave, and rose from the dead. On the other side of defeat, the living Jesus reigns in power eager and able to forgive every sin and wash every stain for anyone who would ask for it. How could anyone refuse such good news? Paul explains why in 1 Corinthians.
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Cor. 1:18, 22-25).
The cross is foolishness to the world and a stumbling block to the Jews. The cross was blasphemy to the Jews because it proclaimed that the Messiah had come in Jesus and that He had come, not to bring freedom from the oppression of the earthly kingdom of Rome through military power, but freedom from the kingdom of darkness and sin through laying down his life in weakness for His enemies.
To the Gentiles, the cross is foolishness because it is sacrificial love for the undeserving and sacrificial love is antithetical to the culture of the world, to the culture of a city like Corinth, or NY or Harrisburg. The cross doesn’t make sense to a world that prizes power. It is stupid to the strong, the successful, the powerful, because they don’t think they need it and the weakness of it is beneath them. Furthermore, the consideration that the King of kings chose suffering and death at the hands of his enemies is foolishness if your life, this life, is all you’ve got. You have to hold on to your life if it is all you have and be sure to accumulate as much as you can to make sure you maintain a comfortable life free from suffering.
Yet, as Paul says, though the cross is folly to the world, to us the cross is the wisdom and power of God! The True wisdom is not an ascent into mystical and lofty places in order to gain knowledge and higher spiritual status, but a descent into lowly and destitute places for the sake of another’s good. It is sacrificial love. The power of God prefers to radiate through defeat. In the cross and resurrection of Jesus, God takes the worst possible event, the murder of the Son of God, and turns it into the most glorious event in history. Only he is able to do such a thing.
Power through weakness is the favored way of our God. He is powerful enough to make much out of little and wise enough to know that it is best that way. Why? Because then all eyes are on Him. It is one thing to be powerful enough to do great things, but to be powerful enough to do great things through weak things is another. You can look through the whole Bible and see that nearly every move of God involves His power being channeled through weakness
Paul testifies to this very thing in 1 Corinthians 1:
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).
The people in the Corinthian church were not college graduates, eloquent speakers, or born into money. They were ignorable, socially unimpressive. They were despised. And God chose them. He called them his own. And he did so that he might show the greatness of His power to do great things through weak and lowly people. God's power through weak and despised things brings the world to its knees because it shows that it is worldly wisdom that is foolishness and the power of men that is actually weakness.
I wonder how many of us wish were were smarter, stronger, better, more attractive, or that you could pray better or that you weren’t suffering the way that you are right now, or that you weren’t struggling with sin in the way that you are. But what for? So often our pining and pursuit of strength and smarts is for us, that we might boast in ourselves all the while discarding God’s wisdom and power that radiates through our insignificance. We are not a big deal! The Corinthians were not a big deal! It doesn’t matter because as Paul said, “what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord” – he decided to know nothing among them but Christ and him crucified.
Jesus is all we have to offer to the world. And all we have to offer is all the world needs. Or do we think the world needs more than Christ crucified? Like better leadership or a better economy or better policy. The world needs the cross of Jesus Christ and we are called to be a people of the cross, shaped by its wisdom, emboldened by its power, and known for its sacrificial love. The cross gives us everything but asks for everything, our lives are no longer our own. To be a people of the cross means that we give up our rights rather than fight to hold onto them. To be a people of the cross is to be a people of the kingdom of God that is not an earthly kingdom.
In this cultural moment, we need to reckon with the fact that America is not the kingdom of God and its prosperity does not mean that it is beloved of God in some special way. Our citizenship is in a kingdom not of this world and we are sojourners here, ambassadors of a higher kingdom that is open to all who would gather under the cross of Jesus Christ. One pastor I listened to this week said that we are seeing the world, and some Christians, long for and laboring for the kingdom to come without the King. There is a pursuit of justice without the one who defines justice, even more, has endured the fullness of it for us. Pick your protest or riot. We want justice, peace, righteousness to spread in our world, but we don’t want it to come the way that the Lord promised it would come, which is through the gateway of the cross of Jesus Christ. Only he can bring change for only he can turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh.
That doesn’t mean we stick our heads in the sand. We labor to see good come to our nation and the world. But the way in which we fight is not securing a seat of power, but loving real people in real time as a people of the cross. And the world may hate us for it. But if the world is going to hate Christians, then let it be because we love the real Jesus, preach the gospel, and reflect his lowly heart.
So what do we do? We love and we pray.
And as a Body, the Lord invites us to the same kind of love for one another. We can be different than our divided world, but only as we gather together under our crucified Lord. The cross shows us that the truest things about us are the things we have in common, namely that we are sinners and that Jesus loves us deeper than we know. So, even if we disagree about masks or politics, even if we need to have hard conversations, even if there has been sin that has come between you and someone else here in the church, we can be joined together in Christ. We can confess sin and walk in forgiveness, seek to understand even in our disagreement.
And we can pray that our world would see us and marvel at the power of God’s grace in our midst. Instead of despairing or worrying about the future of our nation, what if we prayed that Lord’s kingdom would come. HIS Kingdom, not ours. What if God was on the move in a special way right now in our nation? Revival typically comes when the church is backed up against a wall. A lot of people are disillusioned, hopeless angry fearful and we have the hope of the world. So, we do what the Lord called Paul to do in Corinth. We go on speaking and, even if we are harmed, we know that the Lord is with us and that he has many in this city, in this nation, in the world that are his people and he invites us unspectacular, weak, powerless people to join him as he brings his kingdom.
