Denver Seminary

14 SPRING 2021 him—although he declines to flesh out what exactly it is. And even after he begged God over and again to remove it, the Lord refused to do so (12:7–8). Therefore, the apostle's message on Christian suffering comes not from an insulated ivory tower but from his own place of raw, substantive pain. What is most striking, though, is that of his numerous burdens, the list climaxes not with his personal physical hardships but with his constant burden for others. "Besides everything else," he confesses, "I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches" (11:28). To underline it even more, he goes on to blurt out: "Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?" (11:29). This is by no means meant to make light of afflictions. The apostle himself is no stranger to pain: he even provides a list of the hardships he had endured—such as being imprisoned, flogged, and "exposed to death again and again" (2 Cor. 11:23). Paul, however, is not embarrassed by this vulnerability. Rather, he exults in it—to the point of proclaiming: "If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness" (11:30). The reason for this boast, he explains, is that hardship results in a humility that causes a person to cling to Christ like never before and to rest assured in the promise that momentary afflictions—as crushing as they may be—are light compared to the weighted glory of God and the steady sufficiency of his grace (4:17, 12:9). Therefore, over against those privileged Christians and their "super-apostles" who claimed to be strong and who bragged about their health, prosperity, and wealth, Paul proclaims that it is in weakness that the Lord is made perfect and strong. For this reason, the beleaguered apostle continues to boast in his burden: I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (12:9–10). A SHOUT OF TRIUMPH Believers too, then, have a shout of triumph in the face of affliction, confident that, as jars of clay, when pressed they will not be crushed, when persecuted not abandoned, when struck down they shall not be destroyed. They can even take heart in hardship, since inwardly the Lord is renewing them daily and because—as Paul puts it—"our momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (4:17; see also Rom. 8:18). In comparison to the rabbi's retort above, Philip Yancey's answer to the question, "Where is God when it hurts?" resonates more with Paul's message here in 2 Corinthians. According to Yancey, when tragedy happens and we ask, "Where is God right now?" we should answer it with another question, namely, "Where is the church?" for we are the Lord's body. In other words, we are "the physical representations of Christ in this world," called to join Him in suffering with and for others as He sustains us with His mercy and grace. Granted this does not untie the Gordian knot of the problem of evil, but it does help loosen it, giving us enough hope and encouragement to endure the ramifications of the virus for another day. martin-dm/iStock Joseph R. Dodson, PhD ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT Dr. Joseph (Joey) Dodson joined Denver Seminary in July 2019 as an associate professor of New Testament. Dr. Dodson received his PhD in New Testament from the University of Aberdeen. His most recent books include A Little Book for New Bible Scholars with E. Randolph Richards (2017) and a co-edited volume with David E. Briones, Paul and Seneca in Dialogue (2017). Dr. Dodson's current research includes a Romans commentary in the Brill Exegetical Commentary Series and a Colossians- Philemon commentary in The Christian Standard Commentary Series.

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