"Paulus Infirmus": The Pauline Concept of Weakness -- By: David Alan Black

Journal: Grace Theological Journal
Volume: GTJ 05:1 (Spring 1984)
Article: "Paulus Infirmus": The Pauline Concept of Weakness
Author: David Alan Black


Paulus Infirmus:
The Pauline Concept of Weakness

David Alan Black

This essay is gratefully dedicated to Dr. Harry A. Sturz, scholar, teacher, colleague, friend, upon his retirement from Biola University.

The NT words for weakness have a distinctive place in the theological and ethical vocabulary of the apostle Paul. The central idea in Pauls conception of weakness is that the greatest revelation of divine power has occurred in the person and work of Jesus Christ in the midst of his human and earthly existence. This article explores the way in which the apostle applies this perspective to his teaching on anthropology, christology, and ethics. The author concludes that this unique perspective of Paul is of tremendous importance for the church today. Through weakness the power of Christ finds its fullest expression in the apostle, in his apostolic mission, in the communities he founded, and in all those whom the Spirit of God indwells, both then and now.

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Introduction

In the Gospels and Acts, as well as the majority of NT epistles, there is no development of the theme of weakness into a broad theological motif such as one can discern in the writings of the apostle Paul. It is obvious merely from a count of the occurrences of ἀσθένεια, etc., in the different books of the NT how predominantly it is a Pauline word.1 It is missing altogether from 2 Peter, Jude, the Johannine epistles and Revelation. In James and 1 Peter, it occurs only once, and in Mark only twice. In all the non-Pauline writings the root appears only 39 times, and of these occurrences the great majority are in the Gospels, where it has the simple meaning of illness. In contrast to this, 44 instances of it occur in the Pauline corpus of letters, more than all the rest of the NT writings combined, and in much smaller

compass, being limited primarily to his chief epistles, Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians.

Numbers alone prove that ἀσθένεια must be regarded as a characteristic Pauline word, but over and above the significance of quantity is the special meaning it comes to bear in his letters. Paul has made the word the vehicle of a profoundly important element in his teaching and parenesis. Even a casual reading of the relevant passages reveals in Paul a deeper insight into its essential meaning and content and a stricter unity and consistency than that of any other author. Only the writer of Hebrews, who himself may have been a Paulinist, can be said to approximate the depth and meaning of the Pauline usage.

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