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Power through Weakness: Paul's Understanding of the Christian Ministry in 2 Corinthians (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series)

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Paul's claim, "When I am weak, then I am strong," appears to be a clear absurdity. It attempts to harmonize two mutually exclusive terms. Christian ministry as comfort experienced through suffering, glory manifested through shame, life working through death, riches won through poverty, and power expressed through weakness borders on gibberish. It at least presents a paradox. In the book Dr. Savage seeks to make sense of this paradox.

Dr. Savage argues that it is this paradox-a paradox finding expression in a number of different antitheses-that drives to the heart of what it means to Paul to be a minister (diakonoi) of Christ. To fully comprehend the paradox Dr. Savage argues that we must first understand the background to Paul's paradoxical teaching. Unfortunately, this background is notoriously illusive for two reasons: (1) first, the letter we call 2 Corinthians was directed to "the intruder" (7:12) about whom we know very little, and (2) second, the letter was written to a community of faith enmeshed within a cultural setting about which we know very little.

Dr. Savage is a meticulous scholar. But, not only is he an impressive scholar he is also a skilled, insightful, and precise analyst. His insights into the Corinthian culture generally help explain the probable character traits, or at least the tendencies, of the recipients of the letter. Although it is merely alluded to in passing in a few places in the text, under Dr. Savage's meticulous examination it becomes obvious that Paul's paradoxical teaching emerges out of a specific conflict between the apostle and his converts. This conclusion opens the way for a more precise inquiry into the details of that conflict. It is in the pursuit of this inquiry that Dr. Savage makes his most useful contribution to our understanding of 2 Corinthians.

It is the radical disjunction between the secular prejudices of the Corinthians and the apostle's own conception of Christ that spawns the paradoxical description of Christian ministry. What we witness in 2 Corinthians is a clash between value systems. The Corinthians were clearly products of the times-secular to the core and intoxicated on the outlook of their world. Paul, on the other hand, was attempting to conform everything he had and everything he did to the story of the cross. Dr. Savage does an outstanding job of framing the difficult teaching of the letter within this all-too-familiar context: secular v. kingdom values.

Dr. Savage is able to enumerate the often multiple viewpoints of modern scholarship on the issues he discusses without producing a large, cumbersome commentary (the entire book is less than 200 pages). In addition, Dr. Savage not only explains the multiple alternative viewpoints but he also critiques them offering a logical, coherent alternative without ever coming across as argumentative or demeaning.

What results from these profoundly helpful and rare scholarly characteristics is one of the most useful commentaries on 2 Corinthians available. Once the reader has absorbed the information garnered from Dr. Savage's thorough research and seen the point of Paul's letter under his penetrating analysis, what may have previously been a patchy, obscure, and difficult New Testament letter suddenly becomes a masterpiece of persuasion. Not only that, but it also emerges as a living document that powerfully speaks to the core of who we are as a culture in North America.

Savage shows us that the status-hungry,
fast-money, glory-oriented 1st century
metropolis of Corinth sounds much like
our own society. In a society of briliance,
beauty, and braggarts, Paul didn't fit.
Weakness was his only strength and
Moses became his model. A very lively,
spiritually rewarding academic book. Some
familiarity with Pauline study may help.
But very clear for an advanced level study.

This book was used for my Master's essay on Paul's theology of ministerial weakness in 2Cor. A valuabel resource it provided background and context to 2Cor and I quoted it a number of times in my essay.