Saint Paul — "For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, eve…"
For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, even your perfection.
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More from Saint Paul
"I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
"But when completeness comes, what is in part disappears."
"For in him we live and move and have our being."
"For if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?"
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Understanding this quote
What it means
The speaker finds joy in his own weakness when those he cares about are spiritually strong. He is not competing with them or needing to look powerful himself. His deepest wish is their complete maturity and wholeness, even if that means he appears less impressive by comparison. Genuine love prioritizes another person's growth over one's own status or reputation.
Relevance to Saint Paul
Paul wrote this to the Corinthian church he founded, defending his ministry against rivals who mocked his unimpressive presence. A former Pharisee who persecuted Christians before his Damascus road conversion, he reframed his beatings, imprisonments, and physical frailty as credentials. His tentmaking trade kept him financially independent, and his letters consistently prize converts' maturity over personal vindication or authority.
The era
First-century Corinth was a wealthy Roman trade hub obsessed with rhetorical skill, patronage, and public honor. Traveling sophists charged fees and flaunted eloquence to win followers. Paul's rivals used these standards to discredit him. Christianity was a tiny, illegal Jewish sect under suspicion from Rome, and house churches faced internal power struggles. Valuing weakness and another's growth inverted the honor-shame values that governed Greco-Roman civic life.
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