The word of the day is “sufficient.” As we read 2 Corinthians
11:31-12:9, we realize that the Apostle has been provoked. His opponents
have boasted that their qualifications for leadership are greater than Paul’s.
Though he calls it “boasting,” the Apostle answers their bragging with a
summary of the dangers, hardships, and sufferings he has endured. Then he
recalls the “visions and revelations” of a lofty mystical experience when he
was taken up to the third heaven and into Paradise (vs. 2:4).
Boasting Qualified by Humility
As spectacular as Paul’s report of his spiritual experience is, it comes
with a qualification. He frames his narrative of his spiritual feats with
two expressions of humility. Before he tells of his celestial vision, he
writes, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things which concern my
infirmity” (vs. 11:30). The Greek word comes from the idea of feebleness
or frailty. To illustrate his humility, the Apostle recounts that he was
let down the city wall in a basket to escape arrest in Damascus—hardly a
dignified way of leaving a city (vs. 33).
Possessing in God What One Lacks in Oneself
At the end of his recollection of his mystical experience, Paul returns to
the theme of his imperfection. He writes that God had inflicted him with
a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him from being too elated (v. 7). Whatever
the affliction was, three times, Paul implored the Lord to remove it. But
God’s answer was, “My grace is sufficient for
you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (vs. 9). The word for
“weakness,” that is, “frailty,” is the same word that Paul used earlier at the
beginning of his excursion into boasting. Paul repeats that he will boast
of his frailties (vs. 9).
For Paul, “God’s grace is sufficient.”
It is enough. It is satisfactory. It is all he needs.
Thus, Paul contrasts his feebleness with God’s power, and his deficiency
with God’s all-sufficient grace.
Accordingly, he yields his weakness to God’s strength. And in
surrendering his boasting to God’s greatness, the Apostle possesses in God what
he lacks in himself.
For Reflection
Suppose we believe that God provides enough for our physical needs.
Is His Grace sufficient for
our spiritual lives? Consider what God the Holy Trinity gives us: the
Word of God and the Holy Tradition, the Holy Mysteries (sacraments), the Body
and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, the lives of the saints, the witness of
the apostles, the teachings of the Councils and church fathers, the stories of
the desert fathers, the “Jesus Prayer,” the direction of our hierarchs, the
worship and fellowship of the Church.
What more “means of grace” do we need? What draws us away from these
foundations of faith into the spiritual dead ends? Is it perhaps our
desire for extraordinary spiritual gifts? Or esoteric knowledge? Or
ecstatic spiritual experiences? Or is it curiosity, a desire to know
something about everything?
Thanking God for all His blessings, spiritual as well as physical, let us
pray with Paul: “Your grace, O God, is sufficient for
me.
2 Corinthians 11:31-12:9, grace sufficient,
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