This is the eighth article in my series titled, Identifying and Responding to Theological Bombs that Threaten the Integrity of our Movement.

In this article we look at two more potential land mines.

(12) A Repudiation of the Biblical concept of Weakness

Few things are as inimical to the charismatic world as weakness. Weakness is viewed as the absence of faith and a defeatist mentality. But in 2 Corinthians we discover that weakness means being “so utterly burdened” beyond your strength that you despair of life itself (2 Cor. 1:8), and this for no other reason than that you chose to be faithful to the gospel of Christ. Weakness means embracing your identity as a “jar of clay” (2 Cor. 4:7) so that all power may be seen as belonging to God, not you. Weakness does not mean suffering the consequences for your dishonesty or deceit, but enduring affliction and persecution and perplexity in order that the life of Jesus might be manifest in your body (2 Cor. 4:8-11).

For Paul, weakness meant exposure to a litany of undeserved dangers (2 Cor. 11:26) and an embarrassing nocturnal escape (2 Cor. 11:32-33). Weakness was what he felt anytime the thorn launched another painful, debilitating, or humiliating assault against him. Weakness is suffering financial hardship (6:10; 1 Cor. 4:11) in the course of ministry. Weakness is feeling deeply within one’s soul and body the frailty of creatureliness and one’s utter inadequacy to accomplish anything apart from the fresh and sustaining supply of power and grace.

Weakness means enduring insults without retaliation (2 Cor. 12:10) and suffering calamity without bitterness (2 Cor. 12:10). Weakness means any experience or event that requires incessant conscious dependence on the strength that God supplies. Weakness means any situation or circumstance, in the service of Christ, that is difficult to bear and is beyond your control and cannot be avoided without sinning.

That’s what I mean by weakness. But how can it be good? Weakness is good because without it we never experience the fullness of divine power. Weakness is good because without it mercy remains a mystery. Weakness is good because it compels the soul to look beyond itself for answers and in doing so magnifies the sufficiency of divine grace. Paul put it this way:

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:7-10).

[The verb translated “I am content” in the ESV (v. 10) is eudokeō. The Christian Standard Bible more accurately translates it as “I take pleasure in.”]

When the Lord Jesus told Paul that his “power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9) he did not mean that in its absence power was defective or deficient, but that in response to our conscious dependence upon him, when weakness welcomes God’s intervention, it is afforded a great opportunity to be seen as sufficient and sustaining. Divine power performs at its best and reaches its optimal expression in relation to our conscious confession of the inability to do anything of value apart from his gracious presence.

Although Paul willingly embraced his thorn, it was only after he had passionately prayed that it be removed. “Paul is no Stoic, who sees the thorn as an opportunity for self-mastery and endurance. Nor is he a theological masochist, who glorifies suffering itself. When suffering hits, Paul prays for deliverance” (Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians: The NIV Application Commentary [Zondervan], 464). Clearly, he believed that physical affliction was something from which we are to pray to be delivered. At one level, the thorn was the work of Satan’s messenger and must therefore be resisted. At another level, it was used by God to sanctify the soul of Paul. Whereas pain is not inherently good (and only a perverse soul would think otherwise), it is instrumentally beneficial in the hands of a good God.

Furthermore, in “gladly” (2 Cor. 12:9b) acquiescing to weakness Paul does not mean that we are to seek out suffering on our own. He is not encouraging morbid, self-imposed anguish or asceticism. His affliction was God-given, for Christ's sake. Paul's joy was not in pain but in his experiential realization of the complete adequacy of God's grace in Christ to meet his every need in spite of it and to transform his weakness into an opportunity for the glory of Christ to be displayed. Listen to Tasker:

“Only a morbid fanatic can take pleasure in the sufferings he inflicts upon himself; only an insensitive fool can take pleasure in the sufferings that are the consequences of his folly; and only a convinced Christian can take pleasure in sufferings endured 'for Christ's sake,' for he alone has been initiated into the divine secret, that it is only when he is 'weak,' having thrown himself unreservedly in penitence and humility upon the never-failing mercies of God, that he is 'strong,' with a strength not his own, but belonging to the Lord of all power and might” (The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians,: An introduction and commentary. The Tyndale New Testament commentaries), [IVP] 179.

(13) Unhealthy Hankering after the Novel and “never-heard-before” Doctrines and Practices

Here I have in mind the tendency of many charismatics to yearn for and seek out what is new and unprecedented. When a speaker introduces his message with the assurance that no one in church history has ever noticed this truth or this interpretation of a particular biblical text, many immediately and naively embrace it (I, on the other hand, am immediately suspicious!). What they hunger for is something historically unprecedented, something entirely fresh, strange, and unheard of. This suggests to them that the speaker is uniquely close to God and privy to truths never before seen.

One recent example of this is Robert Henderson and his horrible, outrageously and egregiously unbiblical book, Operating in the Courts of Heaven. At the core of Henderson’s theology of prayer is that the Christian has more power than God, and that only when we secure a heavenly verdict and give God permission to act will our prayers be answered. Not only does Henderson contend that God is largely impotent to answer our prayers until we secure a legal verdict in heaven, but he quite literally misinterprets every biblical text that he cites to support his view. Too many charismatics are unable to see through his exegetical gymnastics and his twisting of Scripture. They are excited when someone comes along with a new and different and sensational interpretation of the Bible.

Yet another example of this hankering after the novel was the recent claim by Shawn Bolz that ChatGPT can possibly interpret tongues speech. Why would Bolz or anyone else propose this obviously ridiculous and ludicrous notion? The answer, at least to me, is obvious. It put him in the spotlight once again. When I read about this on the internet, I realized that Bolz had accomplished precisely what he had in mind: publicity, notoriety, and more money.