Book Review: Power in Weakness (Timothy Gombis)

There are numerous pastoral books out there, and all too many are focused on making the pastor the CEO Executive of a church. Timothy Gombis, an author I really enjoy reading, gives a different perspective. This isn’t a book about 7 tips on being a good Baptist/Presbyterian/Anglican/Lutheran pastor, how to grow your church, how to give better expositional sermons with humorous illustrations, etc., etc. Many angles could have been offered on how a pastor could shepherd his church, but Gombis examines “contemporary ministry in light of the dramatic reversal of Paul’s life when the exalted Lord Jesus confronted him on the Damascus Road” (xiii).

Everything changed for Paul when Jesus appeared to him on the Damascus road. Gombis reflects “on just what changed in that moment and how that transformation can shape how we conceive of faithfully shepherding God’s people today” (1).

This book is a theological, cultural, and pastoral reflection on the New Testament portrayal of Paul as a pastor with the aim of developing wisdom for contemporary church leaders” for faithful living in the church of Jesus (5).

Summary: Meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus changed everything for Paul—how he thought about God’s kingdom, insiders and outsiders, and ministry. Paul was a pastor who loved his people and bore the marks of Jesus death and resurrection on his body. It is through weakness—not coercion and manipulation—that pastors and churches will experience God’s resurrection power. 

Chapter One looks at Paul during his pre-conversion life and ministry. Paul had a focus on both the resurrection and of God bringing the power of his kingdom in full. This would have involved God congratulating Paul for all of his wonderful work and effort. Paul, as a result, was actually selfish and competitive in all of his zeal and effort. Looking back at his life, he was “zealous,” not for the Scriptures or for God’s glory, but “for the traditions of my ancestors” (Gal 1). What Paul would have expected is seen in the picture below.

Chapters two and three look at the transformation of Paul’s imaginations—his resurrection (ch 2) and his ministry (ch 3) imaginations. Paul realized that God vindicated the crucified and cursed Jesus (Gal 3:13) by resurrecting him. Paul realized that God “does not raise from the dead the one who meets all the culturally approved marks of identity, the one with all the credentials” (40). Jesus loved his enemies, gave himself up to shame, and he came in weakness and didn’t coerce others to follow him. The kingdom of God cannot be coerced or forced. “Seeking to force God’s hand to save is futile, since resurrection comes only by God’s grace. Resurrection presence can only be enjoyed and inhabited by grace through cruciform postures of self-giving love, service, and celebration” (47). What Paul came to learn to be true is shown in the picture below.

This leads to a conversion of Paul’s ministry imagination, such as the identity of “sinners” and how God floods resurrection power where there is weaknesses. After Paul’s conversion, he continually saw himself as a sinner (1 Tim 1:15). Adopting the position of “sinner” keeps us as outsiders with God as the only insider. “This identity always makes me the object of God’s pursuit—I become one whom God is always pursuing in passionate, redemptive love. I am not the arbiter of who gets to have God dispensed to them. I am not the gatekeeper, guarding the way to God. I stand alongside others whom God pur- sues because of my inherent spiritual poverty. I am always in need, and when I posture myself in this way toward God, I become the grateful and joyful recipient of God’s overwhelming faithfulness, grace, and love” (54). Since pastors are no closer to God than anyone else in their church, but are standing in the same playing field, as they study scripture they walk alongside their congregants and point them to the One who pours out resurrection life. Instead of seeking out the wealthy and powerful, pastors should be in the look out for those folks on the margins.

Chapter four views Paul’s ministry through a cosmic perspective. This is a very helpful chapter that many people, especially pastors, need to read. This was a major part of Gombis’ book on Ephesians (my review here).

As Gombis writes,

“For Paul, the world was held in the enslaving grip of evil cosmic powers, whose oppressive rule over creation was displayed in the orientation of human imaginations and behaviors toward sinful practices that kept them from enjoying the life of God.” (66)

Why is this important? Because the practices of the Christian community should not be the same as those patterns and habits that the hostile cosmic forces, the rulers of the present evil age, have sown into the world. When we live according to their ways, “we reinforce their enslaving grip over creation” (74).

Pastors need to follow Paul’s converted imagination. They need to reject the wisdom of the world through discernment and being critically self-reflective about how we think of the church and it’s character, what it is and how it functions, and how God’s resurrection power is to be found there (76).

Chapter 5 deals with cruciformly and image maintenance.

Gombis emphasizes cruciformity in the life of the pastor and church. He writes,

“God’s victory was brought about in Christ when he poured himself out and faithfully obeyed to the point of a shameful death on a Roman cross. His cruciform life now pervades the communities that gather in his name and that are filled by the Spirit of Jesus (Phil. 1:19). God is shaping these communities into the image of Jesus Christ, growing and nurturing them into what Jesus Christ would look like on earth if his cruciform life took community form (2 Cor. 3:18).” (78)

It would have been easy for Paul to create a lofty image of himself as a perfect person in his letters. Gombis looks at how Paul portrays himself in Galatians and 2 Corinthians as someone who is both not special in and of himself and as someone who is still the apostle of Jesus Christ. He has authority from Christ, and he uses it to bless and give life to his readers. The Galatians wanted to be connected to important people, the pillars of Jerusalem, yet Paul’s first visit to Galatia provided the Galatians with an opportunity “to have seen a public exhibition of Jesus Christ crucified” (Gal 3:1). Whatever it was that happened to Paul (possibly being stoned prior), but Paul was probably ugly. Yet the Galatians treated him like he was an angel from God. Yet salvation came to the Galatians through God’s power in the person of Paul with his authentic weakness.

Instead of pursuing prestige, church size, wealth, and impressive popularity, it is cruciform patterns and behaviors that bear the fruit of God’s resurrection power. God’s saves “ordinary and apparently unremarkable people” who are a gift to us as we meet together every Sunday.

Chapter six takes up the theme of accumulating credentials (like Paul in Philippians 3). Gombis poses eight questions pastors could ask themselves to identify how they see themselves and what credentials they truly desire to have. Despite being an apostle of Jesus, Paul constantly places himself alongside his readers instead of over them (2 For 1:24).

In chapter seven Gombis takes up the topic of passivity. If we pick up our cross, does that mean we allow people to walk all over us? Gombis disagrees. This isn’t at all what anyone should do. Rather, we stand up against people sinning in a way that brings disunity (1 Tim 6:3–5).  A pastor must know his limits. Gombis notes, “Just as an individual pastor’s ambitions and fears are nailed to the cross, so, too, are the ambitions, fears and demands of a community” (129). (For more on taking up your cross, see my review of Gombis’ Mark commentary.)

Chapter eight brings cruciform postures. Instead of thinking that our task is to change the world, “we can imagine that Jesus Christ’s task is to change the church through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit” (136). We are the object of the gospel’s work. God is working to transform me (and every other believer). God might (and likely will) use our encounters with outsiders (unbelievers) as well, which can help us be more gracious toward them. Pastors also need to be dependent on others. Others in their church, other churches and pastors. Pastors cannot be lone wolves.

Gombis ends with an epilogue which, among other things, looks at how Paul modeled cruciformity instead of passive aggression in the letter to Philemon. Gombis offers a helpful biblographic essay of some books that have influenced his thinking.

The Chocolate Milk

Interwoven throughout all of Gombis chapters are tales of pastors who either have treated their congregations as if they were a ball-and-chain or of the pastors who thought of himselves as a top CEO. Other stories are of pastors who refused to walk down this path of selfish ministry (unlike pre-converted Paul). Gombis himself doesn’t get out of the line of fire. He offers examples from his own life where he didn’t pick up his cross but instead used angry words to win his argument. He then draws out what he thought in these situations, how he reconciled with the other person, and confessed to treating him as an enemy instead of a friend. This would be very humbling, and I in part am thankful that Gombis added these scenes of cruciformly from his own life.

Gombis provides numerous examples from pastors and leaders who, in frustration, have used coercion to get their congregants to serve in different capacities in their church (just to name an example). Yet Gombis provides examples from his own life of his own destructive actions toward another person that, once placed in the light of the cross, were seen as being shaped more in line with the powers of the world with how God would have him relate. But if we pick up our crosses and live cruciformed lives, people may mock us and leave us hanging on that cross! But as Gombis shows again and again, God only works his resurrection life through such cross-work.

Recommended?

I am not a pastor, but I enjoyed Gombis’ focus on the cross and living a cruciformed life in this book. Gombis draws out his points through exegesis of Paul’s writings and examples from the lives of pastors and of himself. He shows how trusting God through cruciformity is the exceedingly preferred way over shepherding with coercion and frustration. Read this to better understand what the Lord meant when he told Paul, ““My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

Lagniappe

• Author: Timothy G. Gombis
• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: ‎ Eerdmans Publishing (February 2, 2021)

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Disclosure: I received this book free from Eerdmans Publishing. The opinions I have expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html.

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