Paul's Boast

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more… But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ …

Philippians 3:4b, 7-9

Picking up the story of how Paul learned the secret of the New Covenant, we learn from the book of Acts that Paul went off to Tarsus to nurse his wounds, his ego shattered and his plans dissolved in despair. For ten years he is not heard of again — not until an awakening breaks out in Antioch and the church in Jerusalem sends Barnabas down to investigate. When Barnabas finds a great number of people [are being] brought to the Lord (Acts 11:24), he knows help is needed.

Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul and brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. It was a different Saul who came to Antioch with Barnabas. Chastened, humbled, taught of the Spirit, he began to teach the Word of God, and from there launched into the great missionary thrust that would take him to the limits of the Roman Empire.

What made the difference? Writing to the Corinthians years later, Paul makes one brief reference to the event that triggered a line of teaching that would culminate in a clear understanding of what he came to call the new covenant. The Corinthian church had written to Paul and brazenly suggested to him that he would be more effective if he would boast once in awhile in his accomplishments. To this the apostle replied, If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. (2 Corinthians 11:30).

He goes on and gets more specific about his weakness: In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands (2 Corinthians 11:32-33). That, says Paul, is my boast. When I became a basket case, then I began to learn the truth that has changed my life and explains my power. What was that life-changing truth?

Paul put it in his own words, in his letter to the Philippians. The word Paul uses for consider them garbage refers to common, barnyard dung. What he once regarded as qualifying him to be a success before God and men (his ancestry, orthodoxy, morality) he now regards as so much manure compared to depending upon the working of Jesus within him. He has learned how to shift from the old covenant (everything coming from me, nothing coming from God) to the new covenant (nothing coming from me, everything coming from God). He is now able to say: My sufficiency is from God, who has qualified me to be a minister of a new covenant.

Have you become a basket case yet? Have you reached that place which Jesus described as blessed? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. To be poor in spirit is to be utterly bankrupt before some demand of life, and then discover it to be a blessing because it forced you to depend wholly upon the Lord at work in you. This is where you learn the truth of the new covenant.

Father, teach me to leave it all behind — my ancestry, orthodoxy, morality — and boast only in my weaknesses.