Paul’s Penetration Into Christian Culture
To the weak (τοῖς ἀσθενέσιν) I became weak (ἀσθενής) (v22). Two exegetical questions confront us: who are the weak; and why does Paul omit “as” (ὡς) which he employed with the Jews and those who are without law?
David Garland argues that “the ‘weak’ in this verse represent non-Christians whom [Paul] seeks to win for the Lord.”6 Garland contends that win (κερδάiνω) should consistently mean “winning non-Christians and is synonymous with ‘conversion.’”7 Garland observes that the weak is synonymous with the ungodly in Rom 5:6, For while we were still helpless (weak – ἀσθενῶν)8, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. It would seem, however, that if the weak were non-Christians, that Paul would have to become as them, that is to cross-culturally adapt to them. Notice that Paul does not say “although I myself am not weak.” It would seem that Paul, the Christian, could be numbered with the weak.
A second interpretation of the weak is that it alludes to the economically impoverished. Both David Garland and Simon Kistemaker suggest that weak speaks of the socially despised.9 In spite of the Greco-Roman deprecation of a lowly tent-maker, Paul was pleased to enter into Corinthian culture plying his trade (Acts 18:1-4) while he gained a foothold of ministry in the local synagogue.
Not only was Paul willing to be weak economically, he also identified with the purported weakness of preaching as the method of his communicating the gospel as opposed to the “wisdom” associated with the more technically polished art of rhetoric which was so valued in Corinth and which likely inclined some in Corinth to prefer the preaching of Apollos, that eloquent man10, over that of Paul (3:4-5).11 “Weakness” then connotes the uncultured, the lower class, and the socially denigrated.
A third and more satisfying interpretation that yet incorporates the element of lowly social status is that Paul is speaking of some within the church as being weak. Paul had already identified the church with the term weak (ἀσθενῆj). What was deemed weak by the wisdom of the world is what was employed by God (1:25) who has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong (1:27).
The gospel of Christ crucified, Christians and the church are all weak things in the eyes of the world. It is fitting therefore that weakness characterized Paul’s person and ministry, if viewed according to conventional Corinthian wisdom.12 It is not unlikely that Paul uses weak to describe what is, in fact, Christian. In the immediate context of chapters 8-10 in which Paul addresses the issue of eating food sacrificed to idols, the weak are those Christians whose consciences are offended by the prospect and whom Paul wants to protect (8:7-13). He will tolerate eating such meat when it has been bought at the market and served in someone’s home (10:25-30) and thus he would be viewed as one of the strong in his discussion of these issues in Rom 14. However, he will not tolerate Christians going into pagan temples to sit before demonic idols and eat a meal which is of necessity defined as a religious act. He viewed that as partaking of the table of demons (10:21).
In this context, Paul is willing to become weak, to be numbered with those whose conscience would not allow them to eat meat that had in any way been identified with the idolatrous pagan temple. In the Corinthian church, with its fractions and social stratification (cf. 11:22), such conscientious folk were deemed as being socially inferior, but Paul is willing to be weak with the weak in this issue of not eating meat.
If food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, that I might not cause my brother to stumble (1Cor 8:13).
Do we not have a right to eat and drink (9:4)? Yes! That is Paul’s “liberty.” But Paul does not define “liberty” as would we Americans. As Americans we are taught to assert our rights and fight for our civil liberties.
Paul, however, never speaks of asserting his rights, but only of his voluntary relinquishment of them as integral to his strategy to advance the gospel both in the world and in the church. For Paul, “liberties” are not freedoms to indulge, but freedoms to forgo so that he would not be encumbered in his attempts to love and serve others for Christ. Paul gladly relinquished any cultural obstruction that discomforted the conscience of a brother or distracted an unbeliever from seeing Christ so that he might win the more (9:19). He sought to navigate in and penetrate into these three cultures: Jewish, Greek and Christian.
Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they may be saved (1Cor 10:32-33).
6. David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 434.
7. Ibid., 433. We will consider the nuanced meaning of κερδάiνω below.
8. However here weak is an adjective, not a nominative as in 1 Cor 9:22.
9. “We suggest that with the phrase I became weak to win the weak in verse 22, Paul may have in mind a double connotation – a connotation that refers to both the weak in conscience and the economically weak.” Simon Kistemaker, Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), 309.
10. Acts 18:24 ἀνὴρ λόγιος – learned, cultured; a man skilled in classic rhetoric.
11. Cf. A. Duane Litfin, St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994). Litfin demonstrates that rather than accommodate to the Corinthian demands for polished rhetorical presentation, his presentation of the gospel was itself, reflective of the message of the cross: weakness overcoming the world. Paul was willing by all means to save some (v22), but not any means that compromised the content of the gospel. The means must coordinate with and convey the content of the message. God’s message of weakness cannot be communicated in a method of worldly wisdom.
12. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling (1 Cor 2:3). Cf. 4:10-13 where Paul contrasts himself with the Corinthians – we are weak, but you are strong. Also 2 Cor 11:28-29 where Paul correlates the churches and the weak: there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?