“Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
2 Timothy 2:1
The mind tends to separate concepts into distinct categories. Words like strength, power, greatness, honor, might, majesty, and victory belong together in one category. Words like weakness, gentleness, meekness, patience, humility, and even grace and love belong in an entirely different category. Never the twain shall meet.
A person is either strong or meek, great or gentle, mighty or in need of grace.
This is not so in the scriptures where these apparent opposites somehow take up the same space, overlapping, overlaid. Watch how these concepts mix in the following verses. (Some verses are condensed for the sake of illustration.)
- Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:1)
- Your gentleness has made me great. (Psalm 18:35)
- I address my verses to the King. In your majesty ride on victoriously, for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness. (Psalm 45:1,4)
- Before honor comes humility. (Proverbs 15:33)
- We have not ceased to pray for you so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, strengthened with all power for the attaining of patience. (Col 1:9-11)
- Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs. (Acts 6:8)
- For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. (1 Timothy 1:7)
- When I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)
Today I will open my mind to the complexity of the Word, noticing new possibilities in myself and in those around me: strength and patience, greatness and meekness, power and love, victory and gentleness, might and grace, honor and weakness, majesty and humility.
Thank you, Corina, for guiding our minds to the beauty and complexity of God, expressed in his Word.
Here’s a passage that recently struck me with the same type of “opposite”, which really isn’t opposite at all! Isaiah 40: 10, 11. Verse 10 speaks of God’s might and his arm ruling – both evoke power and authority, Yet he defines this might and this rule with an image of a shepherd in the very next verse. THIS is what might looks like to God!
“He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.” (ESV)
That is true might indeed and it is manifest so completely by his “arm” – Jesus. (Isaiah 53 is a good place to go to see Jesus described as the “arm of the Lord”.)
Thankyou for this insight! It struck me that in many of the examples you listed, these opposites appear when describing how one can or should live when they are seeking the kingdom of God. As you mentioned, these opposites do not usually find themselves overlaid in the same space in the material world.
This reminds me of a passage that I have been contemplating for some time from Matthew-13: 44-46.
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Both parables describe a manner of possessing something that would not be typical in the material world. They reflect a strange and even financially reckless behavior when viewed with mundane material eyes. Therefore, they tell us that the kingdom of heaven cannot be possessed in an earthly manner. Likewise, your passages remind us that if we are seeking the kingdom of heaven, we need to strive to live our lives in a way that differs from a common, earthly way.
That was really good!