The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus’ Path of Power in a Church that Has Abandoned It

by Jamin Goggin

Consequently the sights, sounds, and aesthetic of the “worship experience” become very important to us.

“You should have a fifty-year plan—a vision for growth over a long period of time as you embrace your weakness.”

“the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).

2 Corinthians. This is base camp for any exploration of power in weakness.

The Corinthians were wrestling with the same question that Kyle and I were: What does Christian power really look like? More specifically in relationship to Paul was the question of what apostolic power ought to look like.

This question was at the heart of the tension between Paul and the “super-apostles” who had come into town challenging Paul’s authority and vying for power (2 Cor. 11:5).

Radically, Paul embraced the very things that the Corinthians rejected, identifying these weaknesses as signs of his true apostleship.

Why did he do so? So that the power of Christ may rest upon him.

Paul did not anchor his life as a follower of Jesus in his ability, talent, gifting, résumé, or strength, but in the grace of God alone.

and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power”

to put ourselves forward, emphasizing our strengths and seeking our own power—was to empty the cross of its power.

embracing our weakness is not synonymous with self-loathing.

Our weakness is seen in three aspects of our condition. First, as human beings we are created finite and temporal and therefore weak and limited.

unique areas of frailty, incapacity, and weakness, whether physical, emotional, or mental. Third, we are weak because of our sin.

his energy is not the power to achieve, but the power of dependence and love.

The valleys are watered with rain to make them fruitful, while in the mean time, the high summits of the lofty mountains remain dry. Let that man, therefore, become a valley, who is desirous to receive the heavenly rain of God’s spiritual grace.

Our culture, in contrast, values the high summit. The Tower of Babel is in our hearts.

We ascend the mountain expecting to find the pinnacle of flourishing at the top, but instead we discover a place inhospitable for life.

God invites us into the valley. The question is whether we will accept the invitation.

The valley will always be in the shadow of the mountains. The mountains, with their dramatic peaks and pillars to the clouds, will always appear more special to the world around you. Becoming a valley is truly humbling. And yet this is the place where the rain soaks deep and fruit is truly...

Their depth was not merely the result of having read more books than everyone else, but was the fruit of many years of deep communion with God.

We still held beliefs about human identity and flourishing that could not digest this notion of power we were uncovering.

“The way of power, as you are talking about, is the way of self-redemption.

so we use our natural abilities to compensate for the limp it has caused. We compensate through self-improvement.

But it means that as we steward our strengths, we must do so from a posture of dependence upon God. We recognize these talents and gifts are from God and can be utilized for ultimate good only in dependence upon him.

The self-achieved identity is very fragile because we have to sustain it.

Rather, his power led us into honesty and vulnerability, not self-aggrandizement and posturing. Here was a powerful man who was truly flourishing, yet he was largely ignored by the world around him (even, often, by the church).

genuinely human existence is discovered in relying fully on Christ.

The power from below radiates a certain waste product and pollution into our souls, shrinking our capacity for love and undermining our ability to really attend to others.

He is the image of God: an image that took on flesh as one of us.

Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

Flourishing entails discovering our insufficiency and coming to rest in the sufficiency of his grace.

The flourishing self is the abiding self, not the actualized self.

In turn, we still view weakness as a problem to overcome. We take the quest of self-actualization through the grooming of talents and abilities as commonsensical—something that must be true—and

flourishing is found in serving others, not “lord[ing] it over them”

flourishing is discovered by being last,

embracing the littleness of our roles and accepting that t...

first, on the God who gives them, and second, on how the gifts we perceive to be weaker and less significant are actually more honorable in the kingdom.

particular, James is concerned that our view of what it means to be human is reduced into something that is subhuman.

James is worried that we are becoming less than what we are—that we have accepted categories of personhood that are dehumanizing and superficial.

We easily give in to the temptation to reduce our identities down to certain gifts, our professions, or the approval of others. The entire endeavor to create a self in our own power results in an empty, superficial self.

When we give ourselves to sin, we are not simply doing bad things; we are becoming lighter beings.

The fallout from the power of sin is a decrease in weightiness and an ever-pervasive superficiality.

The real tragedy is the person who has lived a lifetime in fantasy, trying to deny weakness, and is left with nothing because he or she failed to become weighty of soul.

But when weakness is the way, these days are not tragedies but opportunities.

“Your life is hidden with Christ in God,” Paul tells us (Col. 3:3).

What is going on when the quest to dominate and win becomes the lifeblood of the church, and anyone who gets in the way of that engine is attacked and tossed to the side? I wish this story were fictitious.

We imbibe the social hierarchies of the world—with its focus on celebrity, material possessions, and status—and we bring these values into the Christian life. Then these values become our litmus test for spiritual wisdom and leadership.

We cling to the notion that the “glass is half full,” but we fail to notice that the glass is actually a broken cistern (Jer. 2:13).

“No poison or sword ought to terrify you as much as the lust for domination.”