The following is a definition and short explanation of which i’m going to use in the opening of each of the Sequence and Pattern series. Throughout the Bible there are many sequences and patterns, either in word or thematically. Let it be understood that a sequence is an ordered list, and a pattern is like an underlying rule, or a repeatable structure that regulates. A sequence is actual data, and a pattern is the idea of rule behind it. A sequence may or may not have a pattern, whereas a pattern generates one or more sequences.
In light of that, let’s think about *why* it’s important to do more than merely read a verse or chapter, go to church and call all things good. i believe that in the industrial American church complex, generally speaking, most people don’t want to read their Bible, don’t want to pray, give a little money, and mostly want to be told what to do, and it appears they’re good with that. i’m not. That’s not enough for me. The goal is to know God, to study God, and to understand Him. i want to be God-fluent, God-loving, God-lighted, and God-life-giving, tuned into the Holy Spirit more than the world. The Lord our God WANTS to be known. From the beginning His mission was to be known, that we would know Him and He would know us. It’s a relationship. He is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, God who is the sovereign Creator who made everything good and purposeful.
Seeing and studying the theme of God opens the Bible in Genesis and repetitively underscores that the world and humanity have inherent value and design. Jesus said that you are worth dying for. Think about that.
In our lifelong pursuit of Jesus, among the themes and narratives of the Bible there are sequences and patterns, and we really need to know the Lord intentionally put them together. God NEVER sits and stares, doing nothing, for all He does has a point and purpose. If we’ll look for Him, He will find us. He, Himself is a pattern for us to model ourselves after. Jesus is about more than rules to keep but that we should be like Him. The following is one among many sequences with a pattern in the Bible, and honestly, i just picked one i liked.
2 Corinthians 12:10, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with hardships, with persecutions, and with calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Do you see the sequence of five? Weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecution and calamities. That sounds awful, but what’s it about? Why would God put that sequence on Paul’s heart to write in a book that will last forever for everyone to see? “C’mon Paul, you’re always such a downer!” No, he’s not. i see it as a sequence which covers an all-inclusive range of trials — from inward struggles to outward hostility. Paul experienced all of these repeatedly and he points out his struggles that we would be encouraged to trust God and know our earthly struggles can be endured and overcome in Christ. God wants us to see His power that is perfected in weakness, when we are stripped of self-reliance, and that we learn to be content, “for the sake of Jesus”. Take a good look at the sequence: weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. It is important. Everything Jesus said is important and there are no extra or wasted words. John 16:33, Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Paul is purposely painting a dramatic picture of his life as a testimony of God’s faithfulness. He suffered Weaknesses, Greek word “asthenia”, a lack of strength, general weakness and debility, with debility generally pointing to fatigue and loss of energy. The same Greek word is linked to our English word, neurasthenia as in nervous exhaustion and mental fatigue. He endured insults that were forced upon him, but it’s worse than snide comments from the sidelines. Insults is Greek “hybris”, where we get our English word “hubris”, in this case meaning outrage, arrogant speaking, and insolent words filled with “wanton violence”.
He suffered hardships, the Greek word, “ananke”, for anguish, like being squeezed into a narrow place, choked and pressed tight. Another word is “diogmos” or what we would translate as persecutions. Paul is saying he was chased, hunted like prey with the intent to harm him combined with “stenochōria” or calamities denoting, while he was pursued like an animal he felt suffocated by his circumstances, again, as being stuck in a narrow alley with no room to maneuver.
2 Corinthians 12:9, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
2 Corinthians 12, among other themes, is probably one of the most profound statements in the New Testament on how God works through our weakness and is about “the way we go our way while on the Way” to experiencing God’s strength and living in Christ, even though we are weak and have no strength of our own.
The sequence has much more substance than a basic summary. 2 Corinthians 12:10 goes far beyond a mere catalog or random list of bad stuff that can happen to you. The literary style (which is something new to me) is called a “rhetorical crescendo” or a structured, escalating sequence of sufferings that move from internal to external, and from milder to more intense forms of hardship, and the pattern is the dramatic build-up, the theological purpose showing we are weak and Christ alone is strong, and it subtly reflects the suffering Savior pattern of humiliation, persecution and anguish. Do you see it?
His love unfolds from grace to grace, ever widening, ever deepening,
until we know at last, as we ourselves are known.”
Other than a testimony, why would Paul layout this “rhetorical crescendo” of suffering in 2 Corinthians 12:10? i suppose, it is just like Paul to take the boasting of strength by the Corinthians and then carefully show an ordered list of weaknesses instead. He was defending his apostolic calling. i have read that there were, at the time, “self-proclaimed super-apostles” in Corinth boasting about their strength, visions, and credentials, much like today in the American church. We should take the example from Paul, rather than sell ourselves for money and recognition. Let us practice our humility, and instead of competing on their terms, we boast in our weakness and the strength of Christ alone, giving glory to the one true God and not ourselves. 1Corinthians 1:31, “so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
i believe another reason was that he was modeling, for us, how to view suffering, and instead of seeing it as affliction and proof of failure, see your trials as proof of authentic kingdom service. Paul laid it out this way in order to, probably, invert worldly values, turning the local church’s desire for power, comfort and success upside down, basically saying, (my interpretation), “the real power of this life we live in Christ, is found precisely where the world sees only defeat.” Stop being ashamed of your flaws and turn them into testimonies.
Isaiah 40:26, “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.”
Romans 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries