Timothy G. Gombis - Power in Weakness

Tim Gombis helps us see Paul as a pastor engaged in self-oriented ministry before he met Jesus, willing to use coercive power in order to move God to act on Israels behalf. This book is about Paul, about Tim, and about all of us engaged in the perilous vocation of shepherding Gods flock.

Julie Canlis

author of Calvins Ladder

Tim Gombis is an outstanding teacher and an expert on Paul. This book confronts the disturbing postures of power that have become prevalent in the church and provides new possibilities for cross-shaped leadership.

Brenda DeVries

pastor at The Journey, Grandville, Michigan

In Power in Weakness, Gombis applies the paradoxical nature of following Jesus (i.e., the way up is down) to Christian leadership. He explores the apostle Paul with pastoral sensitivity and exegetical skill, offering us a Christlike, cross-shaped pattern for leadership.

Dennis R. Edwards

author of Might from the Margins

This is the book I wish Id read twenty years ago on my way into pastoral ministry. Tim Gombis puts Paul in his own world and helps us see how Paul understood his pastoral ministry.

Chris Gonzalez

president of the Missional Training Center

Power in Weakness blends biblical insight with numerous case studies in real-life ministry today. This is not only one of the best ministry books I have read but an incisive study of Pauls theology as well.

Nijay K. Gupta

author of Paul and the Language of Faith

Gombis not only provides a theology of Pauls ministry but also guides us to think with Paul what it would look like if our churches and leaders truly sought to embody Pauls vision of cruciformity. This is a vision of ministry and pastoral leadership our churches desperately need to hear.

Joshua W. Jipp

author of Saved by Faith and Hospitality

In a time when the charade of political influence, Instagram branding, and hyper-relevance has deformed the churchs message, Power in Weakness refocuses the task of ministry through a full portrait of Paul as pastor.

Darian Lockett

author of An Introduction to the Catholic Epistles

Rather than offering a philosophy of ministry driven by marketing strategies, borrowing from contemporary leadership techniques, or aiming at megachurches and celebrity status, this book invites all Christiansand especially pastorsto adopt the cruciformity of Christ in the practices, patterns, and postures of their ministries and life together. May many take heed!

Edward W. Klink III

senior pastor at Hope Evangelical Free Church, Roscoe, Illinois

Power in Weakness provides a refreshing, transformative, and counter-cultural pathway for pastors to responsibly serve Gods people while drawing upon Gods resurrection power.

Artie M. Lindsay Sr.

pastor of spiritual formation at Tabernacle Community Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan

I had been conditioned to read Paul in a way that excluded his ability to mentor me as pastor. Thankfully, Power in Weakness changed that.

Carl Ruby

senior pastor at Central Christian Church, Springfield, Ohio

For any ministry leader who wrestles with the common temptation of comparison, competition, or control, this book is for you. I recommend it to all Christians, and especially to those whose vocations include equipping the body of Christ for faithful service to the world.

AJ Sherrill

author of The Enneagram for Spiritual Formation

Dr. Gombis rightly focuses his attention on the dynamics of power and weakness in pastoral ministryPauls and ours. In my estimation, this is the key to understanding not only Pauline ministry in the first century but pastoral ministry in the twenty-first.

Todd Wilson

president of the Center for Pastor Theologians

In Power in Weakness, Gombis urges the church to be truly claimed by the cross and to be the site of resurrection life through a cruciform posture of self-giving. Some will find it immensely insightful and affirming. Others will find it exceedingly challenging. But everyone needs to read it.

Siu Fung Wu

author of Suffering in Romans

Nothing less than a revolution for our profession.

Sharad Yadav

lead pastor at Bread & Wine, Portland, Oregon

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2021 Timothy G. Gombis

All rights reserved

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

27 26 25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN 978-0-8028-7125-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gombis, Timothy G., 1972 author.

Title: Power in weakness : Pauls transformed vision for ministry / Timothy G. Gombis.

Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A guide to pastoral leadership modeled after the Apostle Pauls ministryProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020026569 | ISBN 9780802871251

Subjects: LCSH: Pastoral theologyBiblical teaching. | Church workBiblical teaching. | Paul, the Apostle, Saint.

Classification: LCC BS2655.P3 G66 2021 | DDC 253dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020026569

Unless otherwise noted, direct Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ of the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

For Steve

A young pastor wrote to me after reading a book I had written on a very similar topic (the apostle Pauls spirituality) that Timothy Gombis unpacks in this book, Power in Weakness: Pauls Transformed Vision for Ministry. This pastor said he wanted to embrace a Christlike, Pauline ministerial spirituality, but everyone in his denominational circles was talking about moving up: going to bigger churches with more staff, larger budgets, and greater influenceuntil reaching retirement at one of the really big churches in the denomination. This upward mobility was accepted as normal, the standard ministerial path. After all, if the power of God is at work in a church leader (so the argument went), this ascent to greatness is what will naturally happen.

Statistics. Impact. Reputation. Invitations to speak. Influence in the state house or the White House, or at least at city hall. These are the sorts of things by which many people measure the success of pastors and other Christian leadersand by which those same pastors and other leaders often measure themselves.

This is the kind of minister Paul was, and then was not, argues Tim Gombis. Pauls encounter with the resurrected crucified Jesus transformed him into a pastor who recognized the paradoxical truth that Gods resurrection life cameand comesthrough the power of the cross. In the strange, counterintuitive ways of God, power is manifest in weakness.

Gombis therefore introduces us to Pauls cross-shaped ministerial spirituality, or cruciformity, and to its critical role in the life of every pastor and every other church leader, as well as each Christian disciple and Christian community. As both a scholar and a pastoral leader, Gombis plumbs the depths of Pauls practical theology and perceptively analyzes the state of ministry in much of the church in the West. His understanding of Paul is profound, his analysis of ministry more than a bit concerning. Something must change. The church needs a conversion of its ministry imagination. Readers will find that Paul, in the hands of our author, can guide us into that conversion.