The Gift of Weakness: Why God Breaks Strong Men (w/ Eric Schumacher)

Transcript

Welcome to the Shameless Podcast, where I help Christian men kill shame, stand strong, and live on mission. I'm your host, Ken P, and I'm bringing you real stories, practical insights, and biblical truths that equip you to break free from your sin, shame, and live a life of purpose. Let's step out of the shadows together and into the light of Christ. Why is it so hard for men to ask for help? Why do you feel like you're not holding everything together? Your job, your marriage, your emotions.

You feel like you're failing as a man. For years, I believe that weakness was something to hide, something to overcome. But what if God sees it differently? What if the very thing you're ashamed of, your struggle, your sin, your fear, your limits, is actually where God wants to show up the most? Today's guest, Eric Shoemaker, is a pastor of pastors, author, and counselor who thought he had to perform his way into purpose until weakness broke him open and changed everything. In this episode, we're going to talk about why Christian men struggle to admit weakness and how the good gift of weakness might be the most freeing truth you've never heard.

Stick around. This conversation could be the turning point you didn't know you needed. Eric, thank you so much, man, for being on the podcast today. I'm super excited. I think you both are witty individuals that we'll need to contain ourselves, but it's going to be awesome. It's my show, so we can do whatever we want. It's going to be awesome. But thank you for being on the show today, man. Oh, it's great to be here, Ken. I'm I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Yeah, Eric, you know, when we when we first started talking, I I started reading your book.

You sent it to me, and I instantly was like engaged. There's a lot of people I talk to that I'm like, okay, you know, it's cool, but you you have such a profound way to share your vulnerabilities in a witty uh fashion, but I know you didn't start there, right? It's kind of been a process that God has been really breaking you from and and molding you. So, walk us through like your early life in ministry and how did God start to utilize you in that fashion?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think from a very early age, I believed that I had to be the best at things if I was to matter and have any significance. I can trace that back to kindergarten looking at where the teacher taped up papers on the wall where we got stickers for assignment and realizing I had a lot of stickers but I didn't have as many stickers as the person who had the most and that bothered me you know I wanted to be the person who at the end of the day had the most stickers and that followed me into ministry I think uh even my choice to become a pastor you know from the my my early days of you know in college just kind of growing into my faith learning about some great things about the gospel and the glory of God and who Christ is and just really growing in my faith, but at the same time having this feeling of like if I want to be if I want to matter in the world and if I want to matter to God, then I need to be doing the best things the best that anybody does them.

And even my choice I think to become a pastor originally came from well this best thing a person can do for the kingdom of God which which I don't think is true but that drove me as I went into seminary and then as I came out of seminary thinking you know I our hearts are these mixed bags of desire even as Christians. And there was part of me that wanted to glorify God and help people see the goodness of Christ. And there was part of me that thought, man, if I'm a great preacher and I do this really, really well, then I'll become a big deal and I'll have a big church and people will know me for my preaching and I'll be a recognized alum for my seminary and and all these things that are really shameful to admit just um it's it's they're just hard to say now.

But those were things that were going on in my heart and that's what drove me. Yeah. It's fascinating cuz I remember the first time I had to recognize that we have these mixed bag of desires, right? Cuz it's so hard. You think that a lot, especially when I was younger in ministry, I thought, "No, no, I have such a a pure desire to do certain things for God." But when I started to kind of peel the onion back, I started realizing just like I was like, "Oh, I want the accolades.

I want the fame. I want people to recognize me as the one to come to." You know, I used to call it the savior's complex. Yeah, totally. And I realized that and I was like, "Oh gosh, that's that's not what God wants." Yeah. But for you, Eric, how did God start to reveal that to you and start to show you actually that's not what it's about? Think I think part of it was not allowing me those dreams to come true. I think part of it was failure.

And even though I had a lot of a good response and appreciation from people that I was shephering from the congregations I was still here from people from the early days of ministry who were like you were a great pastor and we loved you and we're grateful for what you know did in our life but I didn't feel like I was succeeding and then you know in my second church that I pastored the early days were just filled with conflict that I still don't understand why it was and I'm certain that a lot of people involved in it.

We went through a long slow kind of church split. There wasn't necessarily one issue that happened over I'm sure a lot of it was as a young pastor I didn't know how to lead very well and I didn't know how to respond to conflict and probably went too quick on something. There were certainly a few bad actors who I think responded in sinful ways. Uh and then just a lot of innocent bystanders who you know are collateral damage unfortunately. Uh but the church it was a very stressful environment and I was not responding to it well.

Full of anxiety uh heading into depression and just coming to grips with the fact that it didn't matter how well I did. I could do my best. I could put together what I thought were great sermons. I haven't gone back and relisted to them. I'm kind of scared to do so. Let's not do that. Let's just integrate in the Lord's mercy of about a year within the year after I left that church. Nobody I think was maintaining the website or paying attention to I think like a Chinese like auto parts dealer like hacked the website and took it down.

All my online sermon from that period are just gone. It's probably God's kindness. But it I just realized that no matter how hard I worked and no matter how hard I tried to be the best that there were just some people that were there were some people who weren't going to like you and then there were people who might like you but they just weren't served by your ministry and [gasps] wanted to go someplace else and the church didn't grow and you couldn't make everybody happy and it sort of just brought me to the end of myself walking through that.

Well, so when you got to the end of yourself, what did you do? Did you end up saying, "Hey, I'm still going to be a pastor and just keep trucking on, did you take a step back?" Like, cuz a lot of people that I know, when they get to the end of themselves, like, I'm doing a complete career transition and trying to start something different or get real depressed. When I came to the end of myself, I I tore my Bible into shreds. That's one of the lowest point.

You can read about that in the epilogue to the book. There was a long period that was sort of the dark knight of the soul. There was a couple years where I was waking up wishing I wasn't alive anymore. I was never suicidal, but I didn't want to be living anymore. And as I said, I wanted to be this great preacher. And I had critics in the church who were criticizing and parsing everything I said in my sermon. And I wanted to make sure I said everything in my sermons in a way that satisfied every critic and answered every possible critique and question.

And I also had fans in a sense who loved my preaching. And I had this pressure that I felt like I wanted to hit a home run every Sunday. So, so to speak, you know, you couldn't just have a base hit or advance a runner, you know, sacrifice fly. I don't know what that means in preaching, but uh keep going with the baseball thing. But I, you know, and and I also had this really weird idol. I guess this idea that like somewhere along the line I I picked up this idea kind of the circles I ran in that good pastor at the end of the day has at least a 30-year tenure in a church.

He stays for decades. And so this was going to be the church I was going to be at until I died. And I was going to have this library of really good sermons. And um and I had this Bible that I've been preaching from since, you know, the time I started preaching, you know, and it's the it's a leather bound Bible. The spine is all smooth now from holding on to it and the pages are yellowed and and so it's there's this Saturday night where it's it's probably not even Saturday night.

It's probably early Sunday morning where I'm I'm sitting in my study with this all this pressure from everything that I've made ministry out to be and how I've wanted it to serve me. and I'm trying to finish the sermon and I just don't want to write anymore. I don't want to preach anymore. I hate where I've put myself. I hate what ministry's become. And I just went out and I want relief and I want help. And and I looked down at my Bible and it's not that it was the Bible and the word of God, but it was more what that Bible represented.

I had this dream. I'm going to give this Bible to my kids and my grandkids and this is going to be like dad and grandpa's like Bible he preached from for 50 years. and it's going to be this great legacy of what an awesome preacher and pastor he was. And I grab it and I just start to pull on it thinking like I actually thought I'm just going to stretch on it and it tears in half. And I'm so angry at it that I just start shredding pages, just start tearing pages just in my my anger and I don't I don't even know if I can describe all the emotions and and thoughts and sin that's going into that moment.

And then I see what I've done and I hate it because like there's no fixing that, you know, and which made me tear it more. And then was was angry about that and just full of there's nothing I could do to fix any of it. I was totally powerless. I stood up and went over and kicked the door to my study. It had these like like uh louver doors that were on hinges. Yeah. I thought they'd swing open and out, but one of them came off the hinges and and it falls to the floor and just boom, you know, this big boom in the middle of the night and I just I drop to the floor next to it and I'm in just in a fetal position just just crying and I just I just want everything to go away, you know, and then I hear cuz there's this big boom at, you know, 2 or 3.

I hear my wife's footsteps coming coming down the stairway and I'm thinking, oh man, like what is she going to what is she going to say? What is she going to do? Is she going to scold me? And what I hear as she walks in the room is just, "Oh, Eric." It's just this voice that's just full of grace and tenderness and compassion. And she's like, "What's, you know, what's going on?" And I don't even know what I said to explain it, you know. But she's like, "Just go upstairs and go to bed." And she started, you know, picking up all the pieces of that Bible and put them in a gallon ziplockc bag, you know, that we still have somewhere, I think.

and and I I somehow went to church and uh preached that morning. I don't know what I preached the gospel from whatever book I was in. And then after that, we had small group and our small group lead was an older gentleman in the church. And I just felt like I I've got to talk got to talk to someone. And so, uh as a small group was sitting down to eat, I just said, "Hey, can we go talk in my office?" and brought him into my office and told him what happened, you know, and I've got my head down, you know, looking down at my desk as I'm telling him about all this, just thinking this is terrible for a pastor.

This is, you know, this is the worst of the worst. And I I'm thinking, I don't know how this guy's going to respond to me, but whatever whatever it is, I deserve it. You know, I'm thinking he's going to say, "You need to resign. You need to be fired." You know, whatever. And I and I look up and what I see is his response is what I don't deserve. He's he's just crying, you know? He's he's just crying and and he's like, "Brother, I'm so sorry." And he's like, "Here's here's the keys to my truck.

Drive yourself home. Leave your minivan here so your family can get back home and drive yourself home. Just go take a nap and I'm gonna talk to the elders and we're going to make sure that you're taken care of and and you're helped." And that really opened the door for I think for me I think my wife and I knew how badly I was doing to some extent just because of um we can talk more about that how it was affecting my interactions with my family and and all those sorts of things.

That's not the only Saturday night that was extremely hard for me, but it opened the door to that conversation with we were a smaller church, you know, 140 people, something like that, and had two lay elders besides myself. And so it kind of opened the conversation to how I was doing with them. And then it was not too long after that, I think we were on a family vacation. And I was just spending a lot of time thinking about how my work was hindering my ability to uh be a good husband, be a good dad, interact with my family, and I just didn't want to lose my family, lose my kids, or do anything stupid that pastors in the middle of burnout end up doing.

I at the end of the day, you can buy a new Bible, but there are worse things that you can do. Yeah. And and so I ended up talking to our elders and just well I talked to my wife first and said, you know, I I think I want to be done. I want to step out of ministry. And she was like, okay. And and that was, you know, there were that wasn't the first time I ever said that in, you know, 12 years of ministry or whatever it was at the time, but it's the first time my wife said, "Okay." And uh that was a good sign that that I needed to be done.

and my elders were very supportive and understood and helped craft a um helped Jesus plan a a transition out of ministry. And there's certainly a lot more to that story, but that's really where I felt like in my mind I kind of reached the end of myself and the Lord started really crushing some of those idols and helping me to stomp on them as well. Yeah, Eric, first, thank you so much for your vulnerability. And I think that as guys listen to this, they might be shocked a little bit.

They're like, "Oh, pastors struggle with those things, too." Like, yeah, pastors are humans, right? Like they if anything, they have such an immense pressure because it's not like just your career, right? Like your career, your family's involved in it, your spiritual communities in like everything is so intertwined. Yeah. You know, most people have an 8 to5. They go to it and then they could just check out and go home and be done. for you it's like everything it's like the core almost of who you are as you were processing that you had mentioned that like there were family struggles so for those guys who may be feeling what you're feeling they're like I feel burnt out I feel exhausted I feel depressed I feel so many of these negative emotions and some of them are sinful emotions too how did it affect your family and how can they start to recognize like man this is affecting my family too yeah I I think Um, well, I think, oh, wow, there's there's several things there.

One of those was I feel like it was just the neglect of my family in the sense of putting church things ahead of my family, which is sort of a cliche thing to say. Um, but it's so easy to do. I like I have this distinct memory of my oldest as pretty young boy. He's probably four or five. We're early on at our second church, so pretty early in ministry. This is like year four or five of ministry for me, cuz he was born around the time that we started.

And I remember him saying to me one night, I'm heading to church for a meeting, you know, another meeting. And and he says, "Hey, Daddy, do you want to play with me?" And I say to him, "No, I can't." And he replies right away with, "But you want to, right?" And and that response is because he had it memorized because I had said so many times to him, I can't play with you, but I want to. And that's what I would say before I went to another church meeting or another church thing.

And I realized, wow, he knows my excuse. And granted, we have to work. Our our kids want to play with us all the time, and we have to go to work. Uh but then as things got bad at the church, I remember laying on the floor of our living room and hearing my wife Jenny saying, "Eric, Eric, your son's talking to you. Your son's wanting to play with you." And I, you know, I'd gotten down on the floor to play with him. And my mind is just so wrapped up with everything, all the stresses of ministry that I'm just I'm in another world even though I'm right there with him.

So, he's talking to me, trying to play with me, and I I'm just not even hearing it or seeing it, you know? I'm just mentally checked out. And and then it also appeared in some pretty serious anger issues. I found myself getting angry a lot and very short-tempered with our kids, with my wife, and just little inconveniences could make me pretty angry. And I think I wasn't pleasant to be around. I wasn't ever violent uh or anything like that, but verbally I could lose my temper.

I guess I could be verbally violent. And so just recognizing that, you know, sometimes it was hard to see in the moment, but and I have I have distinct memories, you know, of times where I really lost my temper and yelled at my kids pretty harshly and intensely that are some of those memories that if you could go back and, you know, I'd do anything to be able to go back and just change it. And those were big things. And then when you have those thoughts of like I just wish I wasn't alive.

Like I said, I was never suicidal. But just last night, I was the Baptist Press, I think just yesterday, the day before, published an article about pastors and suicide and depression. And looking at last fall, Bara came out with the state of the pastor study for 2024. And I think it said that something like nearly one in five pastors in the previous year had thought about self harm or suicide. And so for our listeners, if you know five pastors, one of them's probably thought about killing himself.

And and I lost a good friend around the same time that I stepped out of ministry at that church. Uh within the next year, a friend of mine who's a pastor took his own life. And you know, I think when you start having those thoughts of the the only way uh to find any relief from the pressure that you're under in life is just for life to end. That's obviously giant red flag. Um because it's simply not true. But I think part that stressed for me and the reason why I felt like there just was no escape for me was the fact that I didn't want to appear weak.

To get help for that, to need help is to confess weakness. And I wanted to be this strong Christian pastor. And if you're a great man of God, then you obviously uh I'm saying this tongue and cheek, have no weakness. You know, you're [snorts] um you're you're strong. It could be felt like it's portrayed that way, like you are the superstar Christian and you got everything together. Yeah. I mean that's what what the Corinthians were saying about Paul you know is that they wanted the super apostles you know who were eloquent you know spoke with eloquence and had rich patrons who paid them big amounts and you know were uh were confident aators and you know they they had all the right followers you know big followings and they were dissatisfied with Paul because He spoke with fear and trembling.

He was afraid and he shook when he spoke and he wasn't impressive and he didn't look impressive and he made tense and didn't have patrons [gasps] and he looked like Jesus who had no form or majesty that we should desire him. There was nothing impressive about him. We didn't value him. It's what Isaiah 53 says. Um I didn't want to look like Jesus. I wanted to look like the spiritual heroes that get to speak at conferences and yeah with a massive platform and all this fun stuff and accolades and and as I hear this I know there's a lot of guys that this will hit home with because one of the things that they may struggle with is that they might not be in ministry but they might be in a job that they're frustrated.

They're super stressed out. Man, I remember one time I was so stressed at work and this was years ago and my wife asked me, I don't even remember what she asked me, but it was like a small question and I took it as she was attacking me. And I so quickly lashed out and I mean I raised my voice and I like I think we've probably had like five times that I've ever yelled at her, right? This was one of them. Um and I yelled at her and she's like, "Whoa, dude.

What? Calm down. and I was just asking you what you want, you know, for this whatever the situation was. I don't even remember now. And I remember thinking there's so much internal issues that are going on in my life and internal struggles and sin that I'm working through that for me to lash out like that, I am so blinded by how much everything is affecting me. Yeah. So, I'm curious for you, Eric, that I know there's a lot of guys who feel like that. Like when you were talking about I'm lashing at my kids, I'm feeling more depressed.

I'm struggling. I know so many guys who just check out, right? They're just kind of like, I'm done. I just want to escape. And that's why they probably escaped to pornography or alcohol or drugs or whatever their vice is. What are some of the signs that you have noticed where people are afraid to admit their weakness even though unknowingly they are struggling? Like what are those signs so that as guys can hear this, they can start saying, "Yeah, I am weak." Yeah, that's good. I think, you know, I talked about several of the signs in my own life.

You mentioned some like escaping to pornography and alcohol. You like I think anytime that you're you're numbing yourself, like if you're not feeling anything, that's a that's a big sign. If you're if you're, you know, running to those those other things um in order to check out of this world. If you're living in a fantasy world where you're living in this ideal in your mind, you know, this world you're creating in your head because you can't tolerate the one that you're in. I I think I think denial is a huge one that's that's hard to face, but you know, I I find this in people that I counsel all the time.

Um, you know, the whole I'm fine. You know, you know, there's that meme of the the little dude sitting in the room that's on fire, you know, drinking coffee and he's like, "It's fine. Everything's fine." I literally sent that to a friend of mine like three days ago. They're like, "How you doing, man?" I'm like, "Everything's fine." That was the meme I sent to Yes, that's it. Yeah. [gasps] Um, it's like if we can't recognize ourselves in that meme, then there's probably a problem. But when we're just denying it, that's the huge red flag.

I think one sign that we're denying our weakness is is when we're really obsessed with strength and looking good. I think anytime someone's bragging about how strong they are and how much they have it all together. You know, mocking weakness, looking down upon it, those are typically signs that we're afraid of something and uh we don't want to be associated with it. So, I you know, and I I think comparison with other people. Yeah. I think there's there's probably just a slew there. I don't know if that's helpful.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about that second one that you just mentioned cuz I think that's our whole society, right? Like we always want to appear to look strong, especially men, right? And like all the self-help books out there, it's always like, "Let's be the best you can be." Like, you know, we admire the Navy Seals whenever they come out with a new book or something like that. They're like, "Yeah, I want to be like that David Gogggins." Right? You're like, "You're not going hard enough." And I'm just like, that for a lot of men, that's the apex of manhood.

Yeah. But God actually in Christ shows us a complete counterintuitive way to do that. I I'd love kind of transition here and just start talking about one your journey and how God has revealed weakness to truly be a gift for you and then how this counterintuitive mindset is like no no we don't have to be this apex man of what culture tells us but it's truly like we find strength in God's weakness. Yeah. Well, I think I I just want to reiterate what you said like it's it's good to ask the question ask ourselves what does the ideal Christian man look like?

What does the godly man look like? And even if you think about that physically, what does he physically look like? And I mentioned earlier what Isaiah says in Isaiah 53 that he had no form or majesty that we should look at him. His appearance wasn't anything that we should desire him. Isaiah said didn't value him out of dry ground. You know, like what is a what does a seedling look like that's coming up out of parched droughtstricken soil? It's it's scrawny and it uh you know, it's it's not the plant that you bet on to grow.

And that's the description we have of what Jesus is going to be like. And it's a He understood grief or sickness, weakness. He was acquainted with that. This depiction of him, he knows what sickness and weakness is sickly. And we know he's the carpenter son, but we don't actually know how how he did at carpentry. Like you can make all sorts of assumptions, you know. I remember one pastor saying, "Oh, there was, you know, meat hanging from his frame. He was this burly guy cuz he did all this carpentry work." We don't actually know you know and even among the disciples that he picks you know like the highest social standing among them is is the fishermen and I think most of the depictions we have of them fishing is you know not like they were the biggest success in the world and so I think like it it's interesting when we see the movies and films made about Jesus that you know the actor is typically a handsome dude and um you know he's not he's not the ugliest one of the bunch.

And why is that? Why why why do we pick why do we pick actors and and artistic displays of Jesus that make him out to be, you know, Instagram worthy? Uh he's going to look good in the pictures. And that's that's because I think we think that we I I think you know I you see this on what you're just talking about like trying to be this alpha male who's like the the apex of physical fitness and attractiveness. And that's true in that's not just true of men.

That's true of of women as well. Like look at a lot of Instagram uh accounts. Like they're polished and they're beautiful. And I know there's theological arguments for that, but even the vulnerability is sometimes fake vulnerability that's staged very well. So that it's safe vulnerability. It's it's the respectable ways you can admit that you're weak and you'll be applauded for. And so and even man there's so many ways that comes out like I think Kelsey McGinness I think think I got her name right who's writing for Christianity today on worship like she just had something on Instagram about how attractiveness plays into um the Christian music world in terms of worship like artists which artists get you know get to be most popular and how does being attractive fit into that so there's that what was your question again I feel I'm so far off track.

No, no, that was really good because I'm looking at men and as they're struggling, right, they're admitting weakness, like it's so hard for them to admit weakness. Yeah. But then that counterintuitive logic of like how does God use that to start actually bringing about healing in a person's life? Yeah. So, so there's there's there's that. Yeah. So as we think about what a godly man even physically looks like, we remember that Jesus was not a specimen of strength and then to think about what does his ministry consist of.

And the way that Jesus accomplishes our salvation is by living a life of human weakness. you know, in his flesh. He gets tired, he gets thirsty, he gets worn out, he asks for help. At the end, you know, at the end, he's so weak he can't even carry his own cross. You know, they have to get a a volunteer, volunte, you know, to carry his cross for him. You know, we see him in the garden of Gethsemane, you know, face down on the ground pleading with his father to take the cup from him, telling his disciples, "Stay awake and pray because the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." And that's what he's doing.

He's staying awake and praying because his flesh is weak. He's He's not sinful, but he says, "I'm I'm sorrowful to the point of death. I'm so sad that I could die. This grief is so heavy that it could kill me." And we're told an angel stands beside him and is strengthening him. He has to be strengthened, which means he's weak because you can't strengthen something that's not weak. And so he he's living this life of weakness incarnate. And then he the weakest point is he's dead under the wrath of God hanging on a cross.

And Paul says that is message of foolishness and weakness in the eyes of the world. That's but but that's the power and the wisdom of God to save us. Paul said in 1 Corinthians. And so the way that Jesus saves us as the Messiah, as the perfect human being, is this life of weakness, of total dependence on his father and upon the spirit for everything that he needs. And then public shame and humiliation. That's called weakness, which becomes the power of God to save us. And that's how you know if the gosp and the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

Like that's how God accomplishes his kingdom work is through the weakness and the foolishness of a crucified Messiah. And so then Paul turns around in 1 Corinthians and says, "And consider yourselves, brothers and sisters. Not many of you were of noble birth. Not many of you were wise in the world." You like and then then he says God chooses what is weak and foolish in the world to shame the wise to shame the the the wise and to shame the strong. Yeah. And no ambassador is greater than the king he represents.

And so if we have a king who looks weak and foolish in the world, and that's how God worked through him, establish his kingdom, then you as ambassadors aren't going to be greater than him. You're going to you're going to be weak and foolish in the world because the messenger looks like the message. And that was true of Christ. That's going to be true of us. And so if we want to be Christlike, then we have to be weak like he was. and live by faith in the power of God.

If we want to be effective messengers of the gospel, then we have to look like the gospel which is weak and foolish in the eyes of the world. And Paul says the reason that God chooses the weak and the foolish things of the world is to shame the wise, to shame the strong, to bring to nothing those things that appear to be something in the world. So that at the end of the day, no one can boast except in the cross of Christ, except in the power of Christ.

So he works through us to do his kingdom work in a way that at the end of the day should result in people seeing lives changed by the gospel and going, "Well, it can't be because of that messenger. It can't be because that minister because they're obviously weak and foolish in the eyes of the world. And so the power must be it must be this gospel that they're proclaiming. And and we we don't like that message. We don't love that message, at least in the American church, because we platform strength and we platform wisdom and then we look for ways to give the credit and the glory to that strength and to that wisdom.

Like what made this ministry effective? It must be some attributes of this man or this woman that we can put into a book and into a ministry model and we can imitate. We can put it in a bottle and we can drink that tonic and we can become like them. And I think that's why in the last 5 to 10 years we've seen so many ministries come crashing down. We elevated them because God had worked through them and we made them much and God has shown us they're not much.

And it has to drive us back to Christ. It's and I I think when we begin to see that then I think I think we can start making choices like Paul made to intentionally embrace that so that people's confidence is only in the gospel. [snorts] you know he he said didn't come with eloquence. You know there was this in Corenth there was this this eloquence this form of rhetoric and speaking that the thought was in order to be a teacher that was listen worthless. You had to excel in this this form of presenting your message.

There was a way in which you had to do it in that culture. um a certain style of speaking, a certain way you carried yourself and a presence in front of other people and then certain supportive crowd of patrons that you had. And Paul says intentionally didn't come with eloquence lest the gospel be made void. Well, how do you make the gospel void? Well, you make the gospel void when you present it in a way that people will hear it and adhere to it because the manner in which it's preached.

And Paul's like, if I chose all these cultural stylistic ways of presenting the gospel, people would embrace this. I'd build a following, but they'd be trusting in the way I did this ministry. And if you're trusting in anything but Jesus, then it's not the gospel. The gospel has been made void, so to speak. So Paul's like, I intentionally reject this. This is why he made tents instead of accepting support was he didn't want to play the game that culture played in order to be listened to because he wanted Christ alone be what shined in his ministry so that only Christ would be trusted in.

And the Corinthians, like the church had a hard time tolerating that because they wanted a super apostle and not an apostle of weakness. So, you know, Eric, as a guy may be listening to this and he's like, "Man, you're right. I need to appear weak." I know for some guys, I'm going to use myself as an example. I could be too extreme. I'm like, I'm gonna follow culture and say I need to go run a thousand miles today to be an apex man. But then I'm hearing you say, "Be weak.

Be foolish." And I'm like, "Okay, I shouldn't work out at all. I shouldn't do any of that stuff. I'm just going to not pursue excellence, not pursue greatness. I'm just going to let God work through me in my foolishness." How should a guy practically walk out weakness so that they might not fall into two extremes? That's a great question. And I think Paul says that he trained his body. He was strict with his body and he says that physical training is of some value. Godliness is of value in every way.

So he admits there's some value to being physically fit. And there's only one physical description of Paul that we have from history. And uh it's not in the Bible. I have it I have it in my book. I can't remember it off the top of my head. But the point of it is they mention that he seems to be in good shape, which is probably true because the dude walked everywhere and he he covered some ground in his ministry. You know, most of them are probably in good shape compared to us.

Yes. Yeah. Because they were eating a a pretty good diet. and traveling a lot. But but other than that, he's he's depictable. It's it's not a handsome appearance that we have of Paul when it comes down to it. And of course, it wasn't. You think about all the suffering that he endured and the lack of modern medicine to set bones and heal wounds. He's probably a mass of scars and and some bones that weren't put back together. But I think Paul is a good example of how to he says in 2 Corinthians 12:9, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may reside in me.

And that's a really interesting verse because in his first epistle to the Galatians, he says at the end of that, he says, "Far be it from me if I ever boast in anything but the cross of Christ my Lord." So how can Paul say only boast in the cross and I gladly boast in my weaknesses? Because if you only boast in the cross sounds like boasting in your weaknesses is boasting in something else. So his boasting of his weakness has to be part and parcel of what it means to boast in the cross.

Making myself nothing is part of how you make much of the cross. And so this show the sufficiency of the cross. And so you, a godly man, cannot glory in the cross unless he glories in weakness at the same time. You can't make much of yourself and make much of the cross. So, so what is that like? How is it that I justify myself and my ministry and my life choices? And like 1 Corinth 2 Corinthians 11-12 is this really good example of what it looks like for a man to boast about being weak.

And you know, we have that list where Paul says, you know, he says, you know, five times I received 40 lashes minus one from the Jews and three times I was beaten with frauds and all this. And and what's happening there is we read that and I think sometimes we can read that like maybe at a men's conference or a pastor's conference and we're like, "Oh man, this this guy was a, you know, tough dude, you know, that you know, look at look at all this awesome awesome ways that he endured." But Paul, I'm telling you, if I got lashed once, I'd be done.

I was like, "Yeah, no kidding. I'm like, I quit." But the context of that is really important because Paul is actually talking about things that appear shameful in his culture. And what's going on is in Greor Roman culture, there's a I don't remember the Latin name for it, but there's like this stylized brag sheet that they would write. And you know Caesar had written one of these for himself. And I mentioned this in my chapter about the Christian life in the good gift of weakness. And and the stylized sheet was like three times I conquered foreign capitals and two time I marched with my army out to battle.

And so it's this numbered stylized brag sheet that you basically like writing your own funeral eulogy. And um Paul copies that style here, but he fills it with things that look shameful for an apostle because super apostles, they don't get rejected by people like this. They don't get lashed. They don't get beaten. They don't get stoned. They don't get, you know, their ships don't sink, you know. And so Paul's actually saying, I'm going to take what super apostles in my culture brag about and I'm going to highlight where I'm the opposite.

I'm going to show I I'm going to highlight the things that would make them go, man, this guy doesn't seem like he's fit to be an apostle at all because of this. and and he actually as he gets to the end of that list, you know, one things that was stunning for me and I owe a lot of these observations to DA Carson. He has a little book of sermons and lectures on second Corinthians that's that's really good. And he, you know, Paul goes on to talk about this boasting that he's doing.

And he says, "If boasting is necessary, I will boast about my weaknesses." And then he says, "The God and father of the Lord Jesus who is blessed forever knows I'm not lying." That's like an oath. He's like swearing an oath there. Like before God, I I'm not lying in what I'm about to share here. [gasps] And I think the reason is is he's like, "Okay, sh this whole list, but this last thing I'm going to add to my list, like it's so shameful to admit for an apostle that if I don't swear an oath, you wouldn't believe it's actually true." And then he talks about while he was in Damascus, this is right after his conversion, a ruler under King Artos guarded the city of Damascus in order to arrest me.

I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped from his hands. And basically what he's saying is is when they wanted to arrest me, I ran away. And the highest honor you could receive in in the Roman society was the Corona Morales, the wall crown, which was the the the award given to the soldier who was the first one to go over the wall as they were invading a city. Because that took incredible bravery and courage, you know, to be the first one over the wall.

There's no soldiers over there to help you. and uh highest honor you can receive. And Paul caps his list with saying who was the first one down the wall and out of the city when they were looking to arrest me. I ran away [gasps] and I kind of in my mind picture him like the super apostle conference and they're having this panel discussion and one apostle's like I've been in this post for 50 years and this other one's like I've published you know like 75 volumes of all my wisdom and this guy whatever and they all kind of looked down at Paul like the ordinary apostle that got invited so they could seem like they valued that kind of guy and they're like well Paul tell us about your ministry and he's like I ran away and it doesn't make me any less qualified to be an apostle than any of you.

And then he probably wouldn't drop the mic because he's so humble. But that that's what's going on there. And then he goes on to talk about getting caught up into heaven and he's like, "But I won't talk about that. That's that's not what I'm going to talk about." his refusal to glory in the things that he could human strength of glory and his highlighting like what Paul wanted to do is to say the cap of that whole section there in 2 Corinthians 12 is him saying I had this thorn in my side that was a messenger of Satan that was sent to afflict me to keep me from thinking too highly of myself so that I wouldn't exalt self.

Now, is that that's a messenger from Satan, he says, but also here's God's purpose in it that it's to keep Paul from exalting himself. And he pleads three times for it to be removed. And the answer he gets is, "My grace is sufficient for you because my power is perfected in weakness." No, Paul. I'm not going to remove this. I'm going leave this thing in your life that prevents you from bragging about yourself so that you learn and you show grace is sufficient. The grace of Christ crucified and risen is all that you need because his power, the power of that grace of the gospel is brought to its fullness.

It's perfected in the context of weakness. [snorts] And so that's why I'm going to keep you weak, Paul. That's why I'm going to keep you in pain. That's why I'm going to keep you in a place where you cannot brag about yourself so that you understand the fullness of the grace of the glory of Christ crucified and risen. And that's when Paul says, "Therefore, I'll gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may reside in me. I'm going to choose to highlight these shameful things about myself.

He says,"I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties for the sake of Christ. For when I'm weak, that I'm strong." So, how do I know when I'm doing that? That's probably more of a sermon than you wanted to hear, but to get to your question, like, I was encouraged. I was like, "Yeah, man. Let it go." I was like, "So, for the guy listening who's like, "Well, how do I know when I'm doing that?" Because, you know, it's totally possible to be the person who is just whining about suffering and weakness, who's self-pitying, which is not what Paul's doing.

This isn't self-pity and self-deprecation for the sake of self-deprecation. He's not just trying to get people to he's not he's not sharing he's not glorying in his weakness for the sake of like getting people to feel sorry for him. And he's also not sharing this whole list of things so that people go, "Wow, what an awesome servant of Christ you are that you endured all those things." Like, man, humble brag. Yeah. Like a humble brag. Yeah. And he's showing what a tough man he is, that he could endure all this, which is totally what we do at pastor's conferences is we sit around and we brag about our sufferings with each other and try to oneup each other with these stories of what we endured like some kind of iron man race that we've been through in ministry.

And so part of it is asking, checking your heart and going,"Wh am I going to why am I about to share these weaknesses with with other with other dudes, with other pastors or with my family or whoever it is? Is it because I wanted them to feel sorry for me? Is it because I want them to give me some accolades for how much I've suffered?" Well, then you're not boasting in your weaknesses for the sake of Christ. You're boasting in your weaknesses for the sake of yourself because you're wanting to use them to serve you in some way by the response you get from other people.

But if it's no, I want people to get an accurate view of how pathetic I am so that they get an accurate view how powerful the cross is. That that's a good reason to be sharing your weaknesses. And I I think we want to be really careful to do that in ways that point back to the glory and the sufficiency of Jesus. At the end of the day, people aren't amazed at our story, but they're amazed with Christ. H Eric, that is extremely powerful because I think as you're talking, I'm hearing all these other, well, what about this?

What about this? And most of them, if I analyze the whatifs, are society breeding cultural lies of how we have to be strong. But I love how Paul says it and you you you articulate it very well. When I am weak, he is made strong. Like if we want to see God work miraculously through us and experience his power, we have to just be vulnerable. We have to be weak and say like, "Hey, I can't save myself, right? I can't actually help myself through all these things that I'm dealing with internal heart issues.

I can't do it." Right? Like I think about I was watching a video from Paul Trip this morning actually and he was talking about how like we as parents cannot save our kids. M and I thought about it. I have four kids at the time of this recording. I'm thinking I could lay out opportunities for them. I could have an environment, but I'm not the one who saves. Yeah. Amen. But so many times we try to appear strong and like, "No, no, I'm getting [clears throat] all these things cuz if I do all these things, I'll have a result." Yep.

And it's like, no, no. Dependency and weakness states that like we just got to trust like God is the one who does these things. But if our Instagram is always showing how good we look, we actually don't show the power of God. Yeah. And you know, there's a really there's an ironic thing that happens, I think, among the theological crowd that condemns the prosperity gospel. We embrace the prosperity gospel of strength. that just what you said, if I do all the right things and believe in the right way, I can guarantee this result, which is just prosperity gospel.

It's treating God like a vending machine that if we do all these things, then we can produce this result. And you I think one of the reasons that we're afraid of this conversation about weakness, especially among Christian men, is there is this thing in our culture, and I think it's in some aspects of some realms of Christian culture as well, where we're not glorying in weakness as a form of glorying in the cross. We're just glorying in weakness. And look at how weak I am. Look at how shameful I am.

And we're like worshiping vulnerability. And that's not right. That needs to be pushed back against. But we don't we don't answer that with this slippery slope argument like going, "Well, we can't talk about weakness because it we might slide into that." We lash boasting and weakness with boasting in the cross as the inseparable flip sides of the same coin. And I think there's also this fear about, you know, when you hear talk about masculinity and manhood, there's this, I think, right concern about men being passive and inactive and not engaging in hard things.

And I think those are genuine concerns. And I think we have a wrong view of the solution. solution is we need to teach men how to be strong because then they'll go out and they'll do hard things and they'll conquer, you know, they'll take hills and they'll go fight battles. But that's not how God teaches his people to fight battles. Look at how he tells Joshua to be strong and courageous. It's because I am with you and I am going to give you the land that I promised your forefathers.

The reason Joshua can be strong and courageous is not because you're a trained soldier who knows what you're doing and you're strong. It's because I'm here, the Lord says. And that's why the first battle was a terrible strategy. Walk around the city and then on the seventh day you're going to blow some trumpets. First thing that Joshua had to learn was Joshua didn't fight the battle of Jericho. the Lord did. And the reason men are cowards and are passive and they don't do hard things is because we glorify strength.

And they look at those things and they go, I'm not strong enough to do this, so I'm not going to try. And when strength is the motivator, then you don't do things. And that's why we get these men who do hard things and and and are not passive, but they become dominant jerks and, you know, worship this alpha male thing where wolves eat wolves, you know, and fight to the death because they but they only do it in fields where they know they can dominate. like that.

That's the thing is all these guys are out there puffing their chests, they're doing it in realms where they know they can they they can succeed. Um, but if we really want men to not be passive, if we want them to go do hard things, if we want them to get engaged in the world in politics and missions and church planting and and being good dads, whatever it is, I think weakness is the way because a right understanding of weakness, one like Paul has where Christ's power is perfected in weakness.

and when I'm weak, then I'm strong. That kills passivity because it eliminates all the excuses because you look at this thing that God's calling to you. Maybe it's to run for political office or maybe it's to go to an unreached people group or maybe it's to kill your dreams and be a faithful husband and father or start a business or a community ministry that is going to help your neighbors flourish in life. and you're like, "I can't do this." Well, you're in a great spot when you realize that because what you can say is is Christ, you deserve to be glorified and honored in my neighborhood, in government, in wherever it is.

And you say, "You deserve to be glorified here, and you deserve to not be dishonored. And people who are made in your image should be flourishing under your rule." and I can't make that happen, but I'm gonna step into this arena. And I'm admitting that I'm weak. And you say that your power is perfected in weakness. So, I'm going to in faith like David saying, who is this Philistine who mocks the name of the Lord? Like, I I'm just going to walk out there and and I've seen the Lord work before, you know?

I've seen him deliver me from bears and lions. And so like I'm just asking you to show off, Jesus. I I'm not going to be passive. I'm going to go do the hard thing because I know I'm weak, but you have promised that your power is perfected in that context. This is where you give it yourself. So I'm going and I'm doing the hard thing. I think that's the secret to helping men kill passivity and take on hard things is by teaching them not to trust in themselves, but to be confident that Christ is sufficient in all these things.

Yeah, Eric, you know, as you were talking and you were talking about like Christ being the power, I I also want to not brush over the fact that you also said like it says in Joshua and different places where like do not be discouraged, be strong and courageous for what the Lord your God is with you. Like in those moments of weakness, like you were just saying like, man, I I know I'm weak, but God is with me and he's actually going to be doing this.

I'm just in it for the ride. like I'm here for the ride and I'm going to see it. But kind of going back to something you said earlier, but if we're in denial that we're weak, we'll never actually experience that God is with us and that God's power is working through us. Yeah. And that's the beautiful good gift that of weakness brings is that we can experience those things. Eric, dude, I I think we could be talking for hours. I'm looking at the clock though and all I'm like, "Oh, we should probably start wrapping up." A as men are hearing this, and I think for a lot of guys, this is going to be the first time that they've heard this in this way, what what's maybe one practical thing they could do today as they hear this that they can start walking in weakness?

And then what's the best way that they could reach out to you if they want to learn more about about this concept? So probably the first practical thing I encourage them to do is right now and ask him to show them where they're weak and he is strong [clears throat] like just to say Jesus as I go through this day give me eyes to see how I depend upon you for everything. Yeah. Because you know Paul asked the question like what do you have that you didn't receive everything you know like the technology that they're listening to this podcast most of the men don't even couldn't make they couldn't build like everything around us is we're given we're you know that's before the fall that's creation like we depend upon God to live and to be and to eat and to every like weakness is is not a bug hug in the in the design.

It's a feature of how God designed the world that we live that we're dependent. We need help. It's not good for the man to be alone. So to ask Jesus, show me my weakness, you know. And then I think I think on I think on just as a little bonus ad to that is like maybe just share a weakness with somebody uh whether that's your wife or a friend. go, you know, here's something that I don't think I do very well and I'm asking Jesus to to help me with like just normalize admitting weakness.

Yeah. And even if you're picking the safe easy thing, just start start admitting it. And and soon I think you'll find yourself going into everything going Jesus if you don't help me this isn't going to be successful and it'll just be like breathing admitting to Christ like you're with me so show off your power and yeah and then how can people get uh follow me on social media you know I think I have my DMs open on most of my social media channels so if people want to just connect with me there and if they they want to talk about something I'm probably about to start doing some counseling, so I don't necessarily know what channels that'll be through.

Maybe a little counseling on the side, but if I could be helpful in that way, follow me on social media and you'll probably learn about that whenever I figure it out. So, I love to hear from listeners and readers because I you and I both done a lot of podcasts. were pretty comfortable in this environment, but I don't know about you, but I go into every one of these going, "Oh Lord, I don't know what I have to share in this." And I go into this going, you know, we prayed before the start of it, asking the Lord to help us because we don't know our listeners, and we're we're asking God to lead and guide a conversation so that it's helpful to people we never see and never meet.

And so anytime someone responds with, "Here's specifically how that podcast conversation helped me." Like, it's just a way of going, "Wow, Jesus is great." Like, he worked. He worked. And I have found so many times that like the moments when I was most dependent I I person and this is not like some sort of like magic wheel or you know like magic key but when I was most dependent that's where I I've seen the most testimonies of God work. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a counseling or coaching session.

I'm like, I got this. And I feel like I hit a brick wall. And I'm like, well, I can't help you. And it's like, you're right. I'm right. I can't help this person, but I'm acting like it's me who can. Yeah. And the whole thing was was going to fail from the beginning because I walked in not dependent on the Lord and not being weak to discern from the Holy Spirit. Like, Holy Spirit, what do you have for this person? How can we bring about redemption and healing for this individual?

Uh, and that has been like a massive game changer in in my ministry with coaching counseling that I've I've shifted. I'm like, Lord, I I I can't help this individual. You're going to have to do this. You've given me wisdom and skills to ask good questions, but even then, I need your help to be able to ask good questions and discern what's the right question at the right time for someone. And that's all God. And I think for men as you're hearing this, when you start to recognize that the more you realize God can actually help you in every step of the way and you realize how dependent you need to be, it's actually so freeing.

Yeah. Yeah. cuz there's there's a guy listening to this podcast, you know, who he's not in counseling like you or me or preaching like you or me, but he's got a situation at home or at work that he doesn't want to acknowledge and address because he doesn't know what to do. And he and that's true. He actually doesn't know what to do. It and and I've been there. You've been there in the counseling situation where a person's talking and you're like, "Oh Lord, when they stop talking, I have no idea what to say." [gasps] And that guy that's listening to this, like, man, you need to say right now to Jesus, I don't know what to do in this situation, but I need to go home and I need to sit down with my wife and I need to say this is off and this is wrong and I don't know how to fix it, but Jesus can help.

And that's just the starting point. And you ask Jesus, "Help me." [snorts] and he's going and you just keep pressing on and you're in faith and you're you're going to be amazed by how Christ's power is perfected in your weakness. [snorts] Yeah, Eric, I love that, man. We'll wrap it up there. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. For those of you I'm going to put in the show notes to follow Eric. I'd encourage you to check out his book, The Good Gift of Weakness.

Uh I am about halfway through it at the start of this recording and it's been immensely helpful. I mean there's things that Eric has said that book that I was like and probably I've allowed this conversation to go along because it's just so good. [clears throat] Most books, most preachers don't even talk about this concept. Everything is trying to how do we always look strong? So Eric, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And also bonus if you do read the book, Eric's wit comes out throughout the book.

So, it's actually funny and you can actually like it's engaging. So, you're not just like reading a a theological novel. Uh, it is really good theologically, but I've really enjoyed it. So, Eric, thank you so much for being on the podcast, man. Ah, thanks Ken. I've enjoyed it. Yeah, men, like I tell you all the time, as you are going throughout the day, throughout the week, keep killing shame, stand strong in Christ, and be on mission. Hope you guys have a great day and God bless.

Thanks for joining us today. If you found this episode helpful, make sure to subscribe and leave a review. Remember, killing shame isn't just about breaking free from the past. It's about walking boldly into the future God has for you.