1 Corinthians 2:3 Commentary and Bible Study

What was the weakness? Well, it may be tempting for the preacher to talk about Paul's illness. Was it his half blind state he seems to have been in? His infirmities, his physical afflictions? It is probable that he does not have that in mind at all, because that is not the context of the passage. What he has in mind in the context of this passage is his loneliness. He has just been saying, ‘God does not use the great ones to preach the message: the famous, the accomplished, the dazzling, or the brilliant. I was with you, he says, in weakness. I did not present myself as somebody special. I was not a great person. I was fairly poorly and simply dressed. The apostle Paul probably stooped, and possibly limped. That is all conjecture, but he was not the kind of person that you would admire for appearance, and he was persecuted and hated especially by the Jewish community. So ‘I was with you in weakness’ means, ‘There was no commendation for me. There was nothing to promote me; there was nothing to commend me. I was with you in weakness, and because of that weakness in fear and trembling. This is Corinth; this is a Greek city. This was the place where there they admired human wisdom and oratory. This was the place where you had to have long introductions from famous people to take a platform, and here was Paul coming among them as a Jewish preacher, converted to Christ, representing a sect held in contempt, so far from what they believed and held. So he was in fear and in trembling. In so many places he had been attacked violently, and bodily he shook.