The Million Dollar Question

By Grant Gaines

It’s your favorite gameshow-“Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”-and your family surprised you with the opportunity of a lifetime to fly out to New York to see the live production of the show for your birthday. It felt like you were only sitting in your seat for a few moments before the theme music is cued and the lights begin to flash as the host walks onto the stage.

The crowd erupts in cheering as the TV cameras turn their way and the host waves in the crowd’s direction. As you are digging through your bag to find your camera, you hear the host call your name to take the contestants chair. It’s your lucky day, it’s a dream come true, it’s almost too good to be real-you have a chance to win one million dollars!

You slice through the first couple of questions like a hot knife through butter. The intermediate questions might have been hard for a novice, but you have been around the block a time or two and have picked up some knowledge along the way. As the show winds down your forehead begins to sweat as you correctly answer difficult question after difficult question leaving you at the doorstep of the million dollar question.

“It all comes down to this,” says the host. “It’s all or nothing. Our contestant will either walk away with one million dollars or nothing!”

You take a deep breath and fear the worst as the host begins to read the long anticipated question, “How many times did the apostle Paul quote Jesus in the Bible?”

A huge wave of relief rushes over you as you realize that the question is about the Bible rather than quantum physics. But you know that you’re not out of the woods just yet; the clock is still ticking away and the host needs an answer!

You begin to think out loud as you try to find the accurate answer. “I know Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament. I know that he is the author of Romans-Philemon. He’s the most prolific author in the Bible and centers every single letter on one single person-Jesus Christ.”

So how many times did Paul quote Jesus in his letters? Do you know?

If you answered two, you are correct. I will even give you the million dollars if you said he only quoted Jesus one time as one of the two quotes is Paul simply re-quoting Jesus from the Last Supper. That leaves only one single time in all of his letters that Paul quotes a unique statement from the One he was writing and preaching about.

So if Paul only quoted Jesus one time, the natural follow up question is this: do you know where this quote is found?

Before I tell you the answer, I think we can all agree that whatever Paul is about to record from the lips of Jesus is rather important as it is the only quote of Jesus that he included in his many letters. I think we would be even safe to assume that it was one of the most important truths that Paul clung onto throughout his lifetime. So where exactly is this quote found?

“2 Corinthians 12:9” Ding, ding, ding! That is correct! The crowd goes wild! Let me give this verse some context before writing it out.

Paul was suffering from what he described as a “thorn in his side” (2 Corinthians 12:7) which severely bothered him. We don’t know exactly what this thorn was as it was never explicitly revealed in Scripture but we do know that it bothered Paul enough to plead with God to take it away during three separate seasons of his life (2 Corinthians 12:8).

Now if I’m God (and thankfully I’m not), if there were anyone in the world I would listen to and heal, it would be Paul. Paul was the man. He was on fire for the Gospel and making much of the name of Jesus. He repeatedly suffered because of his beliefs but never wavered in his passion. Without question, Paul was and remains the undisputed greatest missionary of all time. So if you’re asking me, I’m granting Paul’s requests-that’s a no brainer.

But fortunately I’m not God because I have a very limited view of the grand scheme of things. So rather than following the logical course of action by healing Paul, God decided not to heal him. And it is in this difficult, painful season of Paul’s life when he recorded the only red-lettered writing in all of his letters as Jesus told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness…” (2 Corinthians 12:9, NIV).

That’s it. That’s the only time you will see a unique quote from Jesus in all of his letters. And what a great truth! In a single verse, Christ attacks and debunks one of the most popular cultural sayings of the Christian culture today-“God will never give you more than you can handle.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 begs to differ. Apparently, God often gives us more than we can handle so that we lean on His strength rather than ours. Often God will give us more than we can handle so we will realize that it’s, “‘Not by power, not by might, but by My Spirit says the Lord” (Zechariah 4:6, NIV).

If God never gave us more than we could handle we would never have a need for the Lord because we could do everything on our own. If God never put us in situations that we didn’t understand then we would never need faith because we could logically explain everything.

You see, we will all go through different situations that are way more than we can bear-our “thorns in the flesh”-and when we are in those situations we have the option to either complain about them or to follow in the footsteps of Paul by saying, “…Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, and in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10, NIV).

So rather than trying to live by Nike’s motto of “Live Strong,” let’s adopt Paul’s motto by rejoicing in our weakness and watch God’s power be unleashed in our lives!

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