For those like me who enjoy action films (at least some of the older ones), our text this week, II Corinthians 6:1-13, might in verse 7 give us an image of Paul the apostle as action hero, a gun in each hand, blasting away at the enemies of righteousness. The phrase he uses is, “with weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left.”
A “Myth-Busters” episode demonstrates that the two-gun strategy is likely to be pretty ineffective, despite Hollywood’s love for that image. Perhaps it was and would be different if the weapons were swords, as Paul probably pictured, but even that is generally not an effective strategy. We won’t even talk about light sabers, although there is an amusing report from my own state of Oregon.
Sometimes Paul’s image is understood to mean a sword in the right hand and a shield in the left, a classic and proven mode of equipping for battle. Apply it to faith and it suggests an enthusiastic sharing/preaching of the Gospel combined with an effective apologetic (defense) for the faith. As tempting as that sounds to me as someone who loves the work of apologetics, I doubt it is correct. Paul is talking about weapons in each hand, and a shield is not a weapon.
As always, it does well to look at the context and see the contrasts spread around this image of right-handed and left-handed weapons. In verses 4 and 5 Paul lists hardships he and other apostles have suffered, while in verses 6 and 7 we find a catalog of the virtues they displayed in the midst of those trials. Verses 8 to 10 then give us nine pairs of contrasts between good states and bad states experienced by those in the service of the Gospel.
It’s wrong to stigmatize left-handed people, but it is still the case that in the Bible, as in cultures throughout history and all over the world, that the left hand symbolizes the less than desirable, that which is wrong or difficult or painful. So I think Paul means us to understand all these contrasts–between suffering and virtue, between honor and dishonor, between dying yet being alive in Christ, etc.–as specific examples of Christian right-handed and left-handed weapons. As verse 10 makes clear, it is by way of these awkward, unwanted left-handed weapons that God often brings about His way in our lives and in the world.
The always amusing and often insightful Robert Farrar Capon expands a notion from Martin Luther along these lines to talk much about God’s “left-handed power” (see chapter 1 of The Parables of the Kingdom). We expect God to show up and take direct, “right-handed” action on our behalf. But it’s often the case that God lets us experience His work in “left-handed” ways that seem weak, ineffective, and not very to the point. The Cross would be the paradigmatic example.
My guess is that we as Christians and as churches would much prefer to use right-handed weapons and have God show up in right-handed ways. So it’s good to be reminded that God’s deepest and greatest work is often left-handed and that there is hope and strength to be found where we don’t seem to see it.