California pastor says Bible's 'counter-cultural' praise of humility offers important lessons

"But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about 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, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). 

These words come from the Second Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, an epistle in the New Testament — and provide...