Yung Suk Kim 
Messiah in Weakness [EPUB ebook] 
A Portrait of Jesus from the Perspective of the Dispossessed

Yung Suk Kim raises a perennial question about Jesus: How can we approach the historical Jesus? Kim proposes to interpret him from the perspective of the dispossessed–through the eyes of weakness. Exploring Jesus’s experience, interpretation, and enactment of weakness, understanding weakness as both human condition and virtue, Kim offers a new portrait of Jesus who is weak and strong, and empowered to bring God’s rule, replete with mercy, in the here and now. Arguing against the grain of tradition that the strong Jesus identifies with the weak, Kim demonstrates that it is the weak Jesus who identifies with the weak. The paradoxical truth with Jesus is: ‘Because he is weak, he is strong.’ In the end, Jesus dies a death of paradox that reveals both his ultimate weakness that demands divine justice, and his unyielding spirit of love for the world and truth of God.

About the author

Yung Suk Kim is professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Samuel De Witt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University. Kim is the author of numerous books, including How to Read Paul: A Brief Introduction to His Theology, Writings, and World (2021); Christ’s Body in Corinth: The Politics of a Metaphor (2008); and Toward Decentering the New Testament (Cascade, 2018; co-authored with Mitzi J. Smith). He also edited 1–2 Corinthians: Texts @ Contexts (2013).