True vulnerability and authority are inseparable. One without the other is like poison that slowly weakens and then kills the soul of a person, family, community, or nation.
In my first year of pastoral ministry, someone told me the church planter needs to be the chief repenter. It frightened me. But I was more concerned at the thought of becoming the chief pretender. Better to live in truth with a few friends than suffer the slow, inward death of self-deception with many followers.
Since Brene Brown’s TED Talk was heard around the world, vulnerability has been commonplace in the marketplace. Its disarming influence has made its way to India too.
In an episode from the latest season of Koffee with Karan, two celebrities spoke openly and candidly about mental health, marriage, loneliness, and ageing. They wept, laughed, embraced, counselled, and consoled each other.
Such fascination with vulnerability is encouraging but not satisfying. Though the world recognises the value of vulnerability, it has a real distaste for authority.
Inversely, Christians in India can have a relationship with vulnerability that is equally dissatisfying. We can easily prize authority at the cost of vulnerability, seeing it as improper, out of place, or even worldly.
False Vulnerability is Mere Vanity
Vulnerability is not empty honesty. It is not simply a courageous confession of sin or honest admission of our personal state of affairs. Certainly, it includes confession but cannot be limited to mere honesty. It begins (not ends) with transparency (Eph. 5:6, 1 Tim. 4:15-16). As Leighton Ford said, “God loves us the way we are, but too much to leave us that way.”
True vulnerability is a process that comes with progress that is visible to everyone.
True vulnerability is a process that comes with progress that is visible to everyone. Far from mere honesty, it is actually a bitter, difficult, “woundable” process of working out your salvation (Phil. 2:12-13).
Without the risk of true vulnerability, deceitful workers can appear honest while harbouring lies (2 Cor. 11:13). They can present the appearance of vulnerability to increase personal visibility, prop themselves up on a platform, and diffuse any clarity about how God actually changes people (2 Cor. 11:12-15). Far from real vulnerability, it is a transactional exercise in vanity.
Any resistance to mere vanity is justified. But every resistance to true vulnerability is the enemy of progress (Josh. 7:10-12, 1 Thess. 4:7-8). So we cannot afford to confuse vanity with vulnerability (Phil. 2:3).
True vulnerability does not simply resist a cover-up. It is a risky, costly process of cleaning up (Heb. 12:3-4).
True Vulnerability is Real Woundability
Someone in ministry once told me, “Akshay, the truth is you can’t really trust anybody.”
There was real hurt in the sentiment. It revealed scar tissue from real wounds. I felt the pain of it but I could not accept it. The cost of self-isolation is much greater than the risk of self-revelation.
True vulnerability is revealed by the extent to which you face real “woundability.” In his beautiful book, Strong and Weak, Andy Crouch says, “Vulnerable at root means woundable.” It means putting something you love at real risk of losing it.
Our loves control how we live, so it can explain any resistance to vulnerability in India (Luke 12:34, John 12:43). Often it comes from our deep love for the praises of people: “Log kya kahenge” (“What will people say?”)
As a result, our greatest nightmares are rejection, shame, disrepute and isolation. We fear vulnerability can turn those nightmares into actuality. Also, our greatest fantasies are approval, honour, respectability, and embrace. We treasure invulnerability so it can turn our fantasies into reality.
But none of the writers of the Bible give into these fears or fantasies. We know more about Abraham, Jacob, Noah, David, Peter, Paul, and even Jesus than any self-respecting Asian person may want to know (Mark 13:33-34, John 11:35).
No writer in the Bible conceals their sins to advance the gospel. Secrecy is no way to prosperity (Prov. 28:13). Instead, they publicly renounce them, turn from them, and rely on the mercy of God to rescue them (Ps. 51:1-2). Such woundability comes without any people-pleasing fears. It is rooted in a deep God-pleasing desire (Gal 1:10, 14-17).
True Vulnerability is Costly
In financial management, your rewards mirror the extent of the risk you are willing to take. It is a pattern of high risk, high reward or low risk, low reward. There is real danger in any false promises of low risk with high reward. The same is true of vulnerability management in all of life and ministry. True authority embraces real woundability.
The early years of ministry tested our marriage and nearly broke it. But the great relief we felt that brought real change to our marriage was the decision to prioritise transparency over privacy.
The vulnerability of Christ did not violate his authority. It confirmed it
God opened our hearts to open our lives to people who nursed our wounds and dressed our souls with the power of God. They saw us and loved us as Jesus saw us and loved us.
The posture of true vulnerability makes you actually “woundable” to real gossip, slander, false accusations, misrepresentation, and misunderstanding. Make no mistake about it. But it is a risk you are willing to take because it imitates the vulnerability of the one who was woundable to false accusations so we can become invulnerable to them (2 Cor. 11:30-31).
When God Became Woundable
On the cross, Jesus is the perfect portrait of authority and vulnerability. He is God become man, the crucified Messiah, the king with a crown of thorns, who can call a legion of angels with a word but gives himself up to the Father as a fragrant offering (Phil. 2:6-11, Matt. 27:37, Matt. 26:53, Eph. 5:2).
The vulnerability of Christ did not violate his authority. It confirmed it (Isa. 53:5-6).
When we see the chief Shepherd serve with such vulnerability and authority, it melts our fears and creates new desires in our hearts. It kills any desire to act with selfish ambition or conceit. Instead, it creates the desire to embrace humility that counts others as more significant than yourselves (Phil 2:3-4).
Through his woundability, he has given us an invulnerable identity in Christ—forgiven, reconciled, clean, justified, and delivered from the dominion of darkness (Col. 2:13, 2 Cor. 5:20-21, John 15:1-3, Rom. 5:1, Col. 1:13). So we are free to be woundable—open, honest, transparent, and visible to others (James. 5:16, Eph. 4:25, Prov. 18:24).
Our greatest fear is no longer the fear of man. It becomes the fear of God. (Prov. 29:25, Matt. 10:28, Heb. 13:6). Our deepest desire is no longer the appreciation of people. It becomes the applause of heaven (Heb. 12:1, Eph. 2:8-9).
We no longer live as slaves to fear but in vulnerable-authority as the children of God—out of the inexpressible joy that we are the righteousness of God in Christ, full of the power of the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:15, 1 Pet. 1:8-9, Rom. 15:13).
Through his vulnerability, Jesus delivers us from performing under the pressure to please people and gives us the authority to perform under the pleasure of belonging to God.
