The other day I picked out The Strong and the Weak (1948). Perhaps because I was reading it in between sessions with Cal Thomas’ Watchman in the Night, the Book of Hebrews, and Rafael Sabatini’s novel The Snare, I found Tournier tough going for awhile. But I stayed doggedly with it and, by the time I had started the last third of the book, I was really pleased that I had done so. Not because it had ever become easier reading, but because the Lord was underscoring several of the points Tournier made in the book and letting me clearly know that I had a lot to learn, think about, and apply.
But because very few of you will take my recommendation so passionately that you’re going to go order the book for immediate reading (!), let me pass along a few of my favorite quotes from Paul Tournier’s The Strong and the Weak.
Speaking of the “great illusion…that there are two kinds of human beings, the strong and the weak. The truth is that human beings are much more alike than they think. What is different is the eternal mask, sparkling or disagreeable, their outward reaction, strong or weak.” (Pages 20,21)
“The reason why so many conversations remain shallow is that the speakers are all running away from one another…They hide their vulnerable selves behind a screen of banal remarks, polite compliments, witticisms, or artificial extravagances. An absolutely honest and direct intercourse, free from subterfuge, pretense, evasion and swank is difficult to maintain. As soon as it becomes dangerous, we wrap ourselves up like warships in a smoke-screen.” (Pages 97, 98)
“One can never foresee the means that God will use to touch a man’s heart, the roads along which He will drive him, nor the moment at which He will intervene in his life. It may be at the height of happiness, or in the midst of a painful crisis. It may be my means of a slow process of evolution, or quite suddenly and unexpectedly. But it is always through the free intervention of the Spirit.” (Page 143)
“For the respect for the human person, the protection of the weak, charity, and the necessity of salvation by God, professed by Christianity, our age has substituted the cult of the State, the veneration of force, the crushing of the weak in the struggle for life, and confidence in the greatness of man, ceaselessly climbing the ladder of progress and power.” (Page 161)
“A man’s true value consists in his likeness to God. What gives value to his thoughts, his feelings and his actions, is the extent to which they are inspired by God, the extent to which they expressed the thought, the will, and the acts of God.” (Page 163)
“We are all equal in sin and in moral wretchedness. It is conventionalism which judges men by their social facade, whereas the gospel looks into the heart…The further we advance in the Christian life, the more we become aware of our sin. It is as if weights were continually being added to one of the pans of a balance; and each time this happens we need more of God’s grace in the other pan in order to reestablish the equilibrium.” (Page 175)
“Faith is a strength, a concrete and practical strength. The Christian life is not abstention. Genuine conversion, far from paralyzing the person, makes it dynamic.” (Page 202)
“I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am not criticizing the strong. It is right that they should use in His service the natural gifts entrusted to them by God. But the authentic mark of the Spirit is just this sincerity by which the strong may recognize how much of their action is only too human, and admit that they are not as strong as they are reckoned to be by the mass of their followers who have set them up as leaders. The greatest witness the weak can bear is in the victories they can win over their own natures and the strength of the Spirit. The contrary is the case with the strong. The strong man witnesses best not by showing off his strength or his power to dominate others with his mind or his words, but in his victory over himself in becoming humble, tolerant, and gentle. This is the more difficult because he has a part to play that is more in the public eye, and because it is no longer a question of influencing others (which he finds easy) but of mastering himself...The fact is that true faith is as difficult for the strong as for the weak.” (Page 216)
“That day I realized all at once that when my services were called upon in the church, it was much more because of my natural than my supernatural gifts. That evening I was with some friends and told them what God had shown me, and I knelt down with them to pray that thenceforward He would build my service to Him more on what came from Him, and less on what came from me. Let us therefore be careful not to confuse natural strength with that of the Spirit.” (Page 218)
“Faith does help us to accept our nature, to carry its burdens like a cross, to offer it to God to be used in His service, to derive some good from it and not merely suffering.” (Page 241)
“If our lives are directed by the Spirit, we may count upon real particular victories over our natures, but we can never expect a total, final victory. It is quite as wrong to deny the partial victories as to exaggerate their importance. Our nature may be transformed in part; but there remains a part of it that we must simply accept as it is. To prefer the fairy-story is in fact to rebel against our human condition, to refuse to carry our cross, to seek to know in this life the complete liberation which will be ours only in the life hereafter.” (Page 246)
“As we travel this road, we find that grace constantly increases...Grace is infinitely bigger than we imagine. All has already been accomplished in Jesus Christ. In proportion as we recognize the evil in our own hearts, we appreciate more fully what he has done for us. In proportion, as we become aware of our wretchedness, we see that He has already answered it in advance by His sacrifice.” (Page 249)
“He is alive. If we open our hearts to Him, He fills them with His presence. Insofar as He thus lives in us, we are delivered from our weak reactions, while at the same time becoming more aware than ever of our weakness. We are delivered also from our strong reactions, while at the same time receiving from Him a strength that is beyond compare.” (Page 251)
