Book Review: Strong and Weak

Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

By Andy Crouch (InterVarsity Press)

Everyone lives, but not everyone flourishes—and the key to flourishing is not found where many suspect. This is the straightforward thought behind Andy Crouch’s accessible volume. While most people assume a successful, meaningful life is achieved by attaining authority and minimizing vulnerability, Crouch contends the gospel proclaims a powerful paradox: You flourish when you possess both authority and vulnerability, strength and weakness.

Using a simple 2-inch by 2-inch chart, Crouch persuasively argues that how much authority and vulnerability anyone possesses determines whether he or she is suffering, exploiting, withdrawing or flourishing. Each chapter explains the temptations and merits of authority and vulnerability before ultimately concluding followers of Christ must possess both in order to flourish.

A book whose entire message can be summed up in a 2-inch by 2-inch chart at first may seem overly simplistic and unworthy of its 186 pages, but Crouch effectively digs beyond the surface of his message. He rewards readers with helpful insights into how Christians can flourish by acknowledging vulnerability instead of suppressing it. Both the pastor and the layperson will walk away from Strong and Weak with a fresh outlook on how God’s power is perfected in weakness.

Daniel Camp, pastor

Shiloh Baptist Church, Crawford