A verb meaning to boast, to glory, to exult, to take pride in. Appears ~37 times in the NT, predominantly in Paul's letters. Can describe both sinful boasting (kauchēma in the flesh) and legitimate glorying (boasting in the cross, in Christ, in weakness).
Paul's theology of kauchaomai is among the most radical reversals of human value systems in all of Scripture. In the ancient world (as today), one kauchaomai — boasted — in strength, wisdom, wealth, and social standing. Paul systematically inverts every category: 'Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord' (1 Cor. 1:31; 2 Cor. 10:17, citing Jer. 9:24). The most stunning boast is in Galatians 6:14: 'May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ' — an instrument of shame and torture transformed into the Christian's ultimate trophy. Romans 5:2-3 extends boasting to tribulations: 'We also boast in our sufferings' — because suffering produces endurance, character, and hope. Paul's anti-curriculum in 2 Corinthians 11-12 — the 'Fool's Speech' — deliberately boasts in weakness, imprisonments, beatings, and a thorn in the flesh, to demonstrate that divine power is made perfect in human weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).