Tag: 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 9-10: We Meet People Where They Are #30daysofPaul

“We are in the world, but not of the world.”

That’s a phrase you hear pretty often from Christians.

Usually it’s from those asserting some kind of cultural purity or holiness they posses, in opposition to the rest of the world, which is made up of a bunch of identical drones parroting the party line as given this week by some Hollywood celebrity or godless politician.

This saying is often accompanied with a life that is exemplified by “separateness,” with as little interaction with “outsiders” as possible, especially for their children’s sake. Loving neighbors is important, yes, but at a distance, with one’s purity intact and ability to recognize (vocally) the faults in others preserved.

And yet, we find in Paul today, a set of verses that seems to contradict this way of life, this “not conformed to the world” viewpoint.

“For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I become as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but an under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I become weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.”

Paul tells us we are called to anything but a life of separateness. What Paul is saying is, as Christians, we meet people where they are. We don’t hold back, we don’t cloister ourselves and win people by being separate from them. We join with them in their lives, in their struggles and their successes. In short, we are to join in solidarity with the people of the world, that we might play a part in their liberation.

Only when we identify with those we love and serve can we show them the authentic message of Jesus. That is the other point Paul makes in these chapters: through the freedom that comes we grace, we shed our fear of the world, our fear of living under the law and thus failing to achieve God’s standards. Paul says, don’t refuse those who invite you to dinner, even if they are unbelievers. Don’t shut them out. Join them, love them, serve them, identify with them, become as they are so that they might become as you are!

Yes, as Christians, we have a separateness, a discernible difference between us and the world. But it is not a separateness outside of the world, but very much in it. We can only show the love of God by being with the people we wish to love. We can only serve others by living with others. We are One Body, One Church, One Human Race. Our unity with all people is our strength and our blessing. Be in the world and of the world. Show your oneness with all other people.

Next: 1 Corinthians 11-12

For a PDF of the 30 Days of Paul reading plan, click here.

1 Corinthians 7-8: Don’t Get Distracted #30daysofPaul

Chapters 7 and 8 move us into the part of 1 Corinthians where Paul begins answering specific questions the Corinthians asked in a previous letter to Paul, mentioned in 7:1. Chapter 7 is concerned exclusively with marriage, and chapter 8 with meat offered to idols.

Paul has a very particular and, for the time he was writing, unique view on marriage. The first thing that shines through is Paul’s view of marriage as an equal partnership between husband and wife. Over and over, he makes sure that all the instructions he gives are understood as applying to both members of a marriage, going so far as to write the same sentence twice in a row in several places, with the words “wife” and “husband” simply switched the second time.

The other thing you get is that Paul really wasn’t a fan of marriage. Throughout the whole chapter, he keeps coming back to his instruction to not get married if you really don’t have to. He makes a point to say that marriage isn’t a sin, and people aren’t wrong to get married if they want to, but that he doesn’t encourage it. He says,

“Those who marry will experience distress in this life, and I would spare you that.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for holy matrimony.

There is also a short section in this chapter where Paul tells his readers that they should stay in their station in life, because the grace of God doesn’t discriminate against social class, gender, or any other defining mark. You definitely get the point Paul is making, while also seeing how easy it was for slaveholders to justify the continuation of the practice by quoting him.

Finally, chapter 8 deals with a question about food offered sacrificially to idols. There seems to have been some question about whether it was right to eat this food, or if it was forbidden because of it’s link to false gods. Paul’s answer is rather simple and practical: it’s just food, because those idols are just wood and stone. He tells them not to make a habit of going to idolatrous feasts or anything, but if someone brings them food from one, it’s just food. His one caution: if the eating of the food causes backsliding amongst fellow Christians who think that idol worship has been endorsed because of this food, then put a stop to it.

So the question for us, after reading all these specific instructions to very specific questions is: how do we apply this pastoral guidance to our modern lives? And is it even appropriate to do so?

We are beginning to pick up on a general theme Paul carries from here on in his letters, showcased most obviously in Romans: the chief sin of idolatry. And I don’t just mean the bowing to golden calves and statues of Zeus, but the more pernicious kind of idolatry that makes an idol of whatever it is you are most attached to in the world.

Paul, in these two chapters, has a basic, universal message woven into the specifics he gets in to. It’s an message that springs from his essential eschatology of imminence, his ardent belief that Christ was coming back within his and his followers life times. You see that message here in his talk about social station, and marriage, and eating food offered to idols, and elsewhere, in his directions concerning sexual immorality, his calls to Christian unity, everywhere. It’s a message that weaves perfectly into his concern for idolatry.

That message? Don’t do things that compromise your commitment to God, your ability to follow Jesus, and your place in the Christian community. Don’t waver, don’t get distracted, don’t get bored, don’t find something else, don’t cut yourself off or fall out with your brothers and sisters. Be patient in waiting for that impending day when Jesus comes back and ushers in the Kingdom of God.

To Paul, idolatry is so bad because anything that distracts us from this attitude of eager watchfulness is potentially fatal. He wants his readers to be focused, to be aware and undistracted by this world, in anticipation of a new and better world. He wants them working to make the little changes that bring aspects of that coming world here and now, so that they might be prepared when Jesus brings all those changes at once. That is why he says, over and over, live your life, do the things you want to do, be happy and loving and joy-filled, but avoid getting distracted by all of it.

Obviously, Paul misread the coming of Jesus. There was no second coming in Paul’s life, or in anyone’s since. But these words can offer direction to us still. We are called to a life of bringing the Kingdom here on Earth. We are called to love one another, serve one another, and in so doing, to love and serve God. There are many great things here on earth, things that are so interesting and cool and are for us to enjoy.

But don’t get distracted. Don’t lose sight of your calling. Don’t forget why you are here, what you are a part of. Love and serve, seek justice, practice mercy. Enjoy life, do awesome stuff. But stay focused on the bigger picture. Don’t neglect the Kingdom that we are called to bring, on Earth as it is in heaven.

Next: 1 Corinthians 9-10

For a PDF of the 30 Days of Paul reading plan, click here.

1 Corinthians 5-6: Love Begins at Home #30daysofPaul

This is where Paul starts to lose me. It’s passages like these from his Epistles that have long defined the Apostle for me. When his letters start reading like Leviticus and Deuteronomy, I just want to check out. When he starts saying things like, “But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister, who is sexual immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one.”

Yuck.

As a progressive Christian, I get accused quite a bit of “picking and choosing” which Bible verses I follow. To which I respond, “Amen, absolutely I do. And so does every other Christian ever in existence.” All too often, the verses Christians pick out to live by are verses like the ones contained in 1 Corinthians 5, those talking sexual immorality and listing various sins.

Why?

Because these verses are just so darn easy! You don’t have to think, you just have to obey!

Remember what we learned about faith and obedience?

I have a tendency to reject these parts of Paul, because I just have such a hard time integrating it with what I believe Jesus taught us. But let me try to provide some integration here. First, a couple of working assumptions for this exercise.

First, Paul isn’t infallible. Paul was a human being, with very obvious strengths and weaknesses that shine forth in his writing. Thus, he probably got things wrong.

Two, the entire Bible, and more specifically the New Testament, is not absolutely consistent and coherent in the instructions, teachings and theology therein. Paul contradicts Jesus, James contradicts Paul, John contradicts Matthew-you get the idea. So reading a book like 1 Corinthians as a natural, coherent outflow of the Gospels is the wrong way to read. Remember this very important fact: when Paul wrote these letters, the Gospels weren’t even written yet! All they had was a free-flowing, word-of-mouth, always evolving and changing story of the life and teachings of Jesus.

So, back to Paul’s ruminations on sexual immorality. Paul tells his congregants in Corinth, don’t even have communion with those among you who are sinners! Shun them, leave them behind, don’t make them a part of your community.

Again, yuck.

But then, one verse after the one I quoted above, Paul says something I think is very, very telling:

“For what I have to do with judging those outside? Is it not those who are inside that you are to judge?”

Are you with me here? This totally changes everything Paul says in these two chapters! Let’s unpack this a bit. Paul is writing to his church in Corinth, and he says to them, “Some of your members, those you call brothers and sisters in Christ, are living lives inconsistent with the example of Christ. and while you guys are busy on one hand dividing yourselves in this camp and that camp, and the other hand judging the pagans and Gentiles who live around you, your very own are running wild.“


Now this is good stuff.

Paul is telling the Corinthians, you are trying to be followers of Christ, but you are doing it all wrong! In chapter 6, he turns on Sarcastic Paul again, and mocks their quotes of his teachings. He taught them, “all things are lawful for me,” but he amends that by saying “but not all things are beneficial.”

The Corinthians have basically been saying, “Paul, you told us it’s not our deeds but our faith that brings is into God’s kingdom. All we are doing is trying to relate to the people of Corinth by living like them so they might trust us!”

And Paul says, nope. That’s not how this works. The Corinthians thought they had found a loophole in Paul’s teachings, in which they could join in all the pagan reveling with the excuse that they are just “relating” to the people, and then come back to their church and judge others for their sins while excusing their own under Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith. Look at us, we know what sin is, and we know how to love our neighbors! We’re awesome!

But Paul tells them, you are accountable first and foremost to yourselves. Judgment of the world is not the Christian’s job; you bring no one to Christ by condemning their lives. You bring them in by being a living example of Christ in the world. That’s why he tells them to shun their brothers and sisters; the only ones you are able to pass judgement on are those with who you are on the journey, those who are accountable to you and who you are accountable to.

A lot of Christians today could learn a lesson here. We are quick to jump on Facebook and lay down the holy hellfire on those we think are “sinners,” especially when those folks are celebrities, politicians or other public figures. But I think Paul would chastise us pretty severely for doing this. We don’t know those people, we aren’t close friends or family or confidants of those people. Judging them from afar does more harm than good; it pushes away rather than draws in.

Instead, start with yourself. And then, hold those closest to you accountable for their actions, not by condemning, but by helping to guide in a spirit of love. Be the example of Christ in the world by living the example, and helping those you love live it as well. Then all will be drawn in, and we will be one step closer to that Christian unity we strive for.

You don’t need to show the world that you have this all figured out by pointing fingers at the easy targets, by making it clear loudly that you know who the sinners are. You only repel people that way. Instead, live a life of immense, overflowing love for all people. Get yourself on track, show the world the great life you have to offer by following Christ, and others will begin to want that too.

It’s like Mother Teresa said: “Love begins at home.”

Amen to that.

Next: 1 Corinthians 7-8

For a PDF of the 30 Days of Paul reading plan, click here.