CULTURAL STUDIES IN 1 CORINTHIANS

Wow, Bailey demonstrates how to love the Lord with your mind like no other! Paul speaks of not using lofty and wise words, yet Bailey reveals how Paul connects his letter to both Jewish and Greek readers in the church. Bailey’s explanation of connections to Isaiah and the rhetoric that mirrors Greek funeral orations adds depth to the scripture that I would never of had the knowledge to see before! Man, Paul knew what he was talking about! He had a deep connection to his audience and was able to truly engage with them. His understanding of his community brings validity and depth to his letter that I had never known. YET, at the same time, Paul is able to generalize his words to the church as a whole by focusing his letter on the cross and the unity of the crucifixion. I’ve been challenged by this reading and especially by Paul’s devotion to the cross and his expression of his own suffering in light of the cross. Paul suffers and many saw it as fooli...

After a long weekend of church meetings that involved rear view mirroring last year and planning/strategizing for 2019, I found in my soul whole hearted agreement with these words from Bailey (about his categorizing of 1 Corinthians 11-14.) “These seven sections are clearly a single essay focused on conflict and confusion in worship and the need for love.”   When studying English in college, professors often stressed the importance of seeking PRIME SOURCES when conducting research.   I can attest, as someone working in leadership at a church, “CONFLICT” and “THE NEED FOR LOVE” continue to serve as PRIME SOURCE flash points that can impede group development and, crazily, at the same time, white hot flash points for souls confessing authentic, honest, and passionate yearning for Christ and His power of salvation.   When will I stop being amazed at how the same behaviors in my heart and in Christ’s church can be both devastatingly negative – sabotaging group de...

WARNING: SCATTERED THOUGHT PROCESSES AHEAD! There is a lot to process in this intro and I have a lot of thoughts about it, so I will try my best to make them make sense.  The first part of the introduction that stood out to me, was when Bailey was discussing the hinge between the problems that were brought to Paul orally, and the problems that came to him in writing. The first thing that popped out to me was that the problems that they thought were more severe, they did not write to Paul, and they probably hoped that he would never find out. No matter how hard they tried to hide that behavior, Paul found out anyway. This resonates with me because I find that in society, we only show each other the parts of ourselves that we want them to see. We put forward a picture of ourselves that we think will be perceived as best, when in reality, there is no hiding who we truly are, especially in our relationship with Christ. No matter how much we want to hide our pasts and our m...

Yeah so forewarning this is gonna be a very like, scatterbrained collection of things I wanna bring up, probably zero flow, but I’m still gonna send it, so let’s do this. I really appreciated in the preface the story he shared about that monastery that has been sacked and burned down several times. It really made the reality so clear to me simply how persecuted and hated early Christians were. That belief in Jesus was not a societal norm as it would become in the future, yet which is starting already now to fade away. It paints the suffering Christians dealt with for centuries very clearly in my mind. And in some areas still deal with. I find it wildly interesting that he wrote this letter to the church as a whole, like not to the church at Corinth, though it obviously includes them, but to all who call Jesus their Lord. This being the only letter he did so and being the only letter he wrote the majority of in the style of the Hebrew Bible. Which thankfully he addresses severa...

the things that I got from this reading where a bit similar to the ones from Reid. there where a few things that made me feel a bit of conviction as well;                   -"some women were preaching and other women weren't listening to them."(pg.16) its hard to admit that I can be a part of the other women when I am seeking help and advice from my mentors and if I dont like the advice they give me (which is definitely good for me) I won't listen because of my stubbornness for a better easy way...           -"for we write you nothing but what you can read and understand"pg. 29 do we say we can't  understand the bible as an excuse? do we say it because we are not willing to take the time to process it? do we say it because we are tying to hide from it?  I know I can tend to use these excuses to get out of uncomfortable situations or things I don't want to deal with just yet, while God is definitely ca...

Dang...so much to attempt to digest from the intro! Excited to continue to read as Bailey unpacks the rhetoric/homilies/cameos/etc that so easily go right over my head!  It's encouraging to me that Paul's intended audience for this letter is not relegated to the believers in Corinth during the days of the early Church. As we talked about during All Staff, so many of the issues he addresses are SOOOO relevant in the church today. There's no way we can use the excuse "it's a cultural thing" to discount what we are told by God through Paul. From the moment that Paul began writing, WE - believers in the 21st century - were part of his intended audience! On page 28, after outlining the letter - Bailey says this: "In short, Paul does not say: Here is the problem! Here is what you must do! Instead he writes: You have received the tradition from me. Here is the problem. Consider the following theological foundation on which a solution can be built. Look at ...

Wow, parallelisms, rhetorical homilies, and chiasms!  If this isn't a part of loving God with all our mind then I don't know what is!  This is great stuff.  There were two parts in the introduction that encouraged me. Pg 23. - "Paul addressed 1 Corinthians to the Corinthian Christians "together with all those in every place on whom is called the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours" (1:2) Paul states openly and boldly that this letter is addressed to the entire church. That is you and me! Pg 26. - When the complementary pairs of essays are placed together it is evident that Paul has three principle ideas on his mind.  These are: 1. The cross and the resurrection 2. Men and women in the human family and in worship 3. Christian living among pagans: To identify or not to identify Those three principle ideas are still at the heart of worship today in our time and in our communities.  These critical issues continue to be debated around ...