CULTURAL STUDIES IN 1 CORINTHIANS

Maybe I’m trapped in seeing everything through the lens of the super ultra packet.   As I read 3.1 to 3.6 I constantly saw myself out on the water (and sometimes in the water, sputtering - a desperate fool at the end of his pitiful rope) as I read how Paul wrestles with how we, the body of Christ,  navigate the turbulent waters of  loving and serving the lost kids of Adam. Some of my favorite (am I out on the water or eaves dropping on the Corinthian church?) passages are as follows: “The overall essay focuses on the question of how Christians are to live out their lives in a pagan world. Are they to accommodate to that world, and if so-to what extent? Are they to blend in or stand apart?” “Knowledge, love and God. Love is more important than knowledge. Love builds, while knowledge creates pride.” – By the way, this discussion brought to mind this clause from our writing on Modesty…. “ The temptation occurs when the disciple desires for people to lus...

Section 3-3.6 screamed to me SONSHINE!!!!!! (Of course in my best William Wallace voice from Braveheart). Summary: 3.1 - Food offered to Idols - If eating the meat from the market place causes a brother or sister to stumble, then I will place SELF-IMPOSED limits on my actions and become a vegetarian (please God no!).  We see Paul setting limits on his personal freedom for the sake of the Gospel.  Whatever the Gospel ministry requires, Paul is okay with setting self limitations in order to see the Gospel through.  For Paul, the same self-limitation applies to accepting a salary and to marriage. (SONSHINE!!!!!) 3.2 - Paul's Personal Freedom and responsibility - Here we see Paul maintaining the freedom to choose his own servant-hood path.  Paul did not allow the Corinthians to control the direction of his mission to the gentiles.  "Am I not Free?"  he asks.  Paul establishes his freedom in ministry and then goes on to show how that freedom plays out ...

Heyyoooo! I am just now joining the study on behalf of amazon "prime"... I am not upset ovbiously. So I have some catching up to do, but so far just after reading the first chapter I have learned so much! This book is gnarly and I hate reading books, however I have been digging in and discovering just how cool the scriptures really are.  Paul is so intentional in his writings that it is so packed with hidden jems of knowledge, and I'm loving it! The ideas in chapter 1.2 were very compelling to me. Paul doesn't care if the words he writes are poetic or hymn-like. He knows that the words of God speak for themselves. The idea that scripture is not to be read to be interpreted into whatever meaning you feel like it is portraying, but to simply record the history of God is so relatable to us and the things in our world and church community. So excited to continue this study with you guys! Maddie D.

Hello all! These past few months I have been living in Italy, and just this past week my book for the fall study finally showed up (amazon prime is not so prime in this country). I have quite a bit of reading to do to catch up, but reading your blog posts has been such an encouragement to me as I am overseas and away from my normal community in Christ.  I am extremely blessed to hear about how Christ is working in you through this study! I am loving my time here in Italy and hope that all is well back in the USA - please let me know how I can be praying for you in my time over here! Ciao

So...I'll be honest - I'm behind, but wanted to get some thoughts out from the Section 1 reading. Leading up to reading the whole section on The CROSS and Church Unity, I was talking with some other leaders from my church about this very thing - UNITY. It's always funny (read: intentional) when God melds two seemingly different worlds together at the same time. It sends my brain and heart on high alert - because I know He's trying to communicate something important. And really, what is more important to the Father except his Bride (the church) living in unity with one another? Paul talks about it a ton in his letters to the early church - Jesus talked about it - heck, even the Trinity modeled it. When I think of believers living in unity like Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians (and many other places) - I picture two experiences of mine: Sonshine and my current church (Active Church). There's been other ministry experiences where unfortunately, I don't belie...

Hi Alyssa – I think different portions of scripture resonate with me personally depending on my circumstances.   For example, when the summer starts I always feel intimately connected to Jesus sending the disciples into a storm.   As we send our lives each June “through the open door unknown” – thanks John Foreman – I feel intensely the restless exhilaration of Christ sending us out into the storm of relational ministry on the water.   So, that particular scripture communes with me in a unique way.   Back in 2012 when odds were my wife was going to die and then God delivered her I thought of Lazarus and the many other stories where Jesus delivered people from hopeless circumstances.   I also felt acutely connected to the resurrection story.   One night when Sarah was improving but still unstable for reasons unknown to me I felt myself losing my mind as I left the hospital briefly.   I recall vividly walking alone down the streets of San Francisco ...

I have been searching for a way to summarize the reading for the past 2 weeks and I think I finally have it! 1 Corinthians 7:35 - "I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord." 2.1 - Immorality and the church - Paul's advice, "Have undivided devotion to the Lord" 2.2  Three Roadblocks: Leaven, immorality, and the law courts - Paul's advice, "Have undivided devotion to the Lord" 2.3 Theology of Sexual Practice: Kingdom Ethics - Paul's advice, "Have undivided devotion to the Lord" 2.4 Theology of Sexual Practice: Joining the Body - Paul's advice, "Have undivided devotion to the Lord" 2.5 Sexual Practice in Harmony with the Gospel - Paul's advice, "Have undivided devotion to the Lord" I know at face value that answer can seem like a crazy over generalization. It can even be viewed as a cop-out of having to deal...

Thanks Mirm for your "You Mean Boundaries Don't Contradict Grace?" post. This started as a comment in response to your post but quickly spun into a blog entry. In your post you pray that God would give us "discernment to create and enforce boundaries."  The way you capture and express discernment resonated with some of the expositions from Bailey that stuck out to me in the reading.   In thinking of discernment these words from Bailey stuck out... "Some in the congregation are at least contemplating plating (and perhaps urging) leaving this mess for Paul to sort out when he arrives. That way the congregation can avoid the painful and distasteful task of making a decision. Furthermore, whatever Paul decides, they can then blame him. "He said this," "He failed to do that," "If only he had ..." The discussion can last for months and the damage for years." He then writes... "Paul is too intelligent...

In Bailey’s commentary on Paul’s exposure of the immorality in the Corinthian church, he writes that “we live in a world where the church tolerates every kind of sin because (of course) we cannot be ‘judgmental’. This belief comes in part out of a fundamental misunderstanding of discipline! Discipline, Bailey writes, is designed to be remedial, not judgmental. Out of this explanation, Bailey goes on the explain the need to ‘draw the line’ in the church! BOUNDARIES! What a concept!!! God given boundaries are designed to create freedom, not inhibit it! They work in partnership with grace, not in contradiction with it!   I pray that God would give me and all the church the discernment to create and enforce boundaries that bring us closer to the original design of the bridegroom of Christ. That we wouldn’t be calloused and rigid in our interpretation of law and boundaries for their own sake alone, but that we would understand the law and boundaries as an...

Reality is not as it seems… when you see with old eyes… but with eyes of faith, you start to see new. And that is what is so exciting about the depth of this study when partnering with the Holy Spirit. Hi y’all! I am running pretty behind in the study (I have now just finished 0.1), but the Holy Spirit has just kept me moving slowly for the sake of understanding in the first part of this book, really pushing me to understand the genius behind God’s intent through Paul’s writing, the proactive nature of this letter (rather than reactive), and the layers of the onion that we get to peal back with the deep deep understanding of the poetic meaningful rhetoric. It is so meaningful to me to be reading 1 Corinthians side by side with the book, because it is really pushing me to let the Holy Spirit be so alive in the Biblical text but also as I read Bailey’s informed theories. I don’t understand quite yet the format described on page 26 (five carefully constru...