Walking By Faith Not By Sight… Turns into A Seen Reality (With new eyes (For Reality is Not as it Seems))…. If ya know what I mean.


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 constructed essays), as I have yet to read it all through the lens that Bailey presented, but I am looking forward to grasping it more and more. It really encouraged me that Paul set the agenda for the church in Corinth. It makes the text so much more worthy of close attention of the reader, in my opinion, as he is addressing issues that are specific to the capital C Church (us, me, you, them). One one question I had in regards to this was: If the letter in 1 Corinthians is addressed to all believers everywhere, and it is the only letter to do so, does this make the other letters less important? Does this make 1 Corinthians something we should pay MORE attention to? I would think not, but just curious about whether this difference in 1 Corinthians really matters in light of the fact that Paul wants us to listen in on the telephone call with every church? That is why they are in the Bible? Thoughts would be appreciated.

Secondly, I loved how Bailey discussed the “IMPORTANT” question of ‘why does any of this matter’ on page 50. How validating that is to hear that this study would not matter if it wasn’t incredibly relevant to my knowing Jesus and the way he wants to communicate with us. I want to understand Paul’s intent when he did write this letter, especially through the different parallelisms and repetitive homilies. He seems well focused (Bailey, that is) on not getting too caught up in ‘word games’ as he calls them. That helps in my gaining his trust, as I know that his focus is not in idolizing details but worshiping our God through the details. Another revelation for me was in the chapters not being indications of the beginning and end of certain passages. That frees up the Holy Spirit more to speak to me in the text as a whole.

I so look forward to putting on the lens of Paul’s Hebrew literary heritage more as I read the scriptures, and I pray for focus so that all of us can appreciate it so much more.

Have also been enjoying the blogs thus far. Look forward to any response to my question earlier in my blog.

Alyssa Newman

Comments

  1. Reid DelgadoNovember 5, 2018 at 11:18 AM

    HI Alyssa, great post! I will attempt to answer your question with two thoughts.

    1. Since Paul was responding to the Corinthians for the 2nd time (remember first letter was lost), maybe, just maybe Paul realized that similar issues were arising in other congregations as well and he could address those issues with a direct and general address to the Corinthians. The practice of circulating letters between the churches (mail route) was already in affect.

    2. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.… " Paul wrote this to Timothy and of course he was talking about the OT as scripture. Enter the Holy Spirit and we now consider this writing a part of the canon of scripture, sooooo... I can confidently say that one letter isn't more important than the other because all scripture is..........God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.…

    Hope my attempt to answer made sense! =)

    ReplyDelete

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