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![]() For him, being Christian was about change I am to become a new creature (some translations render this “new creation,” 2 Cor 5:17). ![]() And while both of these analogies have scriptural support, I found great value and spiritual maturity in how Paul described this. As I got a little older, I saw it as a journey from “here” to “there” my job was to ensure that I didn’t “wonder off” and get lost before I arrived at my destination. Third, for a long time, especially as a younger man, I considered being Christian to be a grand, cosmic exam my job was to get a passing score. This is a powerful (and for me, very difficult) vision for Christian life. Community is the essence of Christian life for Paul. From his ethical exhortations (e.g., Rom 12, 1 Cor 8, Gal 6, Phil 4) to his attempts to heal divisions among believers (e.g., 1 Cor 1, 2 Cor 2), Paul is explicit that community care and concern is the defining characteristic of what it looks like to have life “in Christ.” This is not because being in community is some sort of commandment-a box that needs to be checked-for Paul this is because when we are finally “in Christ” can “discern” that “the Lord’s body” is the community (1 Cor 11:29) and that, as we are in community, we “are the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27). For Paul, community isn’t “part of” Christian life, rather to be Christian is to be in community with others. I generally viewed this community focus “one part of” living as a Christian life… which meant (in my mind) that there were other things that were also “part of” the Christian life, like studying the scriptures, on which I could place significantly more focus (in private!), thus allowing others to focus on community-stuff. That said, intellectually I understood that a Christian life included interactions with others. I’m mostly content to be alone or with a few close friends. ![]() Second, as a naturally shy and fairly reserved person, I have always had a tenuous link to the community. Said another way, to the extent that we encourage sameness among our members we weaken our community to the extent that we embrace and make room for diversity among our members, we make our community more powerful. Our strength as a community is not in spite of our differences, but rather it is inextricably connected with our differences. We need different spiritual gifts, different experiences, different ideas, different approaches, different ways of being, etc. Just like a body has and benefits from its many (and very, very different) members, so, also, does the church. We need people to be different: we need eyes to be eyes, and toes to be toes, and hands to be hands, and feet to be feet, and noses to be noses, and eyebrows to be eyebrows, and colons to be colons, and fingernails to be fingernails, and ulnas to be ulnas, and kidneys to be kidneys…. Diversity isn’t just nice, Paul teaches it is absolutely fundamental to a functioning and faithful Christian community (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). I embraced Lavina Fielding Anderson’s expression that there is a “fundamental holiness diversity.” But re-reading Paul this year really brought this home in a new and powerful way. For me, there are three things that really struck me as I studied Paul’s letters this time (alone and with my fellow congregants) that I will carry forward.įirst, for a while now I have valued the fact that members of the church are all, in meaningful ways, very different. However, in our shared voyage through the scriptures, each of us has the opportunity to better understand, or pick up new, treasures of faith that we can continue to carry with us. ![]() And, as much as I am looking forward to delving into the Catholic Epistles over the next few weeks, I will miss exploring Paul’s approach to faith in Jesus at my weekly worship services. In the Come, Follow Me study guide we have transitioned out of the writings of Paul.
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