Read the Bible with Me!

Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! We've been reading the Bible clear through this year. We are finishing the New Testament, so read along with me. But first, let us pray: 

Father,

When the fullness of time had come, you sent your Word in the One who said, “Whoever sees me, sees the Father.” No revelation can surpass this until Jesus comes again. By your gift, the Church continues to receive unfathomable riches from the inheritance handed on from the Apostles and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.

Let the Spirit who inspired the writing of today's pages "guide me in the truth and teach me" to follow Jesus ever more closely, until he calls me to follow him to the Kingdom where he lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.

Today's chapters are 2 Corinthians 8-10 and (because it is Sunday) Psalms 142 and 143.

In his first letter, Paul referred briefly to athletic competitions and the victor's "crown that withers." Here he puts the Corinthians' cultural competitiveness at the service of virtue by praising the generosity of the Macedonians in their contributions for the poor of Judaea. Then he puts to them the ultimate example: that of Christ, who

being rich
made himself poor
so that by his poverty
you might become rich.

Scripture scholar Michael Gorman has recognized in this short phrase a pattern that characterizes Paul's Christology and his spirituality, which Gorman calls "Cruciformity." Gorman sees it all over the place, and he's convinced me, too. Many have noticed that Paul's characteristic moral exhortation is to "imitate Christ" and even to "imitate me as I imitate Christ," but Gorman takes it a step farther—and deeper. Those exhortations almost always put the example of Christ in the form of a carefully structured paradox. The language hints at Christ's Trinitarian pre-existence and the great self-emptying of the Incarnation, and put that immense mystery before us. It is the "image" in which we were created, and the example by which (if we conform to it) we will find fullness of life. 

I might highlight a few more examples as they arise (the hymn in Philippians 2 and Paul's application to himself in Philippians 3 are outstanding), but just to demonstrate the "rhythm" of the pattern: see how the words rich and poor form an A-B relationship in the first couplet? That is reversed in the second couplet: B-A. The first and final lines are where the emphasis lies. It is the springboard for the outcome: you (us!) becoming "rich" with the original wealth of Christ Jesus. But what wealth is that? Evidently, the wealth he had before "he made himself poor." In Philippians, Paul will start the great hymn even more dramatically, "Being in the form of God...he emptied himself."

This is the example Paul is setting before the Corinthians as the motivation for the collection for the relief of the poor believers in Judaea. The collection is the context for two full chapters of 2 Corinthians, but it became the prompt for some very rich teaching for us!

In Chapter 10 we get a bit of defensiveness from Paul. He has been criticized for his inelegant oratory and a scrawny personal presence that (even then!) came nowhere near to the strength communicated by his letters. He is about to respond to more serious charges, however: Those ad hominem attacks really aim at his Gospel message. By disparaging Paul as a person, the new arrivals aim to discredit everything he taught. Watch how he begins to take the interlopers down. It is classic Paul.

Psalm 142 is the short, powerful lament of someone who feels utterly alone in the world. Only God is available to hear the "cry," the "beseeching," the "complaint" of "distress." That complaint is expressed in words full of bitterness, but also of trust, because "you know my path." And the psalm ends with the expectation of thanksgiving!

Psalm 143, identified as "a Psalm of David," is the last of the Church's "Seven Penitential Psalms." The psalmist acknowledges that no human being can stand before God self-justified, but the circumstances at the time of this prayer are such that the psalmist cries out, "The enemy has pursued my soul.... Hasten to answer me, Lord!" The Psalm does not end with thanksgiving, but with a trustful series of requests and the motivation, "for I am your servant." 

Start reading 2 Corinthians here and the Psalms here. 

For additional background

N.T. Wright's Paul: A Biography is the book I would recommend to someone who wanted to read one (only one) book that combined the life and letters of St Paul. Written by a noted Scripture, this is a flowing narrative that is scripturally enlightening and historically sound. Wright gives the reader a way of following Paul through the Acts of the Apostles and the writing of his letters, making Paul the person that much more approachable, and the letters themselves more readable as a result of having a social and historical context.

Michael Gorman's Cruciformity is a favorite of many of the sisters (my copy is on loan right now; a sister wanted to use it for her retreat!). It's not light reading, but if you want to study St Paul's thought, I gave you a tiny hint of the core structural insight above. Gorman shows how the pattern that first shows up in 2 Corinthians (I think; I can't even check my copy right now to verify that!) is repeated explicitly in key parts of the major epistles, and is implicit in a number of other passages. Later, Gorman developed the more spiritual implications of this insight in his book, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification and Theosis in Paul's Narrative Soteriology. (Good stuff. Don't let the title scare you.)