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 1 Corinthians 3-5 and (because it is Sunday) Psalms 140 and 141.

Do you remember how Paul used the terms "flesh" and "spirit" in Romans, not to speak of a split between "body" and "soul" (which would have been unthinkable to his Jewish mind), but to refer to deeper, almost cosmic realities? In Chapter 3 he does somewhat the same thing for the Corinthians, but he goes even further by calling them "babies." And while he is building toward the great image of the unity of the living Body of Christ, he starts with an architectural model. "You are the Temple of God." Paul, founder of the Corinthian community, laid the foundations and gave it its basic structure, and those who came after, like the eloquent Apollos, are contributing, but the Temple is God's and God's alone.

In Chapter 5 we find an example of the Corinthians' misguided enlightenment. There was, evidently, strong support for accepting within the community a form of acting out which, Paul reminds them, was a scandal even to the pagans (never mind what the example was doing to the Church). Paul, in Ephesus, issues an excommunication. Why?! This was not a punishment, but a form of teaching. Under the circumstances, it was the only way possible to convince the man himself (and the rest of the community) that behavior like this was deadly for the soul. They are playing with fire: In Chapter 11, treating of the liturgy, Paul will advise the Corinthians to examine their consciences before receiving Communion lest they "eat and drink judgment" upon themselves (1 Corinthians 11:29). Meanwhile, the excommunication would not mean a permanent exclusion from the Eucharistic assembly, but a medicinal "fast" that would hopefully see the man return to good health ("salvation" in Greek) in the community. 

Psalm 140 is the prayer of someone under attack, threatened by a crafty foe. The first half of the Psalm calls upon God and describes the peril using the imagery of warfare and hunting; the last verses express confidence that the wicked one's ruses will all backfire. But the middle verses! They are a cascade of invocations of God, each one using the Divine Name (rendered in the Bible as LORD). This is a Psalm of heartfelt trust.

In Psalm 141 the image of incense rising up to God during the evening sacrifice at the Temple serves as a reminder to lift up one's hands in prayer for deliverance not from an invading army, or a violent enemy, but from an even more insidious threat: temptation. 

Start reading 1 Corinthian 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.

While we read Paul's letters to the Corinthians, you might also enjoy A Week in the Life of Corinth. This historical novel is set in first-century Corinth and outfitted with historical footnotes and archaeological sidebars. Ben Witherington III is a Scripture scholar in the Evangelical tradition, so there are some points in which his description of the worship in the Corinthian community mirrors that tradition rather than the Jewish roots of the liturgy we know so well, but his description of the social life and values of ancient Corinth may be extremely helpful in understanding things Paul takes for granted in his letters.