1 Corinthians: You Are a People - Part 1

Paul gets bad news from Corinth… his friends are at each other's throats. Disputes have broken out all over the place over multiple issues. Paul says he is coming to visit them and that he 'does not want to see them only in passing’ (1 Cor 16:7) In other words, when he gets there he is going to have to stay a while to sort all of this out. Paul writes this letter to the Cornithians (which this new series is based upon) as a stopgap measure, until he can go to them in person. Paul’s strategy for addressing these conflicts is revealed in the first couple of verses where he says: ‘To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours’. He calls them the church, using the ancient Greek term ekklesia which refers to a gathering of citizens responsible for the affairs of the city. He also tells them that they are a people and reminds them that they are ‘together with’ everyone everywhere who calls on Jesus’ name. A gathering, a people, together with… in other words, from the outset of this letter Paul is getting the Corinthians to think corporately and communally. The theological equivalent of supposing that the sun goes around the earth is the belief that the whole of the Christrian truth revolves around me and my salvation. Many Christians today assume that the central question is ‘What must I do to be saved?’ or ‘How can I enter a right relationship with God?’ And this is not just the wisdom of many contemporary Christians, but the wisdom of our broader culture which claims that salvation is found in discovering and becoming our true selves. The self is something buried deep down inside us just waiting to be discovered. In this context Paul is a Copernicus or a Galileo… because the radical story Paul is drawing us into is one where salvation is not just about me personally but about a collective and corporate salvation where we are saved together. And in this story your ‘self’ is not something found within yourself but your selfhood or personhood emerges at those places where our lives touch each other.

 

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