Journeying with Paul...part four

Journeying with Paul, continued...

At this point we see that Paul spent two years teaching ‘so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.’ But we see, too, that ‘God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.’

We are then introduced to something new, not through Paul but through those that attempted to imitate him. The Jewish exorcists, or Jewish missionaries, were often wanderers, traveling from city to city showing their power to their god. These missionaries would often turn out in the busy places, such as marketplaces, where there would be different missionaries teaching of their god. They would compete against each other trying to prove that their god was the more powerful god. These missionaries would use spiritual forces to try and prove that their god was the more powerful and therefore get the people to follow their god. This was a way of life for these people as well as a means of financial support.

In their attempts to prove their gods superiority they attempted to cast out demons in the name of Christ. This resulted in the demon turning on them.

It was around this time that Paul expresses a desire to go to Rome although he doesn’t follow through on that desire. Instead he sends Timothy and Erastus to Macedonia while he stays in Asia.

And it’s here that he writes to the Corinthians. Once again he begins his letter with a description of himself, although this time we are given a much more insightful description. He begins his letter with, ‘Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus…’ And then he addresses those he is writing to. We once again are given, in our English translation, a word that was not in the original Scriptures. “To the church of God that is in Corinth…” And there it is, once again, helpful to put the true word in the place of the one that men have erroneously inserted into Scripture. We need to add the word ekklesia and remove the word church. Translating ekklesia to ‘the called out ones’ or ‘the called out assembly’, we get, ‘To the called out ones of God that is in Corinth’ or ‘To the called out assembly that is in Corinth.’

And so we can immediately see that Paul is once again addressing not a set of people within a system of worship but a certain group of people. This then makes what he says next very different than the implication we first get. You see if we look at that whole section of Scripture we see that Paul said, ‘To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together…’ This would put us in the mindset that Paul is speaking to the people within the ‘church’ system, that these are the sanctified saints. But if we once again change ‘church’ to the translation of ekklesia, we get, ‘To the called out assembly that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together…’ And with that change we see that he is speaking not to people within a certain worship place but to a certain set of people. These people may or may not have met in specific places but those places, if they existed, would have looked nothing like the ‘churches’ we see today.

This is the believers that Paul is speaking to, the saints, those that are in Christ. The tone of his letter implies that he is speaking to the elect although there would have most likely been believers among the group that were not necessarily the elect. That is, there may have been believers there that did not have saving faith.

We see, very early in this letter, that there is something of a denomination issue going on among the believers in Corinth. They are claiming to ‘follow’ certain people and are not in agreement on who, or Who, they are following. And Paul tells them to have no division among them.

I can only imagine what Paul was experiencing but…I can imagine what Paul was experiencing. A few months ago I watched a documentary on the history of the Bible and in it were scenes of people writing out Scripture. They wrote by candlelight with quill and ink. The furniture was sturdy wood but not necessarily comfortable looking. Scrolls made of animal skins were the ‘paper’ of the time, and we know that scrolls were the paper because we know the Scriptures were written on Scrolls.

So I can imagine Paul sitting in a small room, or even a large one, lit by candles. He is bent over a handmade wooden table, dipping his ‘pen’ in ink and writing on a piece of animal skin. I imagine, too, that he may be doing this at the end of a long day. Maybe he’s tired. Maybe he spent the day working, earning money to pay for the room he’s sitting in, maybe he had a chunk of hard bread and some cheese for supper, maybe he’s still eating it, taking bites from time to time, or maybe he had lamb or some other meat that he ate before coming to this room. Now here he sits, bent over this ‘paper’, scratching, for ‘pens’ in those days made a bit of a scratching sound, out this letter.

I imagine he has had a long day, has probably taught people of Christ that day. He may have had to correct believers, point them back to Christ…again. Maybe he has spent the evening, after working all day, teaching and preaching to anyone that would listen. And now here he is, after having heard from ‘Chloe’s people’ that the believers he left in Corinth, believers that he spent over 18 months with, are now arguing over just who it is that they follow and they are allowing things that they should not.

Is he frustrated as he writes this letter? Does he want to ask them what is so hard about this? Does he want to show them that he is spending his entire life going from place to place telling people the very things he told them and he manages to get it right? Does he want to point out to them all the hours he’s already put in today and now he must put in more time, time when he would like to be sleeping, to write to them and correct them?

Or is he is resigned as he sits down to write the letter? Maybe he sits in that small, candlelit room, eating his supper while he writes or maybe he has taken his ‘pen’, ink, and ‘paper’ and gone into the country or down by the water and he sits under a tree on a bright sunny day, rested for the moment, and he eagerly, if a bit sad at having to do it, grabs this moment of peace and calm to write to them, to encourage them, to tell them how much he appreciates them and to explain to them how they should be living, correcting them even as he encourages them?

We don’t know where Paul was when he wrote the letter or what the weather was like, for all we know there was a fierce thunderstorm raging outside and he was inside a small leaky tent. But wherever he was…he is encouraging and correcting the called out ones that he has left in Corinth.

And it is here, in this first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 2) that we see something of great importance about Paul. He writes, ‘For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.’ Paul was a man of great standing. He had a position that put fear in more than a few hearts. He was well educated. And he says he decided to know nothing but Christ.

This, along with things like his writing of the fruits of the Spirit, that give us insight into who Paul was as a person. He has set aside all that he knows so that he knows nothing but Christ.

As we read through this letter, a letter I’ve read many times before but never in this context, never in light of Paul’s life, I see that Paul’s tone here has changed. He writes more…passionately…here. the first letter of his that we read as we traveled through Paul’s life was written to what he implied may well be people that professed belief but may not have truly believed. He then wrote to those in Thessalonica and he seemed to have deeper affections for those he addressed those letters to, and he even said he boasted of them. But now we see in this letter to the Corinthians that he is going into much deeper issues.

Maybe he taught the believers in Corinth more than he did any of the others. Maybe those in Corinth learned easier. Maybe he spent more time with them. Whatever the reason he is writing them of deeper issues. He even tells them that he had to feed them as if they were infants because they were ‘people of the flesh’ and that they are ‘still of the flesh’ because there is jealousy and strife among them.

Again he gives us insight not only into who we should be in Christ but into the kind of man he must have been. If those in Corinth were ‘people of the flesh’ because of ‘jealousy and strife’ and if he couldn’t teach them things that are ‘spiritually discerned’ because of that…then he must have been without ‘jealousy and strife’.

But that isn’t the only insight he gives us. In this letter he tells us something of his way of life. ‘…we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.’

If ever there was a man to be labeled as a man of God, Paul was him. And there we see that he was ‘like the scum of the world.’ He was poorly dressed and homeless. This is what believing in Christ got him. This is the life the man that wrote a good amount of our New Testament lived.

And people today claim that God wants to bless us with earthly blessings.

Where was Paul’s earthly blessings? Where was his big fancy house? Where were all the earthly things that he deserved?

Now we can add a new image to our picture of Paul, bent over his piece of animal skin, writing a letter by candlelight. Now we can see him in tattered clothes, possibly without shoes. Now we can see him ragged and cast out from the places where people of standing go.

Here was the second greatest man in the New Testament, I personally think he was the second greatest man in all of Scripture but I will admit I am a bit partial to Paul, and he is ‘like the scum of the earth.’

In my imagining of Paul I now imagine that he was like the homeless people of today. The ones that most people pass on the streets, trying to avoid all contact with. Their clothes are dirty and tattered, they may have a backpack at their feet or on their back. Are their hands clean? Do their eyes sparkle? Or are they empty?

About a year ago I was grocery shopping a couple of hours from home. There was a man standing at the exit to the store parking lot, a cardboard sign in his hand said he was homeless. He had a backpack with him. It was cold outside. And there stood this man, in the cold, holding a sign announcing to all that he had nowhere to go.

I remember this man. I remember that he stood there watching every car that passed, walking to those that rolled their windows down, staying where he was when the cars passed him by.

Was this how Paul was? Dirty? Cold? Hungry? Only instead of a sign pronouncing he was homeless, instead of asking for money, he approached people that would listen and told them of Christ. Did he stand on the corner talking to anyone that passed by? Did he wait for the people to stop before he approached them?

I would love to have the chance to sit and listen to Paul talk. Oh, what wonders he could have shared. His value wasn’t in the clothes he wore. It wasn’t in the house he owned. It wasn’t in whether or not he had bathed that day or even that month. His value lay in the message he had to give, in his faith in Christ.

My grandpa grew up in a time that was far removed from the days in which I lived. As a child, and even an adult, I used to ask my grandpa to tell me stories of when he was a boy. He told me of how he quit school in the third grade to hunt and fish to feed his mother and little brother after his dad died. He told me of how he traveled cross country in a covered wagon. These stories were fascinating. They were amazing. They were stories the likes of which no book could give, because unlike books, these stories were real, and they happened to my grandpa.

As my grandpa aged...what did the world see? An old man with little or nothing to contribute to society. A man that got in the way of their pursuits as he drove slowly down the road, driving slowly because his eyesight was failing him. I don't know what the world saw when they encountered my grandpa but I know what the general attitude is toward older people and quite honestly...it seems to be that older people have little to contribute to our lives. They slow us down. They get in our way. They keep us from doing things.

But my grandpa contributed much to my life. He told me stories that I treasure to this day. He spent time with me, took time with me. He loved me. And he had much to share with others, if only they would have listened.

Oh, but for the chance to sit with Paul and listen. What stories he could have told. What insight he would have given. Was Paul dirty? Did he smell bad? Who cares? He was valuable for the wonderful things he could have, and did, share. But he said he had become like scum.

And so here Paul sits, or maybe stands, essentially calling himself scum, writing out his letter to those that he spent so much time on in Corinth. He says that they ‘have become rich’. He tells them that without ‘us’ they have ‘become kings’. These believers he left in Corinth don’t seem to be suffering the same afflictions as those in Thessalonica. And they don’t seem to have the same faith.

He has already admonished them for arguing over who they follow now we see that he gets onto them for sexual immorality. He tells them that he will be coming to them soon, ‘if the Lord wills’, and asks them if they want him to come ‘with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness.’

Paul goes on to tell them that there is sexual immorality among them, the likes of which even the pagans do not tolerate (1 Corinthians 5). He then tells them that this person should be removed from among them and that even though he isn't there with them he has already judged this person/situation.

Oh, how that flies against the ways of our American culture today. If there was a single sentence to use to define the standard go-to belief of our times, it would seem to be 'don't judge'. I've heard that statement from children and adults alike. I've heard it said about statements that I couldn't imagine anyone judging anything on anyway. And I've even heard someone say it because they had a heater under their desk in a very air conditioned building. People of today seem to think that 'don't judge' is the way to live and to look at others. I won't go to far into that because I'm fairly sure I could write pages on that subject alone, but what would even most 'Christians' of today think if they were to be told that someone, anyone, said, 'For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgement on the one who did such a thing'. Not only did he say that, something that would have American's as a whole pitching a fit if anyone dared to say such a thing about them, but he went on to say, 'you are to deliver this man to Satan'.

What I wouldn't give to hear anyone speak so plainly, so openly, so Truthfully, today. Who dares to stand before blatant sinners and tell them, yes, judgmentally, Scripturally judgmentally, that what they are doing is wrong. Who tells them that they are in the hands of Satan for what they are doing? Who tells them that they cannot be in the midst of others because of their sin?

Paul did.

He even went so far as to tell them that they are to judge those that are within the 'church', or the called out ones, the very people that he referred to as 'the way'. He went so far as to tell them, 'purge the evil person from among you'.

In other words, he says not to allow those living in sin to be among the called out ones, among the believers, do not tolerate their sins in your midst.

But most people today that claim to be 'Christians' willingly, eagerly, accept people living in sinful lifestyles into their midst, embracing them as they, both the 'Christians' and the blatant sinner, professing to be 'Christians'. Both parties would claim that the best way to influence someone 'for Christ' is to simply love them in their sin.

Not so says Paul.

At least not if they are Christians. What of those that profess to be 'Christians'? That's a good question, one I won't attempt to answer here.

Paul goes on, giving more instructions, giving deeper insights. He writes of marriage and marrying. He writes on what to do in marriage.

In chapter 7 verse 17, Paul says something that I find amazing every time I read it, 'Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him'. I find that so enlightening. Here, in a single sentence, Paul clearly says that each person has a life assigned to him. Years ago my children were in a program that assigned numbers to each participating child. When we arrived to the program, we had to sign in and let them know we were there. Upon signing in we were handed a paper with a number printed on it. This number was to be pinned to my children's backs. We weren't asked what number we wanted. We weren't told to pick a number. We were never given an option between number this or number that. We were simply handed the number that had been assigned to each child. And we never put up a fuss over the number, it never even occurred to us to do so.

We were assigned the number and we took the number assigned to us. Here, in this verse, Paul clearly says that each person is assigned a life. We do not get to chose what that life is, although many think they do. It's like some kind of grand illusion, did someone chose to go to college or choose not to, did they chose to marry this person or that one? They think that they choose their life based on the choices they made but Scripture clearly says their life is assigned to them.

So, here, in the midst of Paul's instructions on marriage and marrying, he drops this very important tidbit of information, information that can and probably does sum up so much of all of life on earth for all of time on earth.

It's hard to move from that single verse, and the great importance it imparts to life, and back to what Paul is teaching. I wonder if he tucked that little bit of information in there in the midst of all the other things he was teaching on purpose. Did he deliberately try to make it blend in to what was written around it? Either way, no matter how my mind wants to get stuck on that single verse, to stay there, to marvel over what Paul has just said, there is so much more to read, to study, to learn, and an entire lifetime of Paul's yet to discover, so I will leave that verse behind and move forward.

Paul teaches them of the fruits of the Spirit, on what the body of Christ is made up of, and how there should be no division in the body of Christ. He teaches on love and what love means. We can see what love is, or should be, in chapter 13. Then he tells them how they should worship together, not led by a single man, but with several men, leading and teaching, contributing what they know, and telling them that women should be silent in their meetings, questioning their own husband's at home.

He goes on to encourage them in their faith, telling them, 'unless you believed in vain', so even here he questions their faith, or at least questions the faith of some. Then later he tells them to wake and do not go on sinning.

Paul tells them that he will visit them and possibly stay with them for a time. He encourages them even to the very last word of his letter, a letter that held both encouragement and chastisement, a letter that contained love and taught on love. A letter that must have caused him pain to write, as he dealt with issues that he had heard of, issues that, it would seem, made him question their faith. And then he ends his letter, not just in love but in...judgment?...wrath?...by saying, 'If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed', and then he tells them, 'the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you'. So he curses them and sends Christ's grace to them as he ends his letter.

To be continued....