Words for reflection

We have so many things to do, we forget why we are doing them; we have so many things, we forget why they matter.

Marva Dawn, Unfettered Hope: A Call to Faithful Living in an Affluent Society

Christians can't be pessimists because we know the future and its connection to the character of God.  Moreover, the future aeon has already broken into this present age, and God's kingly reign has already begun.  On the other hand, however, Christians cannot be optimists either, because we know that this aeon is still in severe trouble.  This time and this world are still characterized by sinfulness, brokenness, evil, idolatries, overwhelming fetters.  Instead of being either pessimists or optimists  Christians are hopeful realists. 

Marva Dawn, Unfettered Hope: A Call to Faithful Living in an Affluent Society

What is desperately needed and seldom found in the church is an adequate theology of the family of faithful.  Paul believes that being brothers and sisters in Christ and sons and daughters of God transcends all other loyalties and should transform all other social relationships   Blood should not be thicker than the baptismal waters in the church.  Rather Paul calls for a "relativized" view of all this-worldly institutes, including marriage.  His idea of a family "church" is actualized where God's people treat each other as their primary family, not just as some secondary social gathering that happens once a week and that promotes the agenda of the nuclear family.

Ben Witherington, Conflict & Community In Corinth

Order of Worship,  February 3 2013

Grace Presbyterian Church

Words for reflection

One wonders how many congregations would hire someone like Paul, who touts his weakness in personal presence, his penchant to find or stir up trouble, his run-ins with the law, and his lack of the skills so often most valued today in a preacher, namely, good oral form, verbal eloquence, powerful delivery, and meaningful gestures.  I suspect that all too often we evaluate our ministers using Corinthian, not Pauline, criteria. In doing so, we too, have bought into the world's dominant vision of what it means to be wise, powerful and of great worth and have, like the Corinthians, made void the preaching of the cross.  The wisdom of the cross is a message not about strength instead of weakness, but in fact about power through weakness, through self-sacrificial behavior, through reliance on God's power to work through us.  It is not about our human power to manipulate a situation.  Until we learn the meaing of the words "when I was weak, then I was strong," until we learn what it means to be empty of self and full of Christ, we will continue to misread Paul's theology of leadership, status, power and wisdom.  Until then, the 'church' will continue to play the game of power politics with ministry, an all too human and too Corinthian game indeed.

Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth 

Order of Worship, January 6 2013

Grace Presbyterian Church