1 Corinthians

How can Paul navigate the choppy waters of a pagan environment, with its idols and temples? The obvious place to start is the Shema.

How can Paul navigate the choppy waters of a pagan environment, with its idols and temples? The obvious place to start is the Shema.

How can Paul navigate the choppy waters of a pagan environment, with its idols and temples? The obvious place to start is the Shema.

The preacher faces several challenges in these Ascension texts. How can we present Jesus’ departure from the earth as an occasion for not sorrow but celebration? How to translate the kingship and hierarchical language into imagery that speaks to a world no longer governed by kings and monarchs?

Feminist biblical scholars note a third challenge: How can we counter Luke-Acts' use of the Ascension to exert a degree of social control?

I have pastored the same church for 18 years. That's not exactly a towering pinnacle, but it does provide some interesting views.

Sometimes when I set out to preach from the Revised Common Lectionary I feel like calling someone from the Consultation on Common Texts to get the scoop on why the group settled on a particular set of pericopes. This week, Isaiah’s marriage metaphor and Jesus’ miraculous transformation of water into wedding wine are an obvious match. The rationale for including 1 Corinthians 12:1-11’s discussion of spiritual gifts is less clear.

Offering the elements to the unbaptized can be seen as a development and not a revolution, but it is a significant change. Is it a good one?

A man stumbled into church drunk and bleeding from his hand. "I have hepatitis C," he said. I remembered this as I read Richard Beck's book Unclean.

God's "consuming fire" is the fire of holy love. It doesn't await sinners in the future; it burns up sin itself.

I dreamed of meeting Adam in heaven. He wasn't hard to recognize; he looked like my great-uncle Harold, with the weight of his years melted off.

While Christian scholars have long questioned body-soul dualism, it remains common in church circles. This may finally be changing.

While Christian scholars have long questioned body-soul dualism, it remains common in church circles. This may finally be changing.

While Christian scholars have long questioned body-soul dualism, it remains common in church circles. This may finally be changing.

Paul has a way with a sneer. Nineteen times in 1 Corinthians 1, Paul mentions wisdom, and each time we hear a growing sneer in his voice, until he nominates Christ as the wisdom of God. The word "wisdom" is distasteful to him because it is wooing the Corinthians to pursue a dead wisdom when they might turn to a wisdom he calls the "source of life"--and come alive.  

When Paul writes that Christ is the wisdom of God, he's tapping into an ancient way of speaking about God. He's drilling down into proverbs, where wisdom plays the part of the creative spirit of God. Wisdom is begotten of God, the firstborn of all creation, the very spirit alive in Creation, a feminine expression of God. This isn't just some hocus pocus stuff from the Old Testament, either. The New Testament writers are so influenced by this thinking that they pay homage to Lady Wisdom everywhere.

Paul has a way with a sneer. Nineteen times in 1 Corinthians 1, Paul mentions wisdom, and each time we hear a growing sneer in his voice, until he nominates Christ as the wisdom of God. The word "wisdom" is distasteful to him because it is wooing the Corinthians to pursue a dead wisdom when they might turn to a wisdom he calls the "source of life"--and come alive.  

When Paul writes that Christ is the wisdom of God, he's tapping into an ancient way of speaking about God. He's drilling down into proverbs, where wisdom plays the part of the creative spirit of God. Wisdom is begotten of God, the firstborn of all creation, the very spirit alive in Creation, a feminine expression of God. This isn't just some hocus pocus stuff from the Old Testament, either. The New Testament writers are so influenced by this thinking that they pay homage to Lady Wisdom everywhere.

"You're a preacher, I can tell," the woman said to me. "But not yet."