Today’s Readings: Psalm 140; Joshua 10:1-15; John 7:53-8:11; 1 Corinthians 9:19-27; Psalm 18:25-50
Of all the people in the Bible who get a bad rap, I would say there’s one who stands out for me more than any other. That person? The apostle Paul. And why do I say that? Well, I know many folks who have come to think of Paul as the embodiment of intolerance. They point to words attributed to Paul in the pastoral letters that would limit the role of women in the church and point toward a rigid hierarchy in the church and think those things represent the essence of Paul. Those who take such a position don’t realize that most biblical scholars believe that roughly half of the books in the New Testament that were attributed to Paul by tradition were actually written by someone else! So if those exclusionary things that I spoke of don’t represent the essence of Paul, what words do? I would point towards today’s words from 1 Corinthians. In today’s passage from 1 Corinthians we get an image of Paul as being a proponent of what I feel is the single most important dimension of evangelism: flexibility. This dimension was revealed when Paul wrote: “I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view” (1 Corinthians 9:22 from The Message). Too often modern folks equate evangelism with imposing your perceptions and beliefs on another in a dogmatic manner. Paul points us toward another model where we step outside of ourselves and share our faith from the vantage point of another. Such an effort shows that you care enough about the other to see things from their perspective. So how do you go about sharing your faith? Do you stay rigidly locked into your own social location and talk AT others, or do you follow Paul’s advice and step outside of yourself and share your faith in terms to which others can relate? Til next time…
Of all the people in the Bible who get a bad rap, I would say there’s one who stands out for me more than any other. That person? The apostle Paul. And why do I say that? Well, I know many folks who have come to think of Paul as the embodiment of intolerance. They point to words attributed to Paul in the pastoral letters that would limit the role of women in the church and point toward a rigid hierarchy in the church and think those things represent the essence of Paul. Those who take such a position don’t realize that most biblical scholars believe that roughly half of the books in the New Testament that were attributed to Paul by tradition were actually written by someone else! So if those exclusionary things that I spoke of don’t represent the essence of Paul, what words do? I would point towards today’s words from 1 Corinthians. In today’s passage from 1 Corinthians we get an image of Paul as being a proponent of what I feel is the single most important dimension of evangelism: flexibility. This dimension was revealed when Paul wrote: “I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view” (1 Corinthians 9:22 from The Message). Too often modern folks equate evangelism with imposing your perceptions and beliefs on another in a dogmatic manner. Paul points us toward another model where we step outside of ourselves and share our faith from the vantage point of another. Such an effort shows that you care enough about the other to see things from their perspective. So how do you go about sharing your faith? Do you stay rigidly locked into your own social location and talk AT others, or do you follow Paul’s advice and step outside of yourself and share your faith in terms to which others can relate? Til next time…
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