Daily Scripture and Thoughts About It

The Scripture readings I am doing right now are from the letters of Paul. My commentary on the readings is in italics. Presently, I am on the 1st letter of Paul to the Corinthians:

1 Cor. 1 – Paul writes the church at Corinth because he concerned about divisions that have arisen among them. It has been reported to him that these divisions are based on loyalties of factions to different teachers – to Paul, to Apollos or Cephas, men who have come and instructed them on their admittance into the people of Christ. We [all those who teach of him] preach a “crucified Christ, to the Jews an obstacle that they cannot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (23-25).

How can one reasonably accept an explanation or teaching about Christ that seems to violate both Jewish tradition, from which the whole idea of the “anointed one,” “the Christ” came from, and the demands of human reason, which the Greeks celebrated? This problem is still a serious obstacle to many. My way through it or around it is not something completely mysterious to me. It is by understanding Christ as the fulfillment of a tradition and more importantly a narrative that must be “entered into” by us through the faculty of our God-given power of imagination and through what we have come to call “faith,” our inner commitment to a vision that is not in the same category as things we can “know” or “prove.” We cannot know that truth lies here, in Christ, but we cannot see life as meaningless or empty of spiritual realities that elude reason or logic either. Somehow we must just accept that we have been given faith. It is just part of the person I am.

“The human race has nothing to boast about to God, but you [those who are part of the community of faith], God has made members of Christ Jesus and by God’s doing he has become our wisdom, and our virtue, and our holiness, and our freedom” (30).