Welcome to 2 Corinthians
Last year was probably one of the most difficult I have experienced in 36 years of ordained ministry; this is saying something, because I have never settled for options that were comfortable or on the easy side of the street. As I struggled during the hot sweaty dog days of summer to find something in Scripture that would speak to my aching soul, I found myself in the course of my daily readings working my way through Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians.
2 Corinthians was probably the Pauline epistle that I knew the least well, but as I began reading it in the midst of circumstances that were taking me to the end of my tether, I found myself riveted by the apostle's words. Not only had he experienced some of the same agonies as myself in his wrestlings over the Corinthian church, but he was speaking about them in language that I understood. From having hardly ever read this letter with much care, I have now read it through at least a dozen times and my bible is marked up with observations I have made and emphases that have spoken volumes. I have looked at it in both English translations and the Greek text.
I hit bottom in late October, early November, and at that time I thought the Church of the Apostles was in the process of folding. That it didn't has little to do with me, and much more to do with the God-given stubbornness of our bishop and our senior warden. It was at that point that I promised myself I was going to spend the whole of 2005 studying this book because there is much in it that addresses the stresses, strains, anxieties, and delights of 21st Century ministry.
Like our society, the image of Christian leadership has been Disnified -- and the result is an understanding of what it means to lead the People of God that is more like a Donald Duck cartoon than the reality of trying to keep ourselves afloat and providing leadership in a culture that is increasingly biased against our message and lifestyle. A further complication for those of us who are Episcopalians is that we are now part of a denomination that has decided to pursue the culture and address revelation in its own bizarre way. It is no wonder that so many of us who are leaders are wounded and in great discomfort.
I think that Second Corinthians is the balm that we need. It is strong chemotherapy, if you want to stick with a medical metaphor, but I think it helps us see this battle with principalities and powers in the right perspective, and I believe that it is the purgative that our souls need if we are to be faithful to this task.
Here is how we will study the text:
Each week I will put up a passage and my observations about the passage. Then I invite you to come to the blog at any time and add your own observations, insights, etc. I have invited Mike Thompson, Vice-Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, to join us on this journey as a New Testament scholar and pastor who has written a little commentary on this book (Transforming Grace - Michael B. Thompson. Oxford: Bible Reading Fellowship, 1998).
The translation of the Greek text that I am using is the English Standard Version, but if you wish to comment on the Greek text feel free to do so.
What I hope is that by the end of the year we will have cut our minds with one another and the Apostle Paul, and that we will have a body of materials that in some form or other will be helpful to other pastors struggling with the onward march of postmodernity and our advance into a post-Christendom world.
2 Corinthians was probably the Pauline epistle that I knew the least well, but as I began reading it in the midst of circumstances that were taking me to the end of my tether, I found myself riveted by the apostle's words. Not only had he experienced some of the same agonies as myself in his wrestlings over the Corinthian church, but he was speaking about them in language that I understood. From having hardly ever read this letter with much care, I have now read it through at least a dozen times and my bible is marked up with observations I have made and emphases that have spoken volumes. I have looked at it in both English translations and the Greek text.
I hit bottom in late October, early November, and at that time I thought the Church of the Apostles was in the process of folding. That it didn't has little to do with me, and much more to do with the God-given stubbornness of our bishop and our senior warden. It was at that point that I promised myself I was going to spend the whole of 2005 studying this book because there is much in it that addresses the stresses, strains, anxieties, and delights of 21st Century ministry.
Like our society, the image of Christian leadership has been Disnified -- and the result is an understanding of what it means to lead the People of God that is more like a Donald Duck cartoon than the reality of trying to keep ourselves afloat and providing leadership in a culture that is increasingly biased against our message and lifestyle. A further complication for those of us who are Episcopalians is that we are now part of a denomination that has decided to pursue the culture and address revelation in its own bizarre way. It is no wonder that so many of us who are leaders are wounded and in great discomfort.
I think that Second Corinthians is the balm that we need. It is strong chemotherapy, if you want to stick with a medical metaphor, but I think it helps us see this battle with principalities and powers in the right perspective, and I believe that it is the purgative that our souls need if we are to be faithful to this task.
Here is how we will study the text:
Each week I will put up a passage and my observations about the passage. Then I invite you to come to the blog at any time and add your own observations, insights, etc. I have invited Mike Thompson, Vice-Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, to join us on this journey as a New Testament scholar and pastor who has written a little commentary on this book (Transforming Grace - Michael B. Thompson. Oxford: Bible Reading Fellowship, 1998).
The translation of the Greek text that I am using is the English Standard Version, but if you wish to comment on the Greek text feel free to do so.
What I hope is that by the end of the year we will have cut our minds with one another and the Apostle Paul, and that we will have a body of materials that in some form or other will be helpful to other pastors struggling with the onward march of postmodernity and our advance into a post-Christendom world.
posted by Richard Kew at 6:30 PM
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