St Paul and the Corinthians; For audio podcast PPN
Truth of the Spirit with Patti Brunner shares St. Paul and the Corinthians. St. Paul did not follow Jesus but met him is a supernatural encounter. From the day of this conversion he became one the Church’s most important evangelizers and his writings are more than half of the New Testament. His letter to the Corinthians continues to instruct us today.
TOS135 BLOG
During the days of turmoil in society and in the Church, we can turn to Sacred Scripture to find hope and guidance. St. Paul addresses divisions in the Church and moral disorders in his 1st Letter to the Corinthians. During my spiritual walk I have probably read passages from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians more than any other because it lays out the supernatural gifts of the Spirit known as charisms in chapters 12 to 14. And we Catholics hear from Chapter 11 every time we participate in Mass.
Welcome to Truth of the Spirit. I’m your host, Patti Brunner. Today we will discuss St. Paul and the Corinthians. Who is this St. Paul who wrote a majority of the books of the New Testament? The Acts of the Apostles lays out St. Paul’s history very clearly.
St. Paul the Apostle was first to write down the teachings of Jesus even thoughPaul was not one of the original apostles nor a disciple who followed Jesus during his Galilean and Jerusalem ministries. Paul was on the scene as the first Christian was martyred, an early church deacon, St. Stephen. Paul, also known by the name ‘Saul’, became a persecutor of early Christians. Saul was trying to destroy the Church because he believed that the followers of Jesus were blasphemers. Entering house after house and dragging out men and women, Paul handed them over for imprisonment. As Christians fled, Paul was given a letter of permission by the chief priests of the Jewish Synagogue of Jerusalem to go after them.
A Roman and a Pharisee, Paul was an educated man and knew the books of the Old Testament and the Rabbinic Laws. But his knowledge of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, true God, true man, came from a heavenly direct encounter with Christ as he traveled on the road to Damascus. His conversion story demonstrates the power of grace. Paul’s conversion is described several times in the Acts of the Apostles and in his own letters.
When giving his account to the King Agrippa in the year 60, he says, “Along the way, I saw a light from the sky, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my traveling companions. We all fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me in Hebrew, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”” And Paul said, “‘Who are you, sir?’ And the Lord replied, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness of what you have seen (of me) and what you will be shown. I shall deliver you from this people and from the Gentiles to whom I send you, to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may obtain forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been consecrated by faith in me.’”
So, through spiritual experiences, which Paul describes in 2nd Corinthians, he was directly given training and truth. Paul was caught up to the third heaven, he said. He was caught up into Paradise. Christ is the Light of all comprehension. Paul was led by the Spirit on many journeys thus spreading the Good News in his time and ours. His writings reveal the depth of Christianity and reveal the kingdom as practically applied among us.
St. Paul was a “logical” choice to be an apostle to the Gentiles and a bridge to the Jewish (Messianic) Christians. As a transformed believer he had the ability to speak to the early Christians believers. As a Pharisee he had the ability to visit synagogues to speak to the Jewish communities. As an educated Roman citizen he had the freedom to travel around the Roman Empire and speak to Gentiles. Like Paul,the Gentiles were also asked to undergo a major conversion. His grasp of the power of the Holy Spirit’s gifts opened the eyes, ears and hearts of the Gentiles. Paul’s theological understanding of the sacrifice of Jesus and the suffering servant came from his deep roots in studying the Old Testament and thus could also explain the foreshadowing and promises given to the Jews and roots of the liturgical Eucharist. It was after three years of establishing churches that Paul met with the head of the Church, Peter, to discuss whether to apply Jewish laws to the Gentiles. Peter’s agreement with St. Paul came through spiritual confirmation.
St. Paul the Apostle worked his way around the world establishing church communities. All of his letters were written before the Gospels were written. Paul’s letters to churches he had established began in A.D. 51 during his second journey and continued to the time of his death in A.D. 68. The Gospel of Mark, the very first Gospel written, was written two years after Paul’s death in A.D. 70. A majority of Paul’s letters were written during his various imprisonments. His letters make up over half of the New Testament.
St. Paul the Apostle made three journeys going along the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. He traveled through Syria, Asia, Greece and finally Rome. He spoke to the Jews first and when they refused to listen he spoke to Gentiles and pagans. The Acts of the Apostles, written after Paul’s death, shares details of those three journeys with us.
This episode digs into the early Christian community founded in Corinth by St. Paul during his 2nd missionary journey in about year 51. St. Paul wrote the First Letter to the Corinthians from Ephesus during his third missionary journey in about 56 A.D. after being notified of several issues. St. Paul helped the Church grow and overcome problems. 1st Corinthians continues to relate to modern times. During the Liturgical Year B, we hear several readings of St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.
Paul discovered that in Corinth the people were ‘looking the other way’ and accepting the sexual immorality of incest among them rather than standing up and acknowledging the sinfulness. Today false compassion for sinners does the same thing in the Church. We don’t want to offend people and run them off by teaching chastity and the Theology of the Body. True compassion desires holiness. When was the last time you heard a sermon that said that living together outside of marriage is a sin? When have you heard that artificial contraception is a sin? When have you heard that homosexual acts are sinful? Why has it taken so many years since 1973’s passing of Roe vs Wade to hear about abortion being wrong from the pulpit and that we need to vote pro-life? The Church must continue to address issues of moral disorders directly and publicly when privately fails to change behavior. In chapter 5 Paul tells us to get rid of the yeast of complacency towards sin. Paul says we should judge our own people, our fellow Christians, who are “immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a person”. This allows for the loving act of refusal of Holy Communion and even excommunication to unreconciled public sinners. Paul says to let God judge those outside the Church.
In chapter 6 Paul writes, “Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body.” He said, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price! Therefore, glorify God in your body.”
In chapter 8 Paul discusses the food offered to idols. All of the meat shops in Corinth carried meat that had been dedicated to these false idols. Idols were the downfall of the Israelites; the practices of culture seem harmless to those strong in faith, but are a true hindrance to the weak. Paul reminds knowledgeable Corinthian Christians tobe on guard to help those who lack understanding and thus set good examples beyond the ‘letter’ of the Law. Today our idols continue to be man-made as we turn towards smart phones, entertainment, consumerism, sports idols and media idols and even towards self and away from the Most High God. We seem to honor the power wealth brings instead of the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Church at Corinth was also having factions because of jealousy and rivalry of the followers of two great preachers, Paul and Apollos, described in Chapters 3 and 4. The people were confused who was in charge. Paul made it clear that the Holy Spirit is in charge and by dwelling within us. The Holy Spirit forms us into the Body of Christ and that both Paul and Apollos were servants of that same Holy Spirit each building up the same Church, the same Body. In modern times we can get off track because a particular priest or preacher teaches opinion rather than truth causing division. In modern times, we can also get off track when individual ministers cause scandal. We forget that they are only servants of the Lord, and as the parable Jesus told us, some servants are dishonest. Each member of the Body of Church has the ability to fail to follow the Way.
In Liturgical Assemblies the complaining of ‘church goers’ will commonly fill the time of a pastor. Paul compassionately settles their squabbles while moving on to materially important instruction. Paul was aware that some of the assembly was causing division by feasting on rich meals as they gathered for the Eucharist. What a blessing to us because His reprimand on the way they celebrate the Lord’s Supper gives us the first insight in how Eucharist was and should be celebrated. The celebration of the Eucharist today uses St. Paul’s quotes of the words of Jesus given in 1st Corinthians. “And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And so on. Paul’s teaching elevated the Mass among the converts who did not know Jewish tradition of liturgy.
The miraculous charisms of the Holy Spirit were also causing jealousy among the Corinthians. The gifts of the Spirit were never meant to take the place of the Eucharist. They are meant to show the power of God and these gifts of grace are essential in building up the Body of Christ. Paul tries to help them put things in proper order by telling them that the strange and obvious gift of Tongues was actually the least of the gifts. That’s not to say it isn’t powerful when used; Paul tells them “I pray in tongues more than all of you”. However, these Corinthians did not know how to properly use this power, and pride stepped over the liturgy to try and change it, seemingly being led by the Spirit to do so. The Spirit is truth. The Spirit is God. God is love. When powerful gifts are used as status and pride to step over the people it is not based on Love and thus is improper. The Holy Spirit manifests these gifts because of love. In chapter 13 he writes, “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.” He then gives them the beautiful definition of love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury; it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” St. Paul instructs them to use the gifts in love and they will be in God’s Will. The gifts were a tremendous need for this early Church as it is in our times, too. We need the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives. We invite you to listen to our podcasts that teach about these charisms that are listed in 1st Corinthians, Chapter 12: Words of Wisdom, Words of Knowledge, Faith, Gifts of Healing, Mighty Deeds, Prophecy, Discernment of Spirits, Varieties of Tongues and Interpretation of Tongues.
In chapter 12, Paul explains how the One Body operates together to show how the gifts work together. We are not all a hand or a foot. He writes “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended.”
Paul, who was not married, understood that we become one body in Christ the way a man and a woman become one body in marriage. With the sanctity of Marriage comes responsibility; it is the same relationship that God calls each person into—a joining of God and Man as one.
Paul’s witness of his supernatural experience with the risen Christ solidifies the teaching of the resurrection of our bodies believed by the Pharisees and all Christians. As you look at the Resurrection remember the Sadducees had difficulty with this concept. Paul writes in Chapter 15, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Allow Paul to give the hope that adds to the desire to come into the resurrection to the glory of the Lord God. Heaven and earth shall be joined together at the end of “time”. Paul writes, “Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed,in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
In conclusion we turn attention to Paul’s 2nd Letter to the Corinthians.
He writes, “Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.” “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
You’ve been listening to Truth of the Spirit. We invite you to share your transforming encounter with Christ with us in the comments. You can find part of my personal witness of transformation in the podcasts: TOS106 Magnificat Witness Patti Brunner-The Lord’s Calling; and in TOS004 A Witness to Life in the Spirit . We invite you to subscribe and click the YouTube bell to be notified of our next episode. And then come back for more. With the Holy Spirit, there’s always more. Amen.
