Corinthians Class: notes from last night

Small group last night. I had heard from four who could not make it but plan to be there next week. One person last night thought Paul was very cool, another had been put off in the past by Paul's repeat-it-till-they-submit logical constructs (let's see, if the dead are not raised then what was that again?)

We talked about Paul and the contrast in content between Paul's letters and the gospels. We speculated some about those first 20 years after Jesus and what must have been the thinking about him in Jerusalem and beyond, and whether there were major differences because of location. We thought that amid the local-issues business, Paul offered some amazingly complex theology as a foundation for the basis of the church's existence.

We went home to read Corinthians and will return to look at Paul's theology of Eucharist, baptism, salvation, reconciliation and more. The plan will be to focus on a few of these in the next two weeks and look at ways in which Paul may have shaped our current theology. We will also speculate about other possible non-Pauline theological positions on the same subjects that might be inferred from sayings of Jesus as recorded in the gospels. Which means, of course, that it might not be a bad idea to do a bit of reading in the gospels as well as in Corinthians.

Happy reading. Hope to see you next week or read your comments on these posts. JB