Did
I mention how much Jo and I are appreciating Lucy
Peppiatt’s teaching this week?
Today,
1 Corinthians 11, a troubling passage that on the surface appears to be
frankly contradictory, and damaging towards women—and has certainly been taught
in a way that is damaging to women. Lucy argues cogently, persuasively, and
graciously that what we see here is a conversation between the people who were
causing trouble in Corinth, and Paul, with Paul quoting their arguments
(written in a letter to him, since lost to us) and then refuting their
claims. The original Greek has no quotation marks, but translators supply them
in just this manner in many other places in Paul’s letter. Lucy brings to bear
the bigger context, of Paul’s values as well as of Scripture taken as a whole,
to demonstrate that Paul is consistently smashing the hierarchies that patrol
and police an honour-shame culture. Here is a man who was (doubly) at the top
of the social pile, as both a Roman citizen and a Jewish male, who, having had
an utterly transforming encounter with Jesus, chose to side with those society
placed at the bottom of the pile, slaves, women, women slaves...
[What
follows is not a summary of what Lucy said, but my own personal response.]
It
grieves me deeply when I hear church leaders present a false Paul to maintain
the very hierarchies he felt the Jesus-event profoundly dismantled. I will
challenge it again and again and again, until my dying breath if necessary.
But
it also grieves me deeply when, in response, I hear church leaders speak of
Paul as a misogynist, or, at best, as enlightened for his times but bound by
his culture. This is also, and just as much, a false Paul.
Paul
is the first to really work through what it looks like in practice for a community
to be shaped by Jesus. Like Jesus, Paul smashes those aspects of his culture
that are bound by honour-shame, embracing shame, embracing and honouring those
who are wounded by shame—shame being such a pernicious thing. The letters of
Paul are as much a gift to us from Jesus as are the Gospels. When we create
another hierarchy, one that says “Jesus is good, Paul is bad,” we are still to
experienced the this-changes-everything transformation Paul experienced in
encountering Jesus.
I
am not suggesting that Paul had already attained perfection, but that the
transformation Jesus brings is intended to be, can be, life-changing, and not
just a little bit better than where we were before we met him. This was good
news for Paul, for others through Paul; and can be for, and through, us.
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