Tune in to hear Eric and Stephen discuss the new format for Trinity Heights Church.

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The final installment and summary of our 6-part series in 1 Corinthians titled, "You Are a People."

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In the fifth part of our series we looked at the famous love passage: 1 Corinthians 13. This passage has been used so often at wedding after wedding that it is difficult not to think of it as mushy sentimentalism that comes part and parcel with wedding cake and toasts to the bride and groom and confetti. For this reason New Testament scholar Richard Hayes suggests that ‘this passage needs to be rescued from the quagmire of romantic sentimentality in which popular piety has embedded it.’ In a secular democracy - where we prize the freedom to choose between different religious narratives while also ensuring that no religious authority should influence our political decisions - love is removed from the specifically Christian narrative which gave it a distinctive shape and elevated love to the greatest of all virtues. In the context of a secular democracy love becomes an abstract idea. But for Paul there is nothing abstract about love: 'Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.' Love is not a fleeting moment of feeling, it’s not an ethereal experience or a vague impression. Paul thinks love looks like something and he is describing what it looks like. We might think that by making love so concrete, by demystifying love as it were, we lose any sense of love’s transcendent quality. But - perhaps counterintuitively - it is by describing love so clearly as Paul does, that love becomes something transcendent. Because in Paul’s concrete description there are no qualifications. Paul doesn’t say love is patient so long as, love is kind only if, love sometimes hopes, love usually perseveres. There is no contingency, there is no escape clause; instead Paul says love is an unqualified posture towards everyone and that’s what makes love something transcendent no longer subordinate to the strategies of our secular democracy. No wonder Saint Augustine is able to say: ‘Love and do as you will’.

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In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul explores community and unity while addressing the issue of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church. The Bible celebrates sex as good, sacred, and beautiful - not something to be approached with guilt, shame, or prudishness. The Christian view of sex needs to be centered on joy and delight, not scandalized by human sexuality. The Christian stance on sexuality is not about idealizing a specific family unit but recognizing that everyone’s story is different, marked by love, joy, heartbreak, and unforeseen circumstances. From a Christian perspective, sex is never to be treated flippantly. People are precious, all sexual encounters carry sacred weight, and personal decisions affect our community. The church often falls into the pitfall of focusing solely on promoting oppressive systems of accountability or invasive surveillance to strive for sexual purity. But what if we aimed to share wisdom for real-world situations, respecting personal decisions about sex and intimacy? Rather than implementing rigid rules, the goal is to begin a nuanced conversation about the theology of human sexuality, exploring the mystery of God’s design for our intimate connections, understanding that our bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits are deeply intertwined. In 1 Corinthians (specifically in chapter 5), Paul’s primary preoccupation is with the Corinthian church’s health as a community. He’s contending for their unity. Paul is essentially saying to his friends in Corinth, “If these issues of sexual immorality within your church are left unaddressed, they will eventually serve to undo the very fabric of your togetherness.” How we treat each other matters, both in our personal relationships and within the larger community. These are inextricably linked, and our approach to sexuality should reflect this understanding. How might our sexual relationships define our broader connectedness to the community? How might we embrace a holistic understanding of sexual intimacy as a force for either division or unity/joy? What if we embraced Christian community as a place to nurture a holistic view of people, each filled with dignity and each an occasion for joy?

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At first glance, it appears as though the divisions in the Corinthians church were over very different and unconnected issues. After all, what have class divisions, the exercise of spiritual gifts, and eating meat sacrificed to idols got to do with each other? But Paul is able to see the connections beneath the surface and he frames them together with a vast theological vision. For example, the Corinthians had sensationalized the gift of tongues and made it the mark of serious Christian faith and by doing so they placed a question mark over the faith of anyone who didn’t possess this particular gift. In this context, Paul uses his famous body analogy and pushes it to an absurd place. (Corinthians 12:17-21) Paul pushes the analogy as far as he can go because he wants them to know how absurd their behavior is when they create a spiritual class system in the church. The point of the gifts is to nurture unity and togetherness in the body. But then again, in another dispute over dietary differences, Paul calls some Christians weak and others strong depending on whether they eat meat sacrificed to idols? (1 Corinthians 8:9-13) Paul is having a joke at their expense. He knows that the Corinthians have been trained to think in terms of class and status, it was part of their culture and how they operated day in and day out. And so Paul plays along and he says - with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek: You who are so ‘strong’, you super believers you, don’t stumble your ‘weaker’ brother. Throughout the letter, Paul maintains the distinction between mature and immature Christians but the Corinthians have been using the entirely wrong register. For Paul, maturity and immaturity are always about whether or not a person’s life brings people together or pushes people apart, whether they create peace or strife between people, whether they create unity or division. How can our lives be a bridge between people who think they can’t be together?

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Guest and friend of Trinity Heights, Steve Gumaer, delivers a reflection on Matthew 19.

Paul refers to the Corinthians as ‘Saints’ or ‘sanctified’, terms implying they are ‘set apart’ for a unique purpose. But what does it mean to be set apart? The Met Gala’s theme last Monday was inspired by J.G. Ballard's 1962 short story, "The Garden of Time." This tale features Count Axel and his wife, who live in a grand villa with a garden of mysterious "time flowers" that slow time when plucked. As an angry mob approaches, the Count uses the flowers to delay the inevitable destruction, while the Countess plays Mozart and the Count tends to his library. This story mirrors the disparity between the privileged few and the struggling masses, a theme highlighted by Rosalind Jana in her critique of the Gala. She notes the irony of celebrities in lavish attire amidst images of poverty, pondering if the event’s organizers are hinting at class rebellion. Christians sometimes project an image akin to Met Gala attendees, as if sainthood and holiness grant a superior, detached status. However, Paul uses metaphors to counter this misconception. He calls the Corinthians ‘God’s Temple,’ emphasizing their role as a bridge between heaven and earth, a place where God’s presence is uniquely manifested. This metaphor signifies that being ‘set apart’ means being deeply connected with people, serving to draw them closer to God and each other. For Paul, being set apart does not imply detachment but rather a closeness to people, aimed at fostering unity and spiritual connection.

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Paul gets bad news from Corinth… his friends are at each other's throats. Disputes have broken out all over the place over multiple issues. Paul says he is coming to visit them and that he 'does not want to see them only in passing’ (1 Cor 16:7) In other words, when he gets there he is going to have to stay a while to sort all of this out. Paul writes this letter to the Cornithians (which this new series is based upon) as a stopgap measure, until he can go to them in person. Paul’s strategy for addressing these conflicts is revealed in the first couple of verses where he says: ‘To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours’. He calls them the church, using the ancient Greek term ekklesia which refers to a gathering of citizens responsible for the affairs of the city. He also tells them that they are a people and reminds them that they are ‘together with’ everyone everywhere who calls on Jesus’ name. A gathering, a people, together with… in other words, from the outset of this letter Paul is getting the Corinthians to think corporately and communally. The theological equivalent of supposing that the sun goes around the earth is the belief that the whole of the Christrian truth revolves around me and my salvation. Many Christians today assume that the central question is ‘What must I do to be saved?’ or ‘How can I enter a right relationship with God?’ And this is not just the wisdom of many contemporary Christians, but the wisdom of our broader culture which claims that salvation is found in discovering and becoming our true selves. The self is something buried deep down inside us just waiting to be discovered. In this context Paul is a Copernicus or a Galileo… because the radical story Paul is drawing us into is one where salvation is not just about me personally but about a collective and corporate salvation where we are saved together. And in this story your ‘self’ is not something found within yourself but your selfhood or personhood emerges at those places where our lives touch each other.

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