Not unlike getting to know a person, the more time we've spent in small group over the last year or so in his different letters, the more I've come to understand and appreciate his style. He writes intentionally, and he is humble but in a way that in the past I never saw as humility. I always thought his claims to be "the worst of sinners" were just a false-modesty, martyr thing - and it drove me nuts! What I've come to learn about Paul's writings is that he is secure in his understanding of who Jesus is and the higher standard He has called us to, but he also recognizes, deeply, that he is human and needs grace just as much as the next person. Which made me love Paul all the more! The juxtaposition and tension of chasing after a holy, serving life, and being human and weak; as he says in Second Corinthians, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
I've come to love trying to wrap my brain around Paul's concepts.
Twice while recently reading First Corinthians in small group we came across an interesting phrase that, for growing up in the church, I had never been shown in such a way that it struck me. It has been bouncing around in my mind for a few months like a pinball effortlessly floats between the levers. As I like to think is the point of internalizing the Word, it has been altering the way I look at a lot of things, particularly Generosity.
The phrase that Paul uses in two places in this letter, is this:
"You were bought at a cost."The first time I read this, for a day or so I couldn't get my mind off of it. We were bought at our price, though undeserving. We were paid-in-full, for the cost of our debt to sin; our slavery to it. It stood out to me that it did not say we were purchased at a bargain. Though we are not truly valued at the high price [as some translations put it] that was paid, we were worth that much.
Then I thought, what does this speak to us about our generosity? To follow in the footsteps of Christ, we are to be generous beyond what is reasonable. I was so struck by that! And not just our generosity with our finances, but with our time and resources. We were bought at a cost; our debt was bought by one who would not come calling for repayment. How should that look as it trickles into our lives?
