Reflection for Wednesday August 17th 2011

Paul is often called the second founder of Christianity. On another level we could say he is the first founder of Christianity because Jesus never heard of “Christianity,” which began to take form under Paul. Jesus was apparently not trying to found a religion, or he would have said much more about specific creeds, codes, and cult. Jesus, according to most contemporary scholars, was trying to reform Judaism as a “stand-in” for the reform of all religion. Jesus gave us the necessary criteria to keep all religions oriented radically toward God, healing, and justice. Paul, history, and hopefully the Holy Spirit made it into a religion.

In the earliest years, Paul tried to form “house churches,” cell groups of about 40 people at the most, perhaps. Paul named the essential functions and gifts (charisms) of these small communities, functions today that are either ignored (“prophets”) or made into institutionalized offices (see I Corinthians 4-11). Paul spoke much more of charismatic authority, like healers, evangelizers, discerners, prayer gifts, etc., than institutional gifts. He seemed to validate actual competence over titles and ascribed roles, which is a very different notion of church than what we’ve grown used to. But we see the movement toward institutional gifts already in the later letters to Timothy, which probably represent the period after his death. It is inevitable and probably even necessary, so don’t waste much time reacting against it.

Paul tried to create a vehicle for the vision of the reign of God, something that was visible, tangible, and credible. That is why he is so preoccupied with his people being first-rate people, which does make him very moralistic at times. His little house churches are his audiovisual aid to reveal that this force field called Christ is for real and changes people. He is like a new parent trying to create perfect children!