Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always really liked Paul. He’s always been the biblical character that I felt like I could relate to the most because of the way he wrote his letters – even if they aren’t addressed to me, they were addressed to someone relatively like me and it makes it almost seem as though he could be addressing me too.
However, I was rather put off by Paul’s words as I read through 1 Corinthians. I kept finding things that were seemingly inconsistent and times that Paul seemed to be acting arrogant and self-righteous.
For instance, in the beginning of chapter 4 Paul talks about how no one can – or should – judge anyone else and that only God can judge. Okay, great, that makes sense. Jesus said that himself, don’t tell your neighbor about the speck in their eye until you remove the log from your own. In chapter 5, though, Paul starts judging the Corinthians and those they associate with. As he talks about sexual immorality he states that he, Paul, has “already passed judgement” on those who did this – hold up, didn’t you just say that we can’t judge each other? Why do you have special judging privileges? If we can’t judge others, why can you?
A bit later in chapter 5 he begins to talk about how they shouldn’t associate with those who participate in sexual immorality, or any other sins of that severity. This doesn’t make sense to me either because not only did Jesus constantly spend time with people of, what was considered to be, poor character, he wanted us to do the same. You can’t love someone like Jesus did if you keep them at arm’s length or don’t associate with them at all.
Caroline's Encounters 