Dissent in Corinth
The most challenging thing from today’s class was the role play between the four factions mentioned in 1 Corinthians - the Party of Apollos, Paul, Cephas, and Christ. What made this exercise so difficult was 1) the lack of really distinctive information about each party, and 2) the questions poised to each group that we were assigned to debate as though we represented each party.I realized how difficult it is to really get into the mindset of the original audience. Our role play “discussion” in groups was intellectually shallow. Not because of any lack of intelligence, but I think more so from lack of skill. I don’t believe, even among seminarians being trained in our hermeneutic approach to interpreting the scripture, that we are highly skilled at really walking in the historical & cultural gap between the 21st century church and the 1st century church. It was easy to settle for simplistic assumptions about what each group might represent. I was challenged in that to see more deeply into the backdrop of the story.

In Corinth, for example, to understand how significant the temple culture in this trade city on an isthmus between two ports on the Adriatic and Agean Sea. How meat sacrificed to idols - which has never been my personal spiritual battle - was turned around and sold in the butcher shops & restaurants around town. And how that created an ethical dilemma for a young church in a culturally & religiously pluralistic “melting pot” town like Corinth. Now that sounds like the city that I live in.

Or to understand how the slave trade tied into the sex trade and the temple prostitution of Corinth. No wonder Paul has such strong statements to make about sexuality in a place of such sexual confusion. Again, sounds like a place I live. I realize how powerful perspective is, not in diminishing our understanding or watering down the truth, but rather for uncovering the truth and watering down our cultural and historical blindness.