August | 2013 | Via Emmaus

Kenneth Bailey is gifted New Testament scholar, one whose experience living in the Middle East provides him a unique perspective on Jesus parables and other New Testament issues. In preparation for Sunday’s message on 1 Corinthians 13, I picked up his work, Paul Through Middle Eastern Eyes. In it he suggests that 1 Corinthians 11-14 is a series of six homilies, organized by a series of chiasmuses.

His outline gives a fresh way of approaching this often-confused section of Scripture. It doesn’t answer all of the questions, but it does give a pathway to understanding Paul’s argument.

I have reproduced his chiasmuses below, emending one of them and adding another. By looking at these chiasmuses, it lets us understand the central point Paul is trying to make:

Love is the essence of the Christian life. It must be pursued first. Spiritual gifts are instrumental means by which we love others. The central aspect of love is putting others ahead of ourselves, just the way Christ did (Phil 2:1-11).

Let me know what you think. Continue reading →

Genesis 1:31. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

“Sin is a later intrusion into an originally good creation. It is not inherent in the world, and so it can be completely removed when God achieves his purposes in the consummation (Rev. 22:3–5)” (“History of Salvation in the Old Testament: Preparing the Way for Christ,” ESV Study Bible’s, p. 2635).

Genesis 1:31 stands at the end of God’s creative work and registers his evaluation of the world. It was not as though God was uncertain that would he made would be good. Rather, when the paint dried on his cosmological temple, he could with supreme satisfaction state: “It is very good.”

Already in Genesis, Elohim had said (six times), “It is good” (vv. 3, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). Now, God’s seventh word confirms the perfection with which our Creator made the world. This statement, which follows the creation of mankind, is heightened by the modifier “very,” and it indicates that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that with Adam and Eve, the capstone of creation has been put in place (see Psalm 8). In context, this statement provides four foundational truths. Continue reading →