Whistling to the Flock
Summary
Without realizing it, when people hear the word “church,” they usually imagine a meta institution with clear organizational or ideological boundaries, akin to a government or global corporation. Worse, in our various expressions of Christianity, one way or another, we tend to operate as such. Whether attempting to control the world through ideology, or to market ourselves for institutional gain, our understanding of church rebels against the Lord’s teaching. As disciples of Scripture, our duty, according to St. Paul, is to refresh our minds, supplanting our idolatrous notions of institution with the literary context imposed by the Bible. For Paul, who invites his addressees to hear him “according to the Scriptures,” the reference for “church” is something far less glamorous than the powerful institutions idolized by human beings. A church, in Scripture, is akin to a shepherd’s flock, and Paul himself is the slave, not of a powerful institution, but of a Shepherd who gave his life for his sheep. Richard and Fr. Marc conclude their study of 1 Corinthians. (Episode 121; 1 Corinthians 14:29-58); Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Floating Cities” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/)Without realizing it, when people hear the word “church,” they usually imagine a meta institution with clear organizational or ideological boundaries, akin to a government or global corporation. Worse, in our various expressions of Christianity, one way or another, we tend to operate as such. Whether attempting to control the world through ideology, or to market ourselves for institutional gain, our understanding of church rebels against the Lord’s teaching. As disciples of Scripture, our duty, according to St. Paul, is to refresh our minds, supplanting our idolatrous notions of institution with the literary context imposed by the Bible. For Paul, who invites his addressees to hear him “according to the Scriptures,” the reference for “church” is something far less glamorous than the powerful institutions idolized by human beings. A church, in Scripture, is akin to a shepherd’s flock, and Paul himself is the slave, not of a powerful institution, but of a Shepherd who gave his life for his sheep. Richard and Fr. Marc conclude their study of 1 Corinthians. (Episode 121; 1 Corinthians 14:29-58); Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Floating Cities” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/)
