Word to the Wise
Friday, May 22, 2009 - Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter
[Acts 18:9-18 and John 16:20-23]Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city.
It appears that the Lord's promise was good for a year and a half before the Jewish community in Corinth organized against him. It is clear that he did spend a long time and put in considerable energy and effort with the Christian community in Corinth. It needed all the attention it could get since it was a port city and had all the moral problems that port cities generally have! "Corinthian," in the Greek world of that time, was a word that was used to describe any person with very loose morals. A quick reading of Paul's First and Second Letters to the Corinthians will provide a fairly graphic list of the socio-cultural picture and the struggles of the community to remain faithful. There will always be a tension between remaining faithful to a moral universe of belief and a surrounding culture that sees that universe as strictly a private option. I remember well the struggles of college students who came to New Orleans to study at Tulane from communities that were "stricter" in moral outlook! The "options" were very tempting and it was difficult to get them to look further ahead to the consequences. Nowadays even preaching in such a culture is difficult, not because of the violent opposition that Paul encountered, but because of a kind of bemused moral indifference that a secular culture can show. Nevertheless, one must have confidence in those words quoted above, whether one is a preacher or person in the pew. "Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you." AMEN
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