Word to the Wise
Tuesday, August 30, 2016 - Tuesday in the 22th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Cor 2:10b-16 and Luke 4:31-37]We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms. [1 Corinthians]
Religious faith can have a tremendous impact on the way we see life and values. It is as if we acquire not only a different vision but even a new vocabulary. The danger in this is the creation of a kind of new "spiritual elite" that says to the rest of the world, "I'm better than you because I know something that you don't know." This attitude is at the basis of what is known as "gnosticism," which claimed to have secret knowledge and secret words, much like the pagan "mystery cults" which were popular in the Roman Empire in Paul's time. Some Christian believers in Corinth seemed to claim that they had this special knowledge and "wisdom." Paul's position is that faith does lead to a new person and a new way of understanding because the Spirit of God enables us to have a new outlook, but it is not a kind of elitism.
St. Paul is not anti-intellectual, nor is he elitist. He proclaims a message about Jesus and God's plan of salvation. Faith and baptism introduce us to this message in such a way that we become the message, the Body of Christ. Each of us has particular gifts to bring to the community of faith. This will all unfold as we proceed further into this First Letter to the Corinthians. For the moment, we can reflect on the difference our faith makes in the way we understand our life. AMEN
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