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Paul’s massive ego trip – NTiR (2 Corinthians 7-10)

July 29, 2010 at 8:00 am Biffster No comments

Bible and magnifying glass This book has suddenly started to get incredibly boring. I started to fall asleep while reading for the last update. I claim “not my fault” on that one. Paul drones on and on about subjects when he is trying to emphasize a point.

What this book really needs to liven it up is for Paul to go all Moses on the Corinthians, demanding that they follow him because only he knows the mind of Christ. Ego can be a funny thing….

Chapter 7
Things are definitely not well in the state of Corinth. Apparently, there were major issues raised after Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, and a lot of people felt that they had been slighted or unjustly accused. Paul takes a passive-aggressive approach to this: “If I made you sad with my letter, I do not regret it, although I did regret it then. I see that the letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while.” Paul is happy that their sorrow made them stronger and more willing to follow, or something.I still think that the Corinthians are right to be peeved. Paul was a major ass towards them in his first letter. I’d still be ticked, too.

Chapter 8
“I am not commanding you but testing the genuineness of your love by the enthusiasm of others.” Testing a person isn’t much better than commanding them…

Chapter 9
Give money, don’t be outshone by the churches in Macedonia whose members are in poverty but who give a lot of money anyway. Give money, and it will be multiplied for you. Televangelists love this bit, too.

Chapter 10
Hey, Paul outs himself as a coward! “I who am humble when I am face to face with you but forceful toward you when I am away!” Why wouldn’t he do that the other way around, which would be braver and more productive? Paul admits himself that he hopes he won’t have to find the courage to say this to people face-to-face.

This is actually a very strange chapter. Paul is on an ego trip here. Actually, it’s more like he is trying to force the Corinthians to bow to his will. He also has no problem saying that he is superior to everyone else (“So if I boast a little too much about our authority, which the Lord gave us to build you up and not to tear you down, I will not be ashamed of it.”) He also has no problems making direct threats against the Corinthians: “We are ready to punish every act of disobedience when your obedience is complete.”

So now, why would the Corinthians follow such a power-hungry man? And one who is so willing to ignore key parts of Christ’s message?

Up next: Paul the dictator

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

Bible, The Universe none

There’s something rotten in the State of Corinth… NTiR (2 Corinthians 4-6)

July 26, 2010 at 8:00 am Biffster 3 comments

Bible and magnifying glass In our last entry, Paul pulled out a number of tricks from his “How to Keep Followers” bag. Paul tried buttering up the Corinthians, then guilting them about one of their members who had started sinning. He even plays the “my religion is better than your religion” card, stating that Jesus has more glory than Moses, so the Corinthians should abandon their Judaic ways. Will any of those tactic works?

I don’t know, actually. I reckon we’ll learn more about the results of this letter indirectly in Galatians or one of the future letters. For now, all we know is that Paul still has the floor.

Chapter 4
Paul is trying to re-assure everyone in the church that Paul’s church is the real church, and that Paul’s group doesn’t try and pervert God’s words. Which means that someone was accusing them of doing just that. Who made the accusations? It is not for us to know.Paul (and presumably the other Christians) are being legitimately persecuted at this time, and he is trying to keep everyone’s spirits up. He basically tells the Christians that their tribulations and deaths further glorify the lord. And enduring this suffering and torture, even perhaps death, is worth it to gain an eternity’s worth of grace from God.

Chapter 5
To tell you the truth, I kinda fell asleep half-way into this chapter. Paul has this annoying habit of saying something, then saying it again in slightly different words, then saying it again in slightly different sentences. Once through is enough for me. Reading the same idea three times within a 21-verse chapter?

Anyway, people have a tent here and a heavenly home in god’s kingdom. We want to shed our tent (die) and move off to heaven, but to do that we have to suffer and try and spread god’s word.

Chapter 6
Now, unless I am reading this chapter wrong, Paul is basically saying that the church in Corinth should not be as welcoming of newcomers as it is (“Stop becoming unevenly yoked with unbelievers”) and should fall into step with what Paul and his follower’s say! (“We have not cut you off, but you have cut off your own feelings toward us.”)

Apparently there is something rotten in the state of Corinth…

Up next: Paul’s massive ego trip

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

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Weekly Archive

July 25, 2010 at 5:55 am Biffster No comments

Best thing about having a Dwight Schrute in your office? Endless entertainment. #
RT @FakeAPStylebook All mentions of the word chameleon should be preceded by five commas. In all other instances, they come and go. <– LMAO #
RT @FrankConniff I won't refudiate Sarah Palin's right to invent words. I'll just point out that she's a stupidiot. #
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Important thing to remember: 'be the change you wish to see in the world" – Gandhi #
LMAO!!! // RT @goodlaura RT @biffster: "be the change you wish to see" – Gandhi <-I wanna be a roll of quarters. #
Fun things todo w/ Schrute-ish co-wrkers: if they miss work for dental issues, leave toothbrush & paste on their desk. Or 2. Or 4… #
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Does Paul understand himself? NTiR (2 Corinthians 1-3)

July 22, 2010 at 8:00 am Biffster 1 comment

Bible and magnifying glass EGAH!!!!!!!

For some reason, I was thinking that 2 Corinthians was a short book. I thought it was the start of the smaller epistles, and was looking forward to reviewing just a few chapters. Instead, 2 Corinthians is the last of the extra-long, drawn out letters. Paul loves to go on and on as he tries to coerce people to follow his teachings instead of the teachings of others around him. While the subtext of people deciding which of the former disciples most represents the words of Christ is intriguing, we are reading letters written by the man who won. And the victor gets to write history as he pleases.

Obviously, I am not looking forward to this book. Procrastinating isn’t making things any better, though, so let’s move on to:

Second Epistle to the Corinthians

Chapter 1
Let’s see. We start off with greetings from Paul and Timothy. Paul states that it is good everyone suffered, because then they can help comfort others who are suffering. And apparently everyone is suffering a lot. Paul references the problems he ran into in Asia; it’ll be interesting to see if those are mentioned again.

Chapter 2
The chapter starts off with Paul bemoaning the acts of one of the members of the church in Corinth. Is this the same guy from I Corinthians, or someone else? He then gives hints of a god complex (“what I have forgiven I did in the presence of Christ”) and compares the followers to the “aroma” of Christ. (“Savour” in the KJV) This aroma is good for some and deadly for others.

I dunno… I think that at least half the time, Paul doesn’t understand what he is talking about.

Chapter 3
Paul gets into a glory contest here. Followers of Christ have more glory than followers of Moses do. Jesus has more glory than Moses does. Followers of Moses have a veil covering their hearts when reading what Moses wrote, while anyone who turns to the Lord has that veil ripped away.

Hmmm… sounds to me like there were a lot of Corinthians who didn’t want to give up their beliefs in Judaism. How is Paul going to win them over?

Up next: There’s something rotten in the state of Corinth…

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

Bible, The Universe none

NTiR: Paul keeps chucking the first stones (1 Corinthians 13-16)

July 19, 2010 at 8:00 am Biffster No comments

Bible and magnifying glass We are at the end of another of Paul’s letters. There’s only a few more left, right? At least a few more ’til we get to hear from Peter and Timothy. They can’t be any worse than this, lemme tell you.

Or am I setting myself up for a major disappointment?

Chapter 13

The Wedding Chapter. Everyone knows this one (“love is always patient, always kind…”). Actually, I think everyone knows all of this chapter. Aside from the wedding verses, there’s “When I became a man I gave up my childish ways” (I call bullshit on that, too). There’s also “Faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.”

Chapter 14

Lots of information about speaking in tongues. I don’t think that anyone but Pentecostals will care about this chapter, though there is one line that amuses me: “if the whole church gathers in the same place and everyone is speaking in tongues, when uneducated people or unbelievers come in, they will say that you are out of your mind, won’t they?” That’s why I call it the psycho church!

Chapter 15

My god this chapter will not end! 58 verses of Paul trying to prove that resurrection is true. He goes so far as to say anyone who doesn’t believe in resurrection has turned their back on Christ. HARSH! But as we’ve already established, Paul has no problems picking up that first stone and letting it fly.

Chapter 16

AMEN!!!! I don’t know what this chapter says yet – I am going to read it for the next paragraph. But for now, I’ll say AMEN for the end of this god-awful letter!

Paul once again finishes up the letter with his travel plans. He’s planning on maybe spending the winter in Corinth, which matches up perfectly with Luke’s description in Acts. Paul also exhorts the church to be nice to Timothy once Timothy gets there. And we are OUT!

Conclusion

Dull. Mind-numbingly dull. And it went on far too long. 16 chapters, one of which was long enough that it should’ve been split into two. A large part of the letter is once again Paul proclaiming himself to be the head of the church, and trying to justify that. And, of course, changing the teachings of Christ to better match up with his own personal beliefs.

All in all, I’d say to skip this book like the plague.

EEEGAH!!!!

Up next: 2 Corinthians

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

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July 18, 2010 at 5:55 am Biffster No comments

Hello new followers, thanks for adding me! I hope I won't bore you. #
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If I were single, I'd have had a special moment: the woman in front of me ordered the exact same b'fast sandwich as me. #
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Paul’s massive ego trip – NTiR (2 Corinthians 7-10)

There’s something rotten in the State of Corinth… NTiR (2 Corinthians 4-6)

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Does Paul understand himself? NTiR (2 Corinthians 1-3)

NTiR: Paul keeps chucking the first stones (1 Corinthians 13-16)

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