1 Corinthians 5 ... I wonder what's up?
Started reading through 1 Corinthians a few days back, and stopped for awhile this morning on the 5th chapter, wondering, and googling ... what were the circumstances?
And how easily the women in question is dismissed - and the man so easily condemned.
Sounds like a bunch of busybodies holding their noses without any regard for the two people in question, running off to Paul like 4th grade tattletales.
It occurred to me: was she much younger than the man's stepfather?
Was she abused?
Was the son rescuing her?
Were the woman and her "husband" divorced, or was she abandoned? Or had she run away?
With the uneasy feeling that, then or now, women are treated as property ... women belong to the men, and in this case, the son is "violating" property law - stealing from his father, if you will.
This morning, I wanted to ask Paul:
"Don't you have bigger fish to fry?
Have you looked into the matter?
Or are you just going by what the busybodies offer?"
I read Paul with the greatest respect - he gets a lot of things right, as I see it.
But his easy condemnation of the man, with no interest in the details, or the possible suffering of the woman, and maybe the man's kindness to redeem her, leaves me uncomfortable.
With years of ministry behind me: I know something of "sin," in my own life, and in the lives of others - there is sin committed with hubris, arrogance, and ego, power, and domination.
Then, there is "sin" committed because there's no easy answer to so many hard moments in life. And what the community busybodies might label as "sin" is nothing less then folks caught up in a messy situation, not directly or immediately of their own making, working to make the best of it, to mitigate further harm, and to practice kindness, and to find a way through.
Here, as anywhere, the ease with which the "righteous" condemn "sexual" immorality ... it's so easy to do, and it's so rewarding.
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