The Day of Salvation is Here Already

Paul's advice to the Corinthians in his letters is very good advice for the contemporary American Church as well.  Paul actual wrote at least three letters to the Church at Corinth.  Two have been included in the New Testament.  A third was not canonized and there were probably more.

Paul's advice to the Corinthians is helpful to us because our cultural context is a lot like Corinth.  Christianity was a new religion so most Corinthians were very unfamiliar with it.  The community grew as Paul went about his work, but Christians were competing for attention with other religions; there were also many people in Corinth that didn't practice any religion and didn't see any reason to.

Many of the religions that Christianity competed with promised their adherents relief in the future and in the present from the sufferings that we often experience in this world.  In fact, their sermons would often recite a long list of things that adherents would be protected from.  In the Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul satirizes this sermon technique by quoting a long list of sufferings himself.  However, rather than stating that the point of Christianity was to keep Christians from experiencing these sufferings now or in the future, Paul made the bold claim that by participating in the suffering of others, as Christ did, we experience salvation here and now. 

The Day of Salvation, that was preached in Judaism as a future event of liberation from bondage to Rome, and that was preached by the religions that Christianity competed with in Corinth as a present and future event where the god of their religion would protect him, is presented by Paul has occurring in the immediate moment when we accept Christ as Lord.  The sufferings don't go away; instead, we obtain victory over them by realizing that in literally entering the sufferings of others, we find salvation for our souls.  By seeking the needs of others, entering into their sufferings, being present with them, we save them and bring salvation to ourselves.

How Satan Casts Out Satan

Jesus poses a riddle to his listeners in the Gospel of Mark: "How Can Satan Cast Out Satan?" The answer to the riddle is that it happens all the time.  In fact, it is one of the fundamental characteristics of human culture.

Satan is translated as the "Diabolos," or the "deceiver." The deceiver, as the name implies, is all about the business of deception.  The Satan's long con in the Church is to convince us that we are doing God's will when we are actually acting in the exact opposite way that God wants.

When wrongdoing or evil is recognized in a community, whether it is within the nation state, the Church, or the family, our propensity is to cast out the evil persons or element and to exclude it.  By doing so, we are acting contrary to the will of God, who entered into the human community with no thought other than our redemption and reconciliation with us.  When God sees evil or wrongdoing in the human community, God seeks to enter into that which is evil and transform it so that it might become good.  Consequently, by casting out that which is evil, the very act of casting out is contrary to God's will.  It is Satan casting out Satan.

The purpose of the Church is not only to be God's conduit to reveal Christ to the world but to retain the practice of casting out those who are not part of the Body of Christ; that is to simply change the subject matter of what is being cast out.  The purpose of the Church is to recognize that in Christ, God changed the way communities are to respond to wrongdoing in their midst; not seeking its exclusion and banishment, but its redemption.