On September 8, the after-worship adult Bible Study will begin studying Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians and the Tuesday online study group will start the following Tuesday. If you are unable to attend the Sunday worship in person, you are welcome to attend the Zoom study on Tuesday. Here is the Zoom link: https://zoom.us/join, or call 425-776-4334 if you have any questions about how to join that class. We encourage anyone who is interested to join that class, even if you do not live anywhere near the physical church building.
Pastor Rob specifically wanted to address Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians this fall. The letter is more personal than other letters from Paul. In it, Paul tells about some of the challenges he has faced in his ministry and this makes it a good follow up to our study of Acts last year, but there are additional issues that make this a good study for Fall 2024.
In Eugene Peterson’s introduction to 2 Corinthians in The Message, he states:
The provocation for Paul’s second letter to the Christians in Corinth was an attack on his leadership. In his first letter, though he wrote most kindly and sympathetically, he didn’t mince words. He wrote with the confident authority of a pastor who understands the ways God’s salvation works and the kind of community that comes into being as a result. At least some of what he wrote to them was hard to hear and hard to take.
So they bucked his authority—accused him of inconsistences, impugned his motives, questioned his credentials. They didn’t argue with what he had written; they simply denied his right to tell them what to do. . . .
Because leadership is necessarily an exercise of authority, it easily shifts into an exercise of power. But the minute it does that, it begins to inflict damage on both the leader and lhe led. Paul, studying Jesus, had learned a kind of leadership in which he managed to stay out of the way so that the others could deal with God without having to go through him. All who are called to exercise leadership in whatever capacity –parent or coach, pastor or president, teacher or manager—can be grateful to Paul for this letter, and to the Corinthians for provoking it.
As we approach election season, it seems a good idea to review what we can learn about leadership from this important letter, both the leadership that Paul exhibits and the leadership of the Corinthian church. We may all want to consider what it means to be a leader as we make our selections in November.
Pastor Rob specifically wanted to address Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians this fall. The letter is more personal than other letters from Paul. In it, Paul tells about some of the challenges he has faced in his ministry and this makes it a good follow up to our study of Acts last year, but there are additional issues that make this a good study for Fall 2024.
In Eugene Peterson’s introduction to 2 Corinthians in The Message, he states:
The provocation for Paul’s second letter to the Christians in Corinth was an attack on his leadership. In his first letter, though he wrote most kindly and sympathetically, he didn’t mince words. He wrote with the confident authority of a pastor who understands the ways God’s salvation works and the kind of community that comes into being as a result. At least some of what he wrote to them was hard to hear and hard to take.
So they bucked his authority—accused him of inconsistences, impugned his motives, questioned his credentials. They didn’t argue with what he had written; they simply denied his right to tell them what to do. . . .
Because leadership is necessarily an exercise of authority, it easily shifts into an exercise of power. But the minute it does that, it begins to inflict damage on both the leader and lhe led. Paul, studying Jesus, had learned a kind of leadership in which he managed to stay out of the way so that the others could deal with God without having to go through him. All who are called to exercise leadership in whatever capacity –parent or coach, pastor or president, teacher or manager—can be grateful to Paul for this letter, and to the Corinthians for provoking it.
As we approach election season, it seems a good idea to review what we can learn about leadership from this important letter, both the leadership that Paul exhibits and the leadership of the Corinthian church. We may all want to consider what it means to be a leader as we make our selections in November.
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