Canter Bridge

The apostle Paul’s relationship with the Corinthian Christians was complex, even prickly. There is more pathos in his letters to this church than in all the others combined, a product of the wrestling for clarity on matters of authority, doctrinal clarity, and appropriate behavior.

A palpable triumphalism seems to have characterized the Corinthian church, a celebration of achievement and a bizarre naiveté about the limits of progress. If we are to assess these people through the lens of Paul’s letters to them, it is difficult not to charge them with moral recklessness and a certain lack of sobriety. One might expect regular excitement in Corinth, but little enduring accomplishment when it has passed.

In his struggle to reach an understanding with them, Paul employs the language of fatherhood:

For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers.

It is a poignant moment. Anyone whose hard labors have been suddenly eclipsed by flamboyant operators who breeze in and—one knows it will happen—breeze out just as easily will recognize the betrayal Paul feels most deeply. A man like this, hands and soul worn by the daily toil that shapes human beings and their communities, is driven nearly to despair by the ease with which those he cares for are entranced by men and women whom the venerable Cat Stevens might have considered ‘fancy dancers’.

It ain’t right, as they say in Georgia.

And so, the pathos-rich appeal of a father almost resigned to being misunderstood comes to Corinthian readers and, latterly, to us:

I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me.

Some will question the apostle’s transparency, damning him for authority plays dressed up as matters of correct belief. Few such critics will have given themselves to the quiet, bruising work of an engaged father.