Bring the Gospel to Daily Life, Charles Maahs Tells ELCA

     PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Congregational conflict -- down the street today, on the Midwest's Great Plains a hundred years ago or in Corinth two millennium ago -- continues as a constant in the Christian church. The troubled and troublesome Corinthian congregation offers a way to look at what the Apostle Paul does best: "bring the gospel to bear in daily life," noted the Rev. Charles Maahs Saturday afternoon before the Fifth Biennial Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
     Maahs, bishop of the ELCA's Central States synod,  is one of three bible study leaders examining St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians during the course of the assembly meeting in Philadelphia through Wednesday.  Maahs discussed the problems and advice offered the Corinthian Christians, noting, "the fundamental enemy of the gospel in the world is not materialism, but spiritualism."
     Living in isolation within a diverse secular culture, the first generation Christian congregation in Corinth was surrounded by all kinds of philosophies and religions and practices, immoral and moral.   The brand new congregation existed alone -- without references or traditions or even the New Testament, Maahs reminded the voters and visitors.
     "So they wrote Paul and said 'Help! Give us some answers!'" Maahs explained in  helping his audience understand the situation faced by both Paul and the newly-founded church.
     Paul addresses the problems relating to the attitudes, values, and conduct of the community in Corinth, including attacks from the good folk in Corinth upon himself.  "The greatness of the Apostle Paul consisted in his ability to bring the resources of the faith, the words of Jesus and interpret them for new situations," Maahs said.
     Paul requires that the Corinthians renounce the self-indulgent and arrogant behavior which has led some of the them to exalt themselves over against other members of the Community.  They must set aside self-interest, so the interpersonal problems in the community would resolve themselves.
     "There's not one world of spiritual and another world of material." Maahs emphasized.  "To attend to the gospel of Jesus Christ is not to just take half of that story -- just the spirit part, or just half of the story, the material part.  Christ joined the two worlds in himself.
     "Some people's needs, this very moment, are material.  Some people's needs are intellectual.  To meet those needs, that's the task of the church," Maahs said of Paul's call to take up money to help the poor in Jerusalem.  "Way over there in Corinth, Greece, among predominantly Gentile Christians, he's trying to take up an offering of money to send over across the sea to Palestine to some Jewish Christians who live in Southern Israel.  Paul is saying, it's extremely important not just to receive the money, the gift, but to get the money from Gentile Christians to give to Jewish Christians.
     "If we can share with them who shared with us. If they will accept the offering, something of the unity of the body of Christ will be experienced.  To have a gift that bridges the sea, bridges nationality, bridges culture and language and background, social class, racial difference -- that's what's important here!  It still is.
     "Unity is a gift, but it is also a task," said Maahs.  "It will thrive equally as well in a diverse culture as well as in one that is homogenous.  To a multicultural world, filled with real and potentially hurtful divisions, the promise that God's faithfulness is manifest in our sharing brings purpose to our unity."
     Maahs is chair of the Conference of Bishops of the ELCA.  Educated as a child of missionaries in New Guinea, Australia and India, Maahs studied at Wartburg College and Wartburg Seminary in Iowa and received the Doctor of Theology degree in New Testament Theology from the University of Tubinen at Tubingen, West Germany.  He served as pastor in two Kansas congregations before his election as bishop in 1987.

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