In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul explores community and unity while addressing the issue of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church. The Bible celebrates sex as good, sacred, and beautiful - not something to be approached with guilt, shame, or prudishness. The Christian view of sex needs to be centered on joy and delight, not scandalized by human sexuality. The Christian stance on sexuality is not about idealizing a specific family unit but recognizing that everyone’s story is different, marked by love, joy, heartbreak, and unforeseen circumstances. From a Christian perspective, sex is never to be treated flippantly. People are precious, all sexual encounters carry sacred weight, and personal decisions affect our community. The church often falls into the pitfall of focusing solely on promoting oppressive systems of accountability or invasive surveillance to strive for sexual purity. But what if we aimed to share wisdom for real-world situations, respecting personal decisions about sex and intimacy? Rather than implementing rigid rules, the goal is to begin a nuanced conversation about the theology of human sexuality, exploring the mystery of God’s design for our intimate connections, understanding that our bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits are deeply intertwined. In 1 Corinthians (specifically in chapter 5), Paul’s primary preoccupation is with the Corinthian church’s health as a community. He’s contending for their unity. Paul is essentially saying to his friends in Corinth, “If these issues of sexual immorality within your church are left unaddressed, they will eventually serve to undo the very fabric of your togetherness.” How we treat each other matters, both in our personal relationships and within the larger community. These are inextricably linked, and our approach to sexuality should reflect this understanding. How might our sexual relationships define our broader connectedness to the community? How might we embrace a holistic understanding of sexual intimacy as a force for either division or unity/joy? What if we embraced Christian community as a place to nurture a holistic view of people, each filled with dignity and each an occasion for joy?

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At first glance, it appears as though the divisions in the Corinthians church were over very different and unconnected issues. After all, what have class divisions, the exercise of spiritual gifts, and eating meat sacrificed to idols got to do with each other? But Paul is able to see the connections beneath the surface and he frames them together with a vast theological vision. For example, the Corinthians had sensationalized the gift of tongues and made it the mark of serious Christian faith and by doing so they placed a question mark over the faith of anyone who didn’t possess this particular gift. In this context, Paul uses his famous body analogy and pushes it to an absurd place. (Corinthians 12:17-21) Paul pushes the analogy as far as he can go because he wants them to know how absurd their behavior is when they create a spiritual class system in the church. The point of the gifts is to nurture unity and togetherness in the body. But then again, in another dispute over dietary differences, Paul calls some Christians weak and others strong depending on whether they eat meat sacrificed to idols? (1 Corinthians 8:9-13) Paul is having a joke at their expense. He knows that the Corinthians have been trained to think in terms of class and status, it was part of their culture and how they operated day in and day out. And so Paul plays along and he says - with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek: You who are so ‘strong’, you super believers you, don’t stumble your ‘weaker’ brother. Throughout the letter, Paul maintains the distinction between mature and immature Christians but the Corinthians have been using the entirely wrong register. For Paul, maturity and immaturity are always about whether or not a person’s life brings people together or pushes people apart, whether they create peace or strife between people, whether they create unity or division. How can our lives be a bridge between people who think they can’t be together?

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Guest and friend of Trinity Heights, Steve Gumaer, delivers a reflection on Matthew 19.

Paul refers to the Corinthians as ‘Saints’ or ‘sanctified’, terms implying they are ‘set apart’ for a unique purpose. But what does it mean to be set apart? The Met Gala’s theme last Monday was inspired by J.G. Ballard's 1962 short story, "The Garden of Time." This tale features Count Axel and his wife, who live in a grand villa with a garden of mysterious "time flowers" that slow time when plucked. As an angry mob approaches, the Count uses the flowers to delay the inevitable destruction, while the Countess plays Mozart and the Count tends to his library. This story mirrors the disparity between the privileged few and the struggling masses, a theme highlighted by Rosalind Jana in her critique of the Gala. She notes the irony of celebrities in lavish attire amidst images of poverty, pondering if the event’s organizers are hinting at class rebellion. Christians sometimes project an image akin to Met Gala attendees, as if sainthood and holiness grant a superior, detached status. However, Paul uses metaphors to counter this misconception. He calls the Corinthians ‘God’s Temple,’ emphasizing their role as a bridge between heaven and earth, a place where God’s presence is uniquely manifested. This metaphor signifies that being ‘set apart’ means being deeply connected with people, serving to draw them closer to God and each other. For Paul, being set apart does not imply detachment but rather a closeness to people, aimed at fostering unity and spiritual connection.

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Paul gets bad news from Corinth… his friends are at each other's throats. Disputes have broken out all over the place over multiple issues. Paul says he is coming to visit them and that he 'does not want to see them only in passing’ (1 Cor 16:7) In other words, when he gets there he is going to have to stay a while to sort all of this out. Paul writes this letter to the Cornithians (which this new series is based upon) as a stopgap measure, until he can go to them in person. Paul’s strategy for addressing these conflicts is revealed in the first couple of verses where he says: ‘To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours’. He calls them the church, using the ancient Greek term ekklesia which refers to a gathering of citizens responsible for the affairs of the city. He also tells them that they are a people and reminds them that they are ‘together with’ everyone everywhere who calls on Jesus’ name. A gathering, a people, together with… in other words, from the outset of this letter Paul is getting the Corinthians to think corporately and communally. The theological equivalent of supposing that the sun goes around the earth is the belief that the whole of the Christrian truth revolves around me and my salvation. Many Christians today assume that the central question is ‘What must I do to be saved?’ or ‘How can I enter a right relationship with God?’ And this is not just the wisdom of many contemporary Christians, but the wisdom of our broader culture which claims that salvation is found in discovering and becoming our true selves. The self is something buried deep down inside us just waiting to be discovered. In this context Paul is a Copernicus or a Galileo… because the radical story Paul is drawing us into is one where salvation is not just about me personally but about a collective and corporate salvation where we are saved together. And in this story your ‘self’ is not something found within yourself but your selfhood or personhood emerges at those places where our lives touch each other.

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In part 2 of our 3 part series on the Trinity as Community, we explored how Trinitarian ideas intersect with contemporary discussions in art and science. We proposed that God as the Trinity is the foundation of our reality. This might seem to contradict contemporary scientific understandings, which focus on string theory, quantum fields, and the Big Bang. Today, science is our primary tool for explaining the universe, often sidelining religion. Modern culture sometimes views rejecting religion as enlightened. However, discarding religious concepts is not straightforward. For example, early in Einstein’s career, his equations suggested the universe was expanding, implying a beginning, which conflicted with his belief in a steady-state universe. He introduced a "fudge factor" to his model. In 1929, Edwin Hubble’s observations confirmed the universe's expansion, leading Einstein to embrace the Big Bang theory, admitting his initial resistance was philosophical, not scientific. Interestingly, the Big Bang theory was proposed by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian Catholic priest, who accepted a universe with a beginning. Thus, the Christian concept of the Trinity informs both art and science. God’s triune nature, a community in himself, is fundamental. His personal nature underpins all reality, predating matter, energy, space, and time. This contrasts with the contemporary view of an impersonal, random universe. The Trinity shows that absoluteness and personalness are inseparable in God. From this perspective, arts and sciences are distinct yet complementary. The sciences rely on God’s absoluteness, while the arts draw on his personalness. Often, we feel compelled to align with one over the other, but a more complete human experience might come from embracing both aspects. Reflecting God's image involves acknowledging the importance of both his absoluteness and personalness, recognizing that questions about human nature are as significant as scientific inquiries.

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Oftentimes, Christians and Skeptics alike view the concept of the Trinity as a kind of Christian mythology, a strange part of the story, off to the side, mysterious and nebulous.

And, as a result we struggle to understand just how fundamental and essential Trinitarian Theology has been throughout the ages with many early Christians and theologians coming to the conclusion that the Trinity is in fact the embodiment of love itself as a foundational element of the universe. A wild claim and one that we'll be peeling back the layers of in this three-part series.

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