Lectionary Year A, B and C
Ash Wednesday
II Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Step II: Disposition
(DR) This passage sets the stage for reconciliation in the preceding verses.
Note the prosaic appeal (6:1). Is this "appeal" a technical term for parenesis -- or instruction for the work that didn't get finished? In general, is the term "parakaleo" confined to the second half of epistles. Is it true, in general for epistles, that imperatives start showing up in the "parenesis" sections?
Does vertical reconciliation through Christ generates the horizontal ministry of reconciliation?
Carries over in our preaching style (see step V).
6:2 Looks like "midrash" but with a long list with the preposition "en."
Is this a Parallel to the "Unjust steward" (see Step 4)
Is this Paul telling "his story" as a "parable"? The punchline is 6:11-13.
(JA) Parable and poetry are very much alike.
(JA) Does Paul presuppose the knowledge of the Jesus tradition so that we don't have the parables in the epistles? Maybe this is a translated parable?
(GG) I see this as Paul on the witness stand, making his case three times in 2Cor. Note he didn't use the word "ambassador" - the word is "presbuomen"
(cf. step IV): perhaps not just a messenger but as though we have been visited by the royal one -- an extension of the king by virtue of the ambassador's presence (institution of the "schaliach" in Judaism)?
(JA) Is this political or "oiketical" (household)?!
(JA) "Inheritance": is it not about belonging and not ever being separated? Is this "household" language? Who is the head of the household? Perhaps the household of faith says we don't live in "competition" as in other settings--do we know how to handle this?
v4: Begins to sound the same--triplets follow like in (Rm. 5:1-5 ). Suffering produces endurance reversed? Tied perhaps also to reconciliation language.
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