Week 14 Post

This weeks readings come from The First Paul, written by Marcus Borg and John Crossan. The chapter I read was called "Life Together: In Christ." Initially, before I began reading, I wondered what life together in Christ means. As I read on, I grasped Borg and Crossan's meaning of a life in christ.

For Paul, life "in Christ" was not about a new personal identity for individuals. Instead, Paul's understanding was very different from the understanding of the role of religion and the purpose of spirituality in Western culture. For Paul, life "in Christ" was always a communal matter because his purpose and passion was to create a community in which peoples lives embodied an alternative to the normalcy of the "wisdom of the world" (Borg 186). This then leads me to think about the communal meaning of life "in Christ" and probes me to ask if I agree with the idea that to be "in Christ" is also to be "in the Spirit." I agree with this idea because so much of believing in Christ is believing in his spirit. Because he is not here on earth with us, we have to look at something more powerful in order to understand Christianity and continue to practice it how it should be practiced. I like Borg and Crossan's chapter here about life in Christ. So much of religion is based on belief and they strengthen how important that belief is, with looking at Paul's messages in this chapter.