A New Voice
Particularly when reading the epistles I find that in my head I assign the writer a “voice.” I do this with other literature as well. So when I read Velvet Elvis for example, I “hear” Rob Bell in my head. However, when thinking about the Bible, this is difficult since there are no podcasts from the that time period. So the “voice” that I “hear” really is arbitrarily assigned by me.
Which brings us back to the epistles. For most of my life, when I’ve read Paul’s epistles, the “voice” in my head could best be described by the following list of words: irritated, self-righteous, intense, serious, angry, stern…you get the idea. But the voice is changing.
Our leadership team is working our way through 1 Corinthians and it’s been remarkable to me how Paul’s voice is changing. I don’t want to get into all the ways here, or this post will get too long, but seeing Paul’s use of sarcasm (4:8ff) and the way he taunts the Corinthians at times (6:5), makes Paul more human too me. It’s quite refreshing.
