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Being Real: The Apostle Paul’s Hardship Narratives and The Stories We Tell Today
In an age of carefully managed public profiles presented via Instagram or BeReal, or even the public presentation of our churches, Paul’s stories of hardship in his letters to the Corinthians draw us to a different relationship with ourselves and our communities – one which enables to tell authentic stories about ourselves, warts and all. In his deep and careful study of the epistles to the Corinthians, Philip Plyming demonstrates how Paul calls the Corinthian Christians to a way of living which stands in stark contrast from the prevailing culture of Corinth, and argues that there are profound lessons to be learnt for faithful Christians and churches today.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 28, 2023
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January 6, 2024
It would seem that many people either love or hate Paul. I know many who believe Paul messed up the religion of Jesus, even though Paul's writings predate the Gospels, sometimes by decades (depending on how you date things). So, in many ways, Paul is as close to the origin of Christianity as any source. As for me, I recognize that there are problems with some that Paul espouses, though sometimes we can duck the question by attributing some letters to someone else (as with the Pastorals). Nevertheless, there is much to learn from Paul because they are rather personal. After all, these are letters, not essays. In recent years there has been quite a bit of rethinking Paul and his message, such that the overemphasis on justification by faith has been challenged.
On a personal note, the Pauline letters that I have found to be the most helpful and intriguing are the Corinthian letters. There are some oddities in these letters, but the letters reflect Paul's attempt to address real concerns afflicting this congregation. I've often suggested that if you want to restore the New Testament church to its golden age, beware of the Corinthians. The truth is, there is much about these letters that speak to our current situation.
In "Being Real: The Apostle Paul's Hardship Narratives and the Stories We Tell Today," Philip Plyming, Dean of Durham Cathedral, connects Paul's letter to the Corinthians to the ways we tell stories today, especially through social media. The book divides into two parts. The first part explores the situation at Corinth and its impact on the development of the congregation, as well as Paul's use of his own story of hardship, something he doesn't do elsewhere, to counteract a certain perspective present in the congregation that reflects the social-cultural context of the Corinthian congregation. Plyming writes that as he has read 1 and 2 Corinthians over the years, he has "really appreciated Paul's honesty and openness." This stands in contrast to what he has seen in his own circles. Where Paul was willing to acknowledge the challenges of living the Christian life, Plyming writes that he has "often witnessed a pressure to emphasize the positive aspects of our Christian experience" (p. 3). I know the feeling; we do feel pressured to give a positive vibe. What Paul's letters do is show us a way of telling hard stories. The question is why Paul devotes so much attention to hardship in these particular letters.
Plyming begins in Chapter 1 telling "The Story of Corinth: A City of Success." He shares how this ancient city had been destroyed and then rebuilt by the Romans, such that it was a cosmopolitan economic powerhouse. He compares it to modern Shanghai. When Paul started the congregation there the city was at its zenith. It was home to upwardly mobile people who prized success. Weakness was not acceptable. It was a place where one could rise from slavery to power, thus it was a city of social fluidity. It was also, as you can imagine, a place of "status anxiety." The higher you rise on the social ladder the more conscious you are of your status and the possibility of falling. Added to these is that this is a culture of "self-promotion." We can still see signs of self-promotion in the streets of ancient Corinth. If you had risen to the heights, you wanted to display your achievements. What we see is a valuation of strength. Winning is everything. It's a city that values not just what is said, but how it is said. Style was important to public speaking. Yes, Paul encountered a city that valued success over everything else.
In Chapter 2, Plyming speaks of "Walking in a Worldly Way." The problem that faced this church was that the cultural values of Corinth bled into congregational life. It needs to be understood that the situation in Corinth was rather radical. It was a social experiment unique to the era. That experiment involved taking down barriers of separation between male and female, Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, slave and free. This occurred because Paul preached a message of radical welcome. This was a rather diverse Christian community --- Paul wasn't a proponent of the homogeneous principle of the church growth people. Nowhere else in that city did such a diverse community gather. As you can imagine this led to problems such as division, power plays, and more. Standing at the center of all of this was the community's valuation of success. It appears that Paul didn't measure up. He wasn't a super apostle. He was rather weak in his speaking and body. Thus, there was an openness to these super-apostles, people who demonstrated power and success. Again, Plyming warns us against looking down on this congregation because many of the same realities are present today.
So how does Paul respond? In Chapter 3, Plyming shows how Paul uses his own stories of suffering as a way of countering the narrative of success. He shares how he has suffered, but also how God was present amid that suffering. He could have focused on his successes, but that would only have fed the Corinthian mode of storytelling. We find throughout that Paul contrasts his hardship stories with the Corinthian embrace of success and power. He speaks of physical, emotional, and social suffering. Despite the suffering, he spoke of hope because he found grace to be sufficient. Again, the question is why Paul tells these stories, after all, they are not told to gain applause because the Corinthians don't value weakness. Plyming ultimately answers the question in Chapter 4, which speaks of "God's Cross-Shaped Work." Whereas the Corinthians took pride in their power, Paul pointed to the cross and found God at work in the cross. Yes, Paul sees the power of God on display in the cross, such that he identifies himself with the cross. He suggests that God's presence was on display in unusual places, such as among the slaves and others on the margins. Thus, "For Paul the cross of Christ is not just an event concerning Jesus that he tells people about. For Paul the cross is also something he models in his own speaking." (p. 63).
In Chapter 5, Plyming pivots from Corinth to the present. He addresses the way we tell stories, recognizing that "stories tell us where we have come from, and what we value today" (p. 75). Much of what we read in the rest of the book has to do with social media and the way we present ourselves in our context. Plyming confesses he's not an expert in the area of social media, so he draws on others who have more expertise. But it's the connecting of Paul's words to the Corinthians and our own context that makes this a most intriguing conversation. We tell lots of different stories, most of which are not focused on significant things. Thus, "social media enables us to share our everyday stories (however apparently trivial) with a wide audience" (p. 77). This isn't an anti-social media book. It's a look at the way we tell stories and the pressure we face to tell positive stories about ourselves. The thing about it, we are largely in control of how our stories are told. We face pressure to tell positive stories about ourselves. There is a lot of connective tissue with the Corinthian situation. So, we use social media to ingratiate ourselves and to present ourselves in ways to make others like us. We might try to intimidate others. These stories might not cause fear, but they can be used to induce awe. Look at me and my family, we're better than you! Of course, there is self-promotion (as an author I feel the pressure to self-promote because if I don't promote myself, who will?). We might use social media for what Plyming calls "exemplification." That is inviting others to follow our example, or put negatively, "virtue-signaling." Finally, there is supplication, asking for help. Of these, the most common are ingratiation and self-promotion. I can understand this to be true, even in my own life. So, the pressure is on us to look happy and feel great! Here there is a differentiation between the real me and the online me. That's because we live in a culture that pressures us to emphasize the positive elements of life. But how might we tell stories as Christians if we live as most of us do in the world of social media? To what degree does our cultural context influence the way we tell the Christian story?
Having laid out the current context of storytelling, in Chapter 6, Plyming invites us to view our stories through the cross, much as Paul did. Now the point is not to ask what Paul would do, but rather to look at things through the cross. Here we're invited to embrace weakness and to use that when appropriate. The point here is really to look at life in such a way that weakness is not seen as contrary to Christian life. In other words, here is an invitation to let go of a need for self-sufficiency and reputation, and instead offer encouragement but not by always telling stories of success. As Chapter 7 declares: "Being Real: Our Shared Story of the Cross." Social media can assist in this through shared stories. We can be co-storytellers. In Paul's case, Plyming writes that "as Paul narrates his own hardship, he is actually co-telling the story of the cross of Christ. He uses images and language of weakness that connect the attentive listener to the original crucifixion of Jesus" (p. 113). The invitation to us is also to be attentive to unlikely places where God is at work. That leads to being honest about our experience of the Christian life. It's not always, a "bed of roses." Not everything is fine. Christians do suffer. Of course, we need wisdom and discernment in how we tell our stories. Plyming reminds us that Paul tells these kinds of stories in the Corinthian letters but not elsewhere. Of course, the question is, how does the way we tell our Christian stories point to Jesus?
The invitation again is to be co-story tellers with the cross, so that we might see weakness, reputation, and encouragement differently than our larger culture. In his conclusion, Plyming acknowledges his own privilege, such that as he writes about weakness and hardship, he does so from the privileged status of being an educated white male with a level of economic security. He also addresses the possibility of assuming that all suffering should be embraced and endured. That is not the point here. Suffering is not good and Paul himself spoke of liberation from oppression. This is not meant to assume that God will always be at work in suffering, but rather to reflect on ways God is present in weakness. Thus, how we tell our stories says something about our view of God's presence.
This can be a very helpful and encouraging book because it helps us recognize the pressures we face to put on a happy face and to honor strength, power, and success, as the world understands it. That's an important word to the Christian community at the moment because at least some in our context are embracing worldly ideas about power and success.
On a personal note, the Pauline letters that I have found to be the most helpful and intriguing are the Corinthian letters. There are some oddities in these letters, but the letters reflect Paul's attempt to address real concerns afflicting this congregation. I've often suggested that if you want to restore the New Testament church to its golden age, beware of the Corinthians. The truth is, there is much about these letters that speak to our current situation.
In "Being Real: The Apostle Paul's Hardship Narratives and the Stories We Tell Today," Philip Plyming, Dean of Durham Cathedral, connects Paul's letter to the Corinthians to the ways we tell stories today, especially through social media. The book divides into two parts. The first part explores the situation at Corinth and its impact on the development of the congregation, as well as Paul's use of his own story of hardship, something he doesn't do elsewhere, to counteract a certain perspective present in the congregation that reflects the social-cultural context of the Corinthian congregation. Plyming writes that as he has read 1 and 2 Corinthians over the years, he has "really appreciated Paul's honesty and openness." This stands in contrast to what he has seen in his own circles. Where Paul was willing to acknowledge the challenges of living the Christian life, Plyming writes that he has "often witnessed a pressure to emphasize the positive aspects of our Christian experience" (p. 3). I know the feeling; we do feel pressured to give a positive vibe. What Paul's letters do is show us a way of telling hard stories. The question is why Paul devotes so much attention to hardship in these particular letters.
Plyming begins in Chapter 1 telling "The Story of Corinth: A City of Success." He shares how this ancient city had been destroyed and then rebuilt by the Romans, such that it was a cosmopolitan economic powerhouse. He compares it to modern Shanghai. When Paul started the congregation there the city was at its zenith. It was home to upwardly mobile people who prized success. Weakness was not acceptable. It was a place where one could rise from slavery to power, thus it was a city of social fluidity. It was also, as you can imagine, a place of "status anxiety." The higher you rise on the social ladder the more conscious you are of your status and the possibility of falling. Added to these is that this is a culture of "self-promotion." We can still see signs of self-promotion in the streets of ancient Corinth. If you had risen to the heights, you wanted to display your achievements. What we see is a valuation of strength. Winning is everything. It's a city that values not just what is said, but how it is said. Style was important to public speaking. Yes, Paul encountered a city that valued success over everything else.
In Chapter 2, Plyming speaks of "Walking in a Worldly Way." The problem that faced this church was that the cultural values of Corinth bled into congregational life. It needs to be understood that the situation in Corinth was rather radical. It was a social experiment unique to the era. That experiment involved taking down barriers of separation between male and female, Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, slave and free. This occurred because Paul preached a message of radical welcome. This was a rather diverse Christian community --- Paul wasn't a proponent of the homogeneous principle of the church growth people. Nowhere else in that city did such a diverse community gather. As you can imagine this led to problems such as division, power plays, and more. Standing at the center of all of this was the community's valuation of success. It appears that Paul didn't measure up. He wasn't a super apostle. He was rather weak in his speaking and body. Thus, there was an openness to these super-apostles, people who demonstrated power and success. Again, Plyming warns us against looking down on this congregation because many of the same realities are present today.
So how does Paul respond? In Chapter 3, Plyming shows how Paul uses his own stories of suffering as a way of countering the narrative of success. He shares how he has suffered, but also how God was present amid that suffering. He could have focused on his successes, but that would only have fed the Corinthian mode of storytelling. We find throughout that Paul contrasts his hardship stories with the Corinthian embrace of success and power. He speaks of physical, emotional, and social suffering. Despite the suffering, he spoke of hope because he found grace to be sufficient. Again, the question is why Paul tells these stories, after all, they are not told to gain applause because the Corinthians don't value weakness. Plyming ultimately answers the question in Chapter 4, which speaks of "God's Cross-Shaped Work." Whereas the Corinthians took pride in their power, Paul pointed to the cross and found God at work in the cross. Yes, Paul sees the power of God on display in the cross, such that he identifies himself with the cross. He suggests that God's presence was on display in unusual places, such as among the slaves and others on the margins. Thus, "For Paul the cross of Christ is not just an event concerning Jesus that he tells people about. For Paul the cross is also something he models in his own speaking." (p. 63).
In Chapter 5, Plyming pivots from Corinth to the present. He addresses the way we tell stories, recognizing that "stories tell us where we have come from, and what we value today" (p. 75). Much of what we read in the rest of the book has to do with social media and the way we present ourselves in our context. Plyming confesses he's not an expert in the area of social media, so he draws on others who have more expertise. But it's the connecting of Paul's words to the Corinthians and our own context that makes this a most intriguing conversation. We tell lots of different stories, most of which are not focused on significant things. Thus, "social media enables us to share our everyday stories (however apparently trivial) with a wide audience" (p. 77). This isn't an anti-social media book. It's a look at the way we tell stories and the pressure we face to tell positive stories about ourselves. The thing about it, we are largely in control of how our stories are told. We face pressure to tell positive stories about ourselves. There is a lot of connective tissue with the Corinthian situation. So, we use social media to ingratiate ourselves and to present ourselves in ways to make others like us. We might try to intimidate others. These stories might not cause fear, but they can be used to induce awe. Look at me and my family, we're better than you! Of course, there is self-promotion (as an author I feel the pressure to self-promote because if I don't promote myself, who will?). We might use social media for what Plyming calls "exemplification." That is inviting others to follow our example, or put negatively, "virtue-signaling." Finally, there is supplication, asking for help. Of these, the most common are ingratiation and self-promotion. I can understand this to be true, even in my own life. So, the pressure is on us to look happy and feel great! Here there is a differentiation between the real me and the online me. That's because we live in a culture that pressures us to emphasize the positive elements of life. But how might we tell stories as Christians if we live as most of us do in the world of social media? To what degree does our cultural context influence the way we tell the Christian story?
Having laid out the current context of storytelling, in Chapter 6, Plyming invites us to view our stories through the cross, much as Paul did. Now the point is not to ask what Paul would do, but rather to look at things through the cross. Here we're invited to embrace weakness and to use that when appropriate. The point here is really to look at life in such a way that weakness is not seen as contrary to Christian life. In other words, here is an invitation to let go of a need for self-sufficiency and reputation, and instead offer encouragement but not by always telling stories of success. As Chapter 7 declares: "Being Real: Our Shared Story of the Cross." Social media can assist in this through shared stories. We can be co-storytellers. In Paul's case, Plyming writes that "as Paul narrates his own hardship, he is actually co-telling the story of the cross of Christ. He uses images and language of weakness that connect the attentive listener to the original crucifixion of Jesus" (p. 113). The invitation to us is also to be attentive to unlikely places where God is at work. That leads to being honest about our experience of the Christian life. It's not always, a "bed of roses." Not everything is fine. Christians do suffer. Of course, we need wisdom and discernment in how we tell our stories. Plyming reminds us that Paul tells these kinds of stories in the Corinthian letters but not elsewhere. Of course, the question is, how does the way we tell our Christian stories point to Jesus?
The invitation again is to be co-story tellers with the cross, so that we might see weakness, reputation, and encouragement differently than our larger culture. In his conclusion, Plyming acknowledges his own privilege, such that as he writes about weakness and hardship, he does so from the privileged status of being an educated white male with a level of economic security. He also addresses the possibility of assuming that all suffering should be embraced and endured. That is not the point here. Suffering is not good and Paul himself spoke of liberation from oppression. This is not meant to assume that God will always be at work in suffering, but rather to reflect on ways God is present in weakness. Thus, how we tell our stories says something about our view of God's presence.
This can be a very helpful and encouraging book because it helps us recognize the pressures we face to put on a happy face and to honor strength, power, and success, as the world understands it. That's an important word to the Christian community at the moment because at least some in our context are embracing worldly ideas about power and success.
February 2, 2024
A wonderfully provoking book.
As someone in christian leadership the balance of vulnerability and boundaries always seems like a unpredictable tightrope. 'Be real' challenged the reader to think about our responsibility as storytellers in a world where social media promotes a life that is cultivated, clipped, and often incredibly shiny. Instead we are challenged to tell our stories through a cross shaped narrative. What a calling and a challenge. This is a book I will be recommending to many, as I believe it challenges us to think deeply about how and why we share the stories we do. Especially for those of us who have regular platforms.
As someone in christian leadership the balance of vulnerability and boundaries always seems like a unpredictable tightrope. 'Be real' challenged the reader to think about our responsibility as storytellers in a world where social media promotes a life that is cultivated, clipped, and often incredibly shiny. Instead we are challenged to tell our stories through a cross shaped narrative. What a calling and a challenge. This is a book I will be recommending to many, as I believe it challenges us to think deeply about how and why we share the stories we do. Especially for those of us who have regular platforms.
August 18, 2024
The book reflects on Paul's letters to the Corinthian church in which he disclosed his sufferings and weaknesses more often than to other churches. Addresses a very relevant topic for the church today, both at the corporate and individual level, on finding God in cross-shaped places. Reflective, vulnerable and honest. Was a bit repetitive at certain parts but I figure author is trying to drive home his point.
January 21, 2024
Keepin' It Real
What is wonderfully difficult about this book is how against the grain this narrative will feel in juxtaposition to our modern-day Western culture. Lean into this book and its beauty will shine forth.
What is wonderfully difficult about this book is how against the grain this narrative will feel in juxtaposition to our modern-day Western culture. Lean into this book and its beauty will shine forth.
April 10, 2024
A gem of a book. Plyming is honest and careful with both the biblical text and his own stories. I devoured it in one sitting - partly because it is a shortish (but rich) book but mostly because it is well written.
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