Being Real: The Apostle Paul’s Hardship Narratives and The Stories We Tell Today

By Philip Plyming

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SCM Press
• Release date: Oct 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780334065579

Philip Plyming

Very Revd Dr Philip Plyming is Dean of Durham, overseeing the life and mission of Durham Cathedral. He was previously Warden of Cranmer Hall, Durham where he taught leadership and New Testament and hosted the Talking Theology podcast.

Book preview

Being Real

Being Real

The Apostle Paul’s Hardship Narratives, and the Stories We Tell Today

Philip Plyming

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© Philip Plyming 2023

Published in 2023 by SCM Press

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Philip Plyming has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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ISBN 978-0-334-06556-2

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. The Story of Corinth: A City of Success

2. Walking in a Worldly Way: The Church in Corinth and Its Real Problem

3. Hard Times: Paul’s Stories of Suffering

4. God’s Cross-Shaped Work: Why Paul Saw God at Work in Surprising Places

5. Telling Our Stories Today

6. Viewing Our Stories Through the Cross

7. Being Real: Our Shared Story of the Cross

Conclusion

References and Further Reading

Acknowledgements

This book is about a God who works in surprising places, and as I look back on the journey of writing this book, I thank God for the people who have accompanied me in the twists and turns of what has been a project of over 20 years.

David Wilkinson was one of my placement supervisors when I was training at Cranmer Hall at the end of the 1990s and has been my boss as Principal of St John’s College, Durham for the last six years. David was the person who first inspired me to think theologically about Christian communication, and has ever since been a source of wisdom and encouragement, as well as role model for Christ-like leadership. His belief in this book project has been invaluable.

Jolyon Mitchell and Larry Hurtado were my supervisors at the University of Edinburgh as I worked on the doctoral research that fed into this book. Larry Hurtado helped me to put Paul’s hardship narratives in a rich first-century context; his capacity to bring the ancient world alive inspired my attempt in this book to do the same. Jolyon Mitchell steered me through the whole project, and his wisdom and encouragement, not least when I had to pick myself up after a bruising PhD viva experience, has been a great blessing. It has been special that, as I have been putting the finishing touches to this book, Jolyon has been a Visiting Fellow at St John’s College, Durham, and I have had the chance to thank him again in person for the support he gave me as a young researcher.

I wrote my PhD alongside parish ministry, and I am grateful to the Bishops of Winchester and Guildford, the Revd Dr Richard Turnbull and the people of Christ Church, Chineham and Holy Trinity, Claygate for their support in giving me the time and space to research and write.

The majority of this book was written during a term’s study leave from my role as Warden of Cranmer Hall. I am grateful to the Council of St John’s College for giving me this leave and to my colleagues Emma Parker, Nick Moore and Chris Courtman for ensuring everything ran more smoothly in my absence.

Walter Moberly taught me biblical theology 25 years ago and inspired me to engage with the Bible with ‘full imaginative seriousness’ ever since. I hope this book is an example of doing just that, and I am most grateful to Walter for reading early drafts of the text and commenting so perspicaciously on them. Likewise I am grateful to the following who read and commented on the book at various points in its writing: Maeve Sherlock, Christine Fernando, Nick Moore, Will Foulger, Sam Plyming, Matthew Prior and Rob Handley. Needless to say, the views represented and any mistakes remain my own.

It has been my privilege to lead teams and communities where it has been possible to be honest and real. I thank the staff teams at Holy Trinity, Claygate, and Cranmer Hall, Durham, for their gracious response when I have lived out my own brokenness before them. The congregations in Claygate and the student community at Cranmer Hall have been places where I have taught on 1 and 2 Corinthians. Some students at Cranmer Hall have sat through the ‘ancient Corinth open-top bus tour’ lecture more than once; I am grateful for their forbearance in not looking too bored and pretending to find my holiday pictures interesting.

Over the last four years I have had the privilege of interviewing over 70 theologians from around the world on the Cranmer Hall podcast Talking Theology. Some of them, such as Michael J. Gorman and Frederico Villanueva, have spoken directly into the themes I have developed in this book. I am grateful to them but also to all the guests who have spoken with vulnerability and honesty about their journey integrating theology into the realities of life. Talking Theology has felt like a life-giving stream feeding my own theological development and thinking; many of the insights in the second half of this book come from the conversations I have had with guests. Talking Theology would not be possible without the superb students who have served as co-producers over the years; my thanks go to Anthony Smith, Sam Crossley, Rosie Illingworth, Joe Mottram, Sarah Millican-Jones, Lloyd Brown, Hannah Malcolm, Kate Eaton-Wells, Jenny Lander, Lydia Padfield and Gary Eaborn.

As I say in the Introduction, this book includes stories from people who have been real about their lives of faith and the way God is at work in surprising places. I am grateful for their witness, honesty and faithfulness, without which I would not have the confidence to write as I have done.

I am grateful for the efficiency and encouragement of the staff at SCM, especially David Shervington, Rachel Geddes and Kate Hughes. They turned a daunting prospect into a manageable task and it has been a pleasure working with them.

Finally, my thanks go to family: my two sons Sam and James, who were both born while I was working on my PhD and who have brought such joy into my life, and my wife Annabelle who has been a source of unfailing love and support in the journey of writing this book. Our marriage has been a place where I can be real about my struggles in life and faith, and I thank God for the compassion that I have received in response. This book is dedicated to her with my love and thanks.

Philip Plyming

Cranmer Hall, St John’s College, Durham, Easter 2023

Introduction

This is a book about the stories told by the apostle Paul, but not the Paul you think you know.

I first read one of Paul’s letters when I was 18 and in my first few weeks at university. I had been invited along to a Bible study run by the Christian Union. I had sung in the local church choir since I was a boy, but this was the first time I had ever gone along to a group like this. I was unsure what to expect.

I took along the only Bible I had, which was a King James Bible I had been given by my grandparents. I found out we were looking at Philippians (or as I called it at one point, the Gospel of Philip!), and I offered to read the first chapter. It all went well until I came to verse 8: ‘for God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.’

I wasn’t asked to read again.

I came to a living faith in my first year at university and went on to read Paul in a more accessible translation. And over the years I have studied Paul in some depth, preached through many of his letters and taught classes on him to people training for church leadership. I even led a pilgrimage in the steps of St Paul, spending ten days touring round Greece in the spring – it was a tough job, but someone had to do it.

And I know that people have very different views on Paul. I’ve talked to people who really struggle with Paul because of some of the things he wrote that they find difficult to accept. Some have had a few verses of Paul quoted at them to prove that they were wrong. For them he is a figure to read grudgingly, if at all.

Others love Paul as a great theologian, a man who modelled clear teaching and good doctrine. They also admire his extraordinary missionary energy and church planting ministry. They devour Paul’s writings (sometimes over and above the gospels), keen to learn lessons for Christian life today.

I recognize the bits in Paul’s writings that are tough and, if 2 Peter 3.16 is anything to go by, I am not the only one! However, I have come to admire Paul greatly over the years, not because he is a great theologian or an outstanding missionary, although his contribution as both is remarkable.

I admire Paul because in his writings I encounter a real person.

The real Paul

One of the things that marks Paul out is his willingness to be honest about the things that have gone well and the things that haven’t. He does not hide the challenges that he has experienced in his walk with Jesus Christ. He is fully able to express joy and thankfulness and praise, but he is also willing to voice his own challenges and the impact they have had on him.

In Philippians (back to that letter again!), he is able to start in joyful vein – ‘I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you’ (Phil. 1.3–4) – but also to be honest about his own imprisonment and his sharing in the sufferings of Christ (Phil. 1.12–14; 3.10).

In 1 Thessalonians, Paul opens himself up when he writes, ‘So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us’ (1 Thess. 2.8). But he also refers to his own distress and persecutions a number of times (1 Thess. 2.2, 9; 3.4, 7).

And in what is perhaps Paul’s final letter, 2 Timothy, he uses the intimate phrase ‘my beloved child’ to refer to Timothy (2 Tim. 1.2) and declares himself an open book when he writes, ‘Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured!’ (2 Tim. 3.10–11).

Paul is capable of being thankful for things that have gone well, and honest about when life has been a real challenge. In fact, he is a lot more honest and vulnerable about his experience of the Christian life than he is often given credit for.

And nowhere is this vulnerability more on display than in the letters we call 1 and 2 Corinthians. These letters, probably written in the mid to late 50s AD, contain some of the most intimate disclosures in all of Paul’s writings. Although he starts with giving thanks (1 Cor. 1.4–9), he then, on no fewer than six occasions, goes out of his way to tell his Corinthian readers how tough his life has been.¹ He talks about beatings he has received, despair he has felt, failures he has experienced, criticism he has been given. At one point he says, ‘We were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself’ (2 Cor. 1.8). Wow.

Paul is holding nothing back when it comes to telling his Corinthian audience what his life is really like.

Being real

As I have read these passages in 1 and 2 Corinthians over the years, I have really appreciated Paul’s honesty and openness. I say that because in some of the Christian circles I have moved in over the last 30 years, that hasn’t been the case. I have often witnessed a pressure to emphasize the positive aspects of our Christian experience. ‘I trust you’re thriving!’ starts the email, and it is quite hard to respond with anything other than the affirmative. At conferences, speakers are frequently unremittingly upbeat and testimonies often end on a positive note. Christian organizations and institutions cultivate a reputation of growth and achievement; stories that point in a different direction rarely get a mention.

This pressure to emphasize the positive has been turbo-charged by a growth in social media, where so much attention is given to presenting an image that followers will ‘like’. Along with so many Christians, we find ourselves telling a story in which we are doing well.

The image says we are thriving.

Yet my experience of the Christian life over the last 30 years has been much more mixed. I’ve witnessed some very positive things happen. I’ve seen people of all ages come to faith. I’ve seen people healed. I’ve seen individuals respond to God’s call in their lives to do something new for the Lord. I’ve seen prayers answered and lives changed. I have known joy and hope and peace in my own heart.

But I’ve also seen much more challenging things take place. I’ve seen people walk away from faith. I’ve seen projects go badly wrong. I’ve seen partnerships fail amid conflict and tension. I’ve taken and spoken at funerals in the most tragic of circumstances. I’ve seen people live with long-term illness and never get better.

This experience of brokenness has also been closer to home. I have reached points of real physical and emotional exhaustion. Anxiety, something that I have lived with since my teenage years, has at times been so bad that sleep has been very challenging.

I’ve also spent all my Christian life coming to terms with abuse that happened to