Paul and the People on Whom He Relied

Anonymity is the mask worn by the majority of people in Paul's letters. We know a few of them by a variety of appellatives, mostly names. None have left a personal trace of their existence. Yet it is to their interests, beliefs, debates, relationships, conduct and occupations that gave rise to the letters and the charcoal sketch of Paul's gospel and of him. And he relied on them. They are normal people living ordinary lives struggling to understand and to realise for themselves the nature and consequences of the gospel and their relationship with Paul. And consequential these were. At Corinth, 56 A.D., there was a marked incongruity between the actuality of their lives and the reality that Paul envisages for them. They were required to engage in a massive application of new knowledge resulting in significant intellectual, social and moral non-conformity, innovation and disruptive change and in a short time. The risks for failure were high and the chances of success were low. This paper draws upon a historical drama I have written, Paul our Contemporary: Non-Conformity and Innovation Ancient and Modern, about a dinner conversation of six people with Timothy in Corinth post the reading of Paul's letter to the Corinthian assembly. The drama engages the key topics and relationships of the letter, uses Timothy's knowledge of the mind of Paul as a device to explore ideas, brings into play many of the key concepts in current Pauline scholarship and business philosophies and practices and rhetorical, social and moral conventions. The conventions were critical to the reader and the hearers of the letter and to the diners. They are lost to modern minds and are difficult to account for in exegesis. The aims are to help the reader and student engage more empathetically and seriously with the people of these letters and to evidence the materiality of Pauline thought for contemporary public life.