Tag Archives: Apostle Paul

Stewards of the Mysteries of God

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Detail of mediaeval fresco of St. Clement celebrating the Eucharist in the Lower church of San Clemente (Rome) and a Russian icon of St. John Chrysostom, vested as a bishop to celebrate the Eucharist and preach the Gospel.


Look upon us as stewards of the mysteries of God. In this regard it is expected of stewards that each one be found trustworthy. To me it matters little that I be judged by you or some other tribunal…. The one who judges me is the Lord…. who will shed light on things hidden in darkness and will make manifest the intentions of hearts…. (1 Cor. 4:1-2, 4-5)

A steward is a person who administers someone else’s property, house, finances, etc. This is an important role and was especially important in the ancient world. Stewards often know more about their employer’s business than the employer does; usually an employer has only one steward, not several.

St. Paul tells the Corinthians that he is one of the many stewards of the mysteries of God. What does it mean to be responsible for the mysteries of God? What are the mysteries of God? How is it that there are several such stewards?

The “mysteries of God” are the Greek term for what Latin theologians call the “sacraments” of God. To be a steward of the mysteries is to be a steward of the sacraments–i.e. the clergy who are responsible for leading the celebration of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, and for making them available to the faithful. As the stewards of the mysteries, the clergy are responsible for the liturgical life of the parish and leading the people into deeper fellowship with God.

The “mysteries of God” are also the teaching of the Church–i.e. the preaching of the Gospel. The clergy are responsible for teaching and preaching, often in the context of the Eucharist. They are ordained to proclaim the Good News that is enacted in the celebration of the Eucharist. Teaching and celebrating are two sides of one coin: making the life of God available to the people. A life of teaching-preaching-sacramental celebration depends on the steward’s trustworthiness and efforts to live up to these privileges/responsibilities.

The people themselves are also stewards of the mysteries. They are charged and empowered by their baptism and reception of Holy Communion to invite others to share the life of the Resurrected Christ and lead them to closer fellowship with God as well.

Each parish is the entire church. There are many stewards because there are many parishes but within each parish the whole life of God is available to be lived out by everyone there, following the leadership of the clergy/steward(s) of that parish.

Does each steward occasionally fail in some way? Yes. Does each parish occasionally fail the steward in some way? Yes. But each steward and each parish will be judged by the Lord. Until that judgement comes, the parish and the steward work together to proclaim the Good News of the Lord and to live the life of the Kingdom here and now.

Spiritual Milk

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Madonna di San Gugliemo, 12th century (Sienna, Italy). This depiction of the “Madonna Lactans” (Nursing Madonna) is a eucharistic image as much as it is an image of a mother caring for her child. Read more about this type of image here and see more examples here.

And I, brothers and sisters, was able to speak to you not as spiritual people but only as carnal people, as infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not substantial food, because you were not yet capable, nor are you capable until now, for you are fleshy people. (1 Cor. 3:1-3)

In the ancient world, milk-blood-semen were all thought to be the same liquid but warmed to differing temperatures by different internal organs. Blood was the coldest of these and the basic, most natural form of this liquid. Milk was blood, warmed and made frothy in a woman’s breasts. Semen was blood, made even warmer and frothier in a man’s testes. According to this biological idea, when a mother was nursing her child, she was feeding the baby with her own blood.

Because blood and milk were identical, the correspondence of the Virgin’s milk and Christ’s blood was important to early and medieval Christians. The Virgin’s blood becomes milk in her breasts; she nurses Christ, feeding him her warm and frothy blood; he drinks this frothy blood, which becomes the blood in his own veins. Medieval images of the Nursing Madonna (Madonna lactans) are fundamentally eucharistic images, celebrating the identity of the Virgin’s milk with Christ’s blood; she feeds him with her body which becomes his Body and he feeds the Church with his Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

There is no more vivid and elaborate exposition of 1 Corinthians 3 in early Christian literature than that found in Clement’s Paedagogus 1.6…. By combining Galatians 3:28 and 1 Corinthians 3, Clement sets the foundation for his argument that all Christians are already spiritual…and, as a result, milk-drinking infants cannot be viewed as equivalent to “carnal” Christians. Rather, milk is the food of all Christians who “seek our mother, the church.”

John David Penniman, Raised on Christian Milk

Not only did a mother’s milk (blood) provide sustenance to her baby, the infant received religious and ethnic formation as well by ingesting his/her mother’s identity via the milk-blood. This is why receiving Holy Communion was so important: to receive Christ’s blood was to be shaped and formed by his identity, according to St. Gregory of Nyssa.

Discover more about this fascinating subject in Raised on Christian Milk: Food and the Formation of the Soul in Early Christianity by John David Penniman (Yale University Press, 2017).

“Was Paul Crucified for You?”

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A Byzantine style icon of Christ crucified, with Adam’s grave in the hill beneath the Cross as St. John the Divine and the Mother of God stand on each side of Christ. The sun, moon, and angels are aghast at what they see happening on Golgotha. Christ’s eyes are closed, his body slumped against the Cross, and the footrest beam twisted diagonally which all indicate that Christ is already dead.

…each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (I Cor. 1:12-13)

The parish in Corinth was torn apart by various factions, each claiming to be faithful to a different Christian teacher who was prominent or famous in one way or another. How did these factions differ? What did they teach that put them in opposition to each other?

The names of the teachers that each faction claimed to be faithful to are probably familiar. “Cephas” was the Apostle Peter. Apollos was a well-educated Jewish man from Alexandria (Egypt) who was “mighty in the Scriptures” (Acts 18:24) who knew something of Christ but was really taught everything he knew about Christianity by Priscilla at Ephesus (Acts 18:26); he was eventually made the first bishop of Crete (Titus 3:13).

We know that Peter and Paul had intense disagreements about how much of Jewish practice should be embraced by Gentile converts to Christianity. Priscilla and Apollos were dear co-workers with the Apostle Paul; how much could they have disagreed with each other?

If we read the New Testament carefully, we discover that there was not a simple dichotomy between “Jewish Christianity” vs. “Gentile Christianity.” There seem to have been four distinct styles of Christianity with four differing sets of what should be expected from Gentile converts.

Group One insisted that Gentile converts observe the whole Mosaic Law, including circumcision. The missionary work of this group (the “false brothers” of Galatians 2:4) was deeply antagonistic towards St. Paul.

Group Two did not insist on circumcision but did require Gentile converts to keep certain practices of the Mosaic Law (esp. kosher food). We see this reflected in the council described in Acts 15. This group looked to the Apostle Peter [Cephas] and St. James, the “brother of the Lord,” as their leaders.

Group Three did not require circumcision or other practices of the Mosaic Law (kosher food) but did see them as having a certain ongoing value, nevertheless. This seems to have been the group most reflective of the Apostle Paul’s own attitude.

Group Four did not require circumcision or other practices of the Mosaic Law (kosher food) and saw no abiding significance or value in Jewish cult or feast days. These views were more radical than those of the Apostle Paul and seem to be reflected in the sermon of St. Stephen (Acts 7), who insisted that God does not dwell in the Temple and refers to Mosaic Law as “your law” and “their law.”

The factions in Corinth seem to reflect these basic distinctions. As St. Paul discusses the problems in Corinth, we see how the factions are rooted in these differing attitudes toward Jewish practice and expectations of Gentile converts to the Church.

For more about these differing groups of “Jewish Christianity” see Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles of Catholic Christianity by Raymond E. Brown and John P. Meier. (Paulist Press. 1983, 2004)