In the Old Testament, Ezekiel heard God’s call to be a prophet through a rather unusual experience. God gave him a scroll containing written words Ezekiel was to speak. But God did not command him to read the text to the Jews; rather, God commanded him to eat the scroll and then go speak. (See 3:1–4.) God’s Word was not content just to be heard; instead, it was a nourishing word that fed a hunger and could only be spoken after it became internalized within Ezekiel.

A participant in a parish Bible study on Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians wondered aloud if that community would have preferred to keep its letters private instead of having them read in churches throughout the world for all time. Her point was well taken; these letters do not put the Corinthian community in the best light. But as I thought about her observation, it occurred to me that this community was possibly one of the most unique gatherings of Christians Paul ever encountered. They were not easily offended, and they were not afraid of taking Paul’s teaching in new directions. In the end, they challenged Paul to reexamine what he had said and how he had said it; the Corinthians’ struggle was as formative for Paul as it had been for them.

At first, Paul may have thought his reception at Philippi was just an unfortunate exception. (See “Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians: Letter From a Roman Jail,” September 2008.) But in a pattern that would repeat itself throughout Acts of the Apostles, he and his companions stirred up the anger of one interest group after another. In Philippi, merchants looking to make money from Paul’s new religion found quite the opposite. This new “way” did not require the usual trappings of pagan practices: there were no idols to be carved, no fates to be augured, no votive offerings to appease this new God. Things turned ugly, and the missionaries were beaten, imprisoned, and in a final humiliation, asked to leave the city! As they made their way to Thessalonica, they could only hope for a better reception.