1 Corinthians 16:19-24 (NIV)
The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house. All the brothers and sisters here send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.
If anyone does not love the Lord, let that person be cursed! Come, Lord!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
As usual, Paul passes on greetings from people known to the Corinthians as he closes his letter. The Church was a small minority in the Pagan Roman Empire, and it was easy for each congregation to feel isolated, alone in the midst of a hostile society.
But with each of Paul’s letters, the Churches were reminded that, even though they were in the minority in each city, they were part of something much larger than God was doing. And their job was not to allow themselves to become discouraged or fearful and turn inward. It was to push out forcefully in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring more and more people into a saving relationship with Jesus.
Like the vast majority of writers in the empire, Paul wrote his letter with the help of a scribe who was fluent in the best style of Greek, and who was trained to write well. Being a scribe was considered an honorable and esteemed profession. The person “writing” the letter would dictate, and the scribe would take down the words, cleaning up the grammar if needed for those who weren’t native speakers.
But, as an authenticating mark of all his letters, Paul wrote the closing paragraphs himself, in his own hand. This “authentication” prevented spurious writers from passing off their own ideas as coming from an authoritative source, like Paul (2 Thessalonians 3:17).
In his closing remarks, Paul not only passes on the grace of Jesus, and his own love for all of them, but also includes a curse on those who don’t love the Lord. This is not a curse on the pagans who needed salvation, but a curse on those who pretended to be part of the body of Christ, but who showed their true colors by sowing divisions in the Church, and by openly sinning, bringing dishonor on the cause of Christ.
It may seem odd to have Paul cursing anyone. But he could clearly see the damage these false brothers and sisters were causing in the Church, and he was putting them on notice. He would be coming to Corinth soon in the role of an apostle of Jesus, and he would deal powerfully with those who were causing strife and division in the Church (2 Corinthians 13:2-3).
Father, even today it is easy to feel like we are standing alone in a godless society, a feeling that can drive away hope and make us shy away from the works you have given us to complete before Jesus returns. We have even separated ourselves from the other Christians in our communities as we point fingers at each other over our doctrinal and structural differences, making the capital C Church in our communities far less effective than it should be. Forgive us, Lord, and help us to work together to push the light of your gospel into all the dark places in our communities, so that Your love can be powerfully seen, and so that Your Kingdom will grow. Amen.