Epiphany 7 - 1 Corinithians 15.39-41

The lectionary skips over a few verses inside the reading from 1 Corinthians this past Sunday (Epiphany 7).  The passage doesn't read too terribly with the verses missing, but the worshipper misses Paul providing evidence for how different beings bear a different glory from each other, and indeed heavenly bodies do too.  There is a dazzling variety of glory in the world, all of it unique to its own way of glory, and all of it glorious as God has made it to be.

1 Corinthians 15.39-41

Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

Such talk of glory from the Bible's leading theologian of the cross seems strange, but Paul is offering an image of the abundant, though broken, glory with which God has created the world. Paul's words here in 1 Corinthians help to make fuller sense of Paul's words in 2 Corinthians, that the glory of the Gospel has caused the glory of the Law to pass away, and that we are being transformed from "one degree of glory to another" (1 Corinthians 3.18).