Examine yourself

St. Paul twice exhorts us to examine ourselves. Once, to ask if we are truly in the faith.

He means this as first-century converts would have understood it. Christ said that whoever heard his words and believed God who sent him had already passed from death to life. The only thing first century Christians knew about Christ was what he said and did. Paul isn't asking for an exegesis according to Thomas Aquinas or Karl Barth.

Paul exhorts us in another place to do it, examine ourselves, before taking communion, lest we be guilty of the Lord's body and blood.

I think he meant the same thing both times.

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