The writings of the apostle Paul are not known for being easy to read, and the passage before us is no exception. So here is a hopefully acceptable — if insufferably long-winded — paraphrase of what Paul was saying to those Christians gathered in Corinth so long ago, and what Paul is also saying to us:

            And even if our gospel seems shrouded in metaphor and euphemism and hype, and therefore inaccessible to “real believers” — it is only so to those who think that they are believers but are not, those who have been blinded by the god of this world and are being dragged by that god — almost against their will, though they have made their choices, haven’t they? — down a road that leads nowhere, to nothing. They have not been “blinded by the light,” as we might say; they have been blinded to the light; they are quite unable to see the light they need to see, because they have been wholly duped by what this present world worships as god.

            We are not talking about any old light here; we are talking about the light of the Gospel, the Gospel of the glory of Christ, Christ who is the image of God (not God, but the image of God, for us: a self-manifestation of God, a presentation to us of God that we, on our level, can see). And we are not talking about whatever “light” the clever use of metaphor can symbolize, but the Light.

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