House Churches, Maranatha, Grace, and Paul’s Final Love

The churches of Asia send greetings, especially Aquila and Priscilla and the church meeting in their house. The letter closes with Paul’s own handwritten greeting, a warning concerning love for the Lord, the Aramaic acclamation “Maranatha,” the grace of the Lord Jesus, and Paul’s love for the Corinthians in Christ.

“Maranatha” is commonly understood as an Aramaic prayer or confession meaning roughly “Our Lord, come!” or, depending on how the Aramaic is divided, “Our Lord has come.” Its preservation in an otherwise Greek letter is evidence of an early Semitic Christian acclamation, but it does not by itself prove every later theory about a fixed original liturgy.