rhythm of conversation

i've just spent a bit of time going through some old un-published drafts, and found these excellent quotes about paul's conception of christian life from mark strom's great book Reframing Paul: Conversations in Grace and Community:

"The coherence Paul saw in Christ did not single out any one exegetical procedure for using the Old Testament. Nor did it predispose him to any one way of dealing with Graeco-Roman cultures. Nor again did it imply any single path of Christian experience. The imitation of the dying and rising of Christ was not an alternative moral code. Imitation required new wisdom about one's actions and choices. There was no single formula for working out the implications of weakness-strength, foolishness-wisdom, poor-rich, slave-free and suffering-joy in any new context. Paul framed each pair to provoke conversations about what it might mean to imitate Christ. They were not a means of securing conformity to new ideals for behavior.

"This point is crucial to understanding the rhythm of Paul's conversation. He was not interested in uniformity of behavior. Paul's own life embodied the dynamic transformations that he believed the Spirit sought to bring about within the ekklesiai. His teaching was provocative, not legislative. It avoided the pettiness of religious and legal controversies (cf. 2 Tim 2:14-26; Tit 3:9). Nor did he prescribe any single pattern for the gathering. His advice left room for spontaneity and diversity (1 Cor 14:26-33). Clearly, Paul did not proceed from the coherence of Christ to reduce experience, relationship and learning to intellectual abstractions and formulas. There remained an open-endedness about 'walking worthy of one's calling' (Gal 5:13,16; Eph 4:1; Phil 1:27; Col 1:10; 3:1-5,17; 1 Thess 4:1; 2 Thess 1:11-12; 2:15). His message offered no formula to settle in advance which way to respond to contemporary intellectual and social patterns.

"New understanding for new circumstances emerged within the communities through conversation. Indeed, the power of the story of Christ only came to its fullness in the contingencies of social life. Paul, his colleagues, and the communities were each working out the message as they went. Yet even as his thought matured, Paul continued to show no interest in formulating final statements in the sense of the doctrinal debates and creeds of subsequent generations. He remained focused on specific people and contexts. New contexts continued to prompt new responses as Paul sought to remain open to the Spirit and to his own experiences and relationships to guide his thought." (pp.195-196)

and

"Paul's conversations bore the marks of his personality: pleading, strident, exasperated, affectionate, urgent, reflective, passionate and at times impatient. They bore the marks of his close knowledge of the popular intellectualism of his day and of the social systems of status and honor. If Paul had had his way, his ekklesiai would have remained creatively messy. But his opponents wanted neatness -- and they won. Twenty centuries later, we may look back amazed that we have drifted so far. Then again, perhaps we still don't get it. It remains profoundly difficult for leaders to let go of their need to control people. It is easier to impose order and conformity through prescribing belief and practice than to acknowledge the dignity and gifting of Christ's people. It is easier to disallow the conversation than to hear the hard questions. For many, it is easier to disallow the conversation than to join it." (p.197)

i don't think i can add anything to that, except to say i wholeheartedly agree and long for such an experience of christianity in conversation with others and the world around us. why is it so hard to find?