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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 22:24:17 GMT -5
g. The third part of Paul’s four-fold summary exhortation returns to the specific issue raised by the Corinthians in their letter to him: the question of what to do about food that has been sacrificed to idols (10:23-30). The first thing to note about this passage is that Paul introduced his treatment with a reiteration of his general thesis regarding Christian liberty (10:23; cf. 6:12). His restatement virtually repeats 6:12, but with a notable shift in emphasis:
- In the chapter six context Paul was speaking of the believer’s freedom as it factors into his obligation to his own sanctity and devotion to the Lord. The Christian’s freedom reflects his union with Christ and the liberation it entails; thus it must serve the truth of that union and not be the occasion for or instrument of self-will or self-enslavement (ref. 6:12-20).
- But here Paul turned his attention from the believer himself to others – people whose lives are touched by his. Freedom in Christ must serve one’s own spiritual benefit, but also the benefit of others. For freedom to be truly freedom – for it to conform to the truth, it must be profitable: It must seek and nurture newness of life in the Lord Jesus Christ, which means that it must build up (edify) rather than undermine and further enslave. It is in view of this principle that Paul issued his concluding instruction respecting “idol meats” (10:24-30), and he introduced that instruction with a general exhortation expressing the practical implication of the principle of Christian freedom: Liberty in Christ is to serve the goal of christiformity (as should every facet and operation of the Christian life), and this means that every believer is obligated to employ his freedom for the good of his fellows (10:24). Several things about this exhortation must be considered in order to grasp Paul’s meaning.
- The first is that Paul’s statement is conspicuously imprecise. Rendered literally, it is: “Let no one pursue his own, but that of the other.” Paul employed a neuter singular object in both clauses (that of himself, that of the other), thereby leaving the object of this pursuit undefined. His meaning must be supplied by the context, and the context points to edification being Paul’s implied object. (The fact that Paul’s grammatical object is generic while the context is concerned with edification has led various translators to supply the noun “good” – ref. NAS, ESV, NIV).
- The Corinthians were not to pursue “their own,” but what concerns the other. If Paul was indeed referring to seeking the other’s edification, this raises a second issue: Was he suggesting that Christians shouldn’t seek their own edification, but only that of their brothers and sisters? This clearly can’t be his meaning, for Paul everywhere insisted that Christ’s saints are to apply themselves to their growth in Him, as he himself did (Philippians 3:1-21). Every believer’s destiny (and so his great good) is his full conformity to Jesus Christ, and this is to be the goal of each one’s pursuit and labors (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; Philippians 2:12-13).
But this wasn’t the personal pursuit Paul was referring to, evident as well in the fact that he saw it as antithetical to seeking the good of others: The one seeking his own good in the sense Paul meant is not seeking – indeed cannot seek – the good of others; Paul was talking about self-seeking that reflects self-concern and self-interest and which takes no real thought of others. Importantly, this sort of self-seeking can occur even where the individual is acting out of concern for the truth and his desire to conform to it. This was precisely the case in this instance: The Corinthians were “seeking their own good” in the sense that they were insisting upon exercising the “rights” that were theirs in Christ; they were conforming to their freedom by exercising it, but without concern for others. Ironically, the Christian who seeks his own good in this way is actually undermining it. He seeks what he perceives to be his good, but his perception is driven by an immature view of his liberty and how it is to be embraced. Thus his liberty becomes the source of his own stumbling as well as those around him. Conversely, the Christian who is committed to edification – to the building up of Christ’s Church – will view his freedom through that lens and employ it accordingly. In every circumstance and interaction, he makes his maturity and mature liberty the servant of edification – his own as well as his brother’s. In this way he rightly seeks and serves his own good, whether directly or indirectly by building up Christ’s body of which he is a part.
- Finally, it’s notable that Paul exhorted the Corinthians to pursue that which concerns the other. One might well have expected Paul to refer explicitly to other Christians rather than using this generic term. Some English versions fill out this adjective with the noun neighbor, perhaps because it has a generic connotation, but possibly also because of the linkage Paul makes in the larger context between the Church and Israel (ref. 10:1-11). For the notion of “neighbor” was woven into Israel’s covenant and was a key aspect of the nation’s ethic (cf. Exodus 20:16-17, 21:14, 22:7-27; Leviticus 18:20 and 19:13-18 with Matthew 22:34-40). However, the implication of assigning this Israelite connotation to Paul is that it tends to limit the meaning of other to other members of the covenant community (the Church) as the concept “neighbor” did for theocratic Israel. Paul’s instruction has obvious concern for the community of believers, but the context argues for a wider meaning for “other” (ref. 10:27-29, 32-33). The Christian obligation to seek the good of others extends beyond the household of faith to include all men. The Corinthians were to regard and employ their liberty in the same way as every other dimension of their lives: according to the overarching ethic of serving the cause of the gospel. They were to become all things to all men with the goal of winning them; in this way they would truly fulfill their obligation to “do good to all men” (Galatians 6:10; cf. 9:15-23).
With regard to the present issue, this meant that the Corinthians were to view their freedom in terms of an obligation, not only to their fellow believers, but to their fellow human beings. The mature saints at Corinth may have given some thought to how their actions respecting “idol meats” and idol rituals were affecting their weaker brothers and sisters, but Paul insisted that they also consider their non-Christian countrymen. Were their actions testifying to the gospel and working toward the faith of the unbelievers around them, or were they bearing false witness, thereby showing themselves to be opponents of the gospel and its work rather than co-laborers with it (ref. again 9:23-27)? In the name of exalting the liberty that was theirs in Christ, some at Corinth were guilty of stumbling their countrymen as well as their believing brethren. Paul exhorted the Corinthians to pursue the good of their fellow man, and he elaborated on that charge by showing them what this means in terms of food sacrificed to idols (10:25-30). This instruction is critically important, not merely because it was Paul’s final word on the subject, but because he brought together in practical terms all that he’d said about such foods and how the Christian is to approach his freedom in Christ in light of his status as Christ’s bondslave for the sake of His gospel. The specifics of his argument are as follows:
- First of all, it’s crucial to note that Paul distinguished here between “idol meats” as such and pagan ritual worship. His instruction pertained to foods that come to a meal table through the process of ritual sacrifice, not food that is consumed in connection with idol rituals. The Corinthians (and all Christians) were free to purchase and eat anything available in the marketplace despite the strong probability that it had been involved in a sacrificial ritual (v. 25). They could do so without having to identify its history in order to set their consciences at ease that it was “clean” (in Paul’s words, “without inquiring on account of conscience”). Paul gave as the reason for this “good conscience” toward all food the fundamental truth that everything the Lord created is good. And it is good because the Lord is Himself good and “the earth is His and all it contains” (cf. Psalm 24:1 with Psalm 50:10-12; cf. also Genesis 1:31 with Mark 7:14-23 and Romans 14:14 with 1 Timothy 4:1-5).
- Secondly, Paul enlarged his discussion by posing a second situation, namely a Christian being invited to a meal by an unbeliever (10:27-30). This is an important detail for a couple of reasons. First, it suggests that the host had no conscience problem with the possibility that the meat he was serving had come through an idol temple. If he did, he obviously wouldn’t be serving it. Therefore the offense (as indicated in Paul’s scenario) is taken by one or more of the guests. But given the circumstance, the offended one could be either another Christian or an unbeliever. In fact, Paul’s instruction speaks equally to both possibilities.
- The Corinthians needed to understand that there was more at stake in their decisions and actions than their own consciences. They obviously needed to honor their own conscience, but they also needed to consider others who might be affected by what they did. Verses 27-28 show that Paul was concerned about both. With respect to the Corinthian saints who might find themselves invited to such a meal, Paul instructed them that they needn’t be concerned about accepting the invitation; they were free to accept without having to ask about the status of the food (v. 27; cf. v. 25 where Paul gave the very same counsel regarding food available in the marketplace). Their host had no conscience issues about what he was serving and they shouldn’t either.
- But there might be others present who do have a problem with eating such foods, and the believer – who himself has no conscience issue – needs to take that into account (v. 28). Specifically, in this situation the Christian needs to refrain from eating. He ought not raise any questions or concerns himself, but once someone else raises them and manifests a violated conscience, he is to honor the other’s conscience by not eating. And this is the Christian’s obligation regardless of whether the offended person is a believer or an unbeliever. Readers typically conclude that Paul was talking about offense being taken by another Christian, but his generic language (“if anyone says to you…”), together with the scenario he posed – namely, a Christian eating in the home of an unbeliever, points toward it being an unbelieving guest who is offended. This is not to say that Paul’s instruction in this passage doesn’t apply in the case of another Christian being offended, but Paul recognized
– and wanted the Corinthians to realize – that believers can just as easily (if unintentionally) become a stumbling block to unbelievers. In this particular example, Paul was allowing that unbelievers – not just Christians – can take offense at the eating of “idol meats.” Most importantly, the unbeliever’s offense has nothing to do with the food as such or his own eating, but with the Christian present at the meal. In Paul’s scenario – and assuming an unbeliever to be the offended one – the offense derives, not from the history of the food set before them, but from the fact that a Christian is eating it. This individual knows that the food has passed through a pagan sacrificial ritual (v. 28a), and so is startled to see a Christian – a person who has renounced as false the gods of Rome and Greece in order to serve a singular deity associated with a crucified Jew – partaking in that sacrificial meat. It doesn’t matter that the offended man has a wrong understanding of idols and Christian freedom; what matters is that the Christian has effectively born false witness to him; he has caused that one to stumble and so has failed in his obligation to partner with the gospel (recall again 9:23, 26-27).
- And so the Christian needs to refrain from eating, not for the sake of his own conscience (which is rightfully clear), but for the sake of the other man’s conscience. By doing so he isn’t deferring to error or ignorance, but meeting that person at the point of his own understanding and convictions for the sake of the gospel. This perspective is critical to capturing Paul’s point, especially as it’s embodied in his two rhetorical questions (v. 29b30). These questions have perplexed many, but Paul’s meaning is apparent when his words are viewed through the lens of his concern that believers subject everything to the cause of the gospel (ref. again 9:1-27): For the Christian to fail to yield to the offended man’s conscience is for him to have his legitimate liberty in Christ become the occasion to strengthen that person’s unbelief; in Paul’s words, he finds his freedom being judged (condemned) by another’s conscience.
- The believer’s liberty, which is to be an instrument of worship and edification, becomes in this instance an opponent of Christ and a hindrance to His gospel. Christian freedom should testify to Christ and lead men to Him, not bear false witness and drive men away. Again, it’s critical to note that the issue isn’t the legitimacy of the believer’s freedom. The Corinthians wanted to reduce the whole matter to who was right and who was wrong in their convictions concerning “idol meats,” but Paul understood that this determination doesn’t settle the issue. He agreed with the mature saints at Corinth that Christians are free to partake in all things because the good Creator created all things to be enjoyed by His image-sons. Paul himself enjoyed this freedom in Christ, no longer encumbered by the dietary constraints of the Law of Moses which he now understood to have been a preparatory shadow pointing to the substance that has come in Christ (Colossians 2:8-17). Paul upheld and rejoiced in his liberty in Christ, but he recognized that freedom isn’t determinative; love in the service of Christ and His gospel is (ref. 8:1). Every dimension and exertion of the Christian’s life is to be bound over to this constraint. Believers are to express and celebrate their freedom, but in truth, and this means making their liberty the servant of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ; in practical terms, their freedom is to be an instrument of true worship and true testimony. Thus the meaning of Paul’s second rhetorical question (10:30): By insisting upon his freedom in this scenario, the Christian’s eating – which should express true worship out of a heart of grateful enjoyment – becomes the object of denunciation. The believer who is partaking of the meal might very well regard his own eating as an act of thankful worship, but the other man views him with contempt precisely because he’s a Christian (10:30). The result is that Christ and His gospel – not merely the Christian himself – are impugned (indicated by Paul’s use of the verb blaspheme).
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Post by Admin on Mar 24, 2024 11:40:37 GMT -5
h. Paul’s closing exhortation brings his entire argument to its apex (10:31-33). The Corinthians were concerned with the specific question of food sacrificed to idols; Paul addressed that concern, but by situating it within the overarching principle which governs it as well as every other issue that might confront Christ’s people as they live out their lives in Him. And that principle is that every facet of the Christian life – including the use of one’s freedom – is to be subjugated to the cause of the gospel and its fruitfulness. This is true whether the issue at hand concerns only the believer himself, other Christians, or even unbelievers: “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” The Corinthians were concerned with matters of eating and drinking in connection with ritual sacrifices, but Paul didn’t want them to limit his instruction to that issue. They needed to take the principle he’d labored to convey in his letter and apply it to every area of their lives; they were to do all unto the glory of God. Paul’s exhortation is general and all-encompassing, and for that reason must be more precisely defined. Just what does it mean to do everything “unto the glory of God”? Not surprisingly, various views have been put forward.
- Some start with the premise that God’s glory speaks most closely to His moral excellence, and so conclude that Paul was urging the Corinthians to conduct themselves in all things in a manner that conforms to and manifests the same uprightness that characterizes God Himself.
- A wider view holds that God’s glory speaks to the sum of His innate and infinite perfections (sometimes manifested tangibly, as in Yahweh’s Shekinah or in acts of power; cf. Exodus 16:1-10, 24:1-17; etc.). Thus doing all things unto God’s glory means striving in all things to manifest the divine character – to manifest authentic godliness (“God-likeness”).
- But the best approach is not to start with an assumed theological definition of the glory of God, but with Paul’s argument in the broader context. When this is done, it’s clear that God’s glory must be viewed in the light of the gospel: what the triune God has accomplished in Jesus Christ, its present fruit in the Church and the testimony to it in the world. This approach moves beyond treating God’s glory in the abstract as a kind of divine attribute. Again, many regard it as a virtual synonym for God’s moral perfection (as is also commonly done with the notion of divine righteousness). But the problem in treating God’s glory this way is that it detaches it from the very manner in which God reveals Himself and shows Himself “glorious.” Indeed, this is the case in every instance where a divine quality or attribute is considered and defined in isolation from divine activity. One theologian has rightly observed that God does reveal Himself, but He does so through His actions and interpretation of those actions; He reveals Himself through the lives and lips of men – finally and exhaustively in the person and work of the man Jesus Christ.
God is glorious, but this attribution falls far short of the biblical perspective and meaning when it is confined to – or even conceived primarily in terms of – some inherent quality within the Godhead. To do justice to this concept, it must be understood in terms of revelation – that is, God’s relation to His creatures. God’s concern in His glory is not who He knows Himself to be, but who He shows Himself to be and the way His creation acknowledges and responds to Him. His concern is that His creation (most particularly man) knows Him as He is and relates to Him in truth. The divine glory is about revelation because it concerns relationship (ref. Exodus 19-20, 24:1-18; also God’s Shekinah (“glory presence”) in the midst of Israel.) But God’s self-disclosure becomes revelatory when – and only when – it is coherent to its recipient, and this requires that He make the truth of Himself available to human conception and apprehension. This means that God must qualify Himself in order to reveal Himself (beyond what is known of Him from the divine stamp upon the creation itself; ref. Romans 1:18-20): He must, as it were, enter into the realm and reality of His creation in order to make Himself known to His creatures. Indeed, even God’s statements to men fit within this criterion because human language is itself a creaturely construct subject to creaturely limitations. By speaking of Himself in human language, God has entered and accommodated Himself to the realm of man; however one defines the notion of divine inspiration, it is, in the very nature of the case, an accommodation of humanness – it is an anthropomorphism. And so propositional revelation (that is, God making statements about Himself) isn’t exempt from the principle that all authentic revelation is anthropomorphic. If God is to reveal Himself to human beings, He must meet them where they are, and this is precisely the case whether He acts or speaks. Many Christians (perhaps most) think of God’s self-revelation purely in terms of the scriptural text; they maintain that God has revealed Himself in a collection of inspired statements recorded in the Bible. But the truth is, while the Scripture is revelatory, it is not so in the way many think. God has not revealed Himself in a body of propositional statements as such, and the simple reason is that He cannot do so: Were God to adopt this approach in attempting to make Himself known to His image-bearers,
He would preclude the very goal He has in mind. Mere propositions are insufficient to divine revelation for the same reason that words alone cannot accomplish the goal that is communication. The issue in communication is the conveyance of meaning, not the transmission of linguistic symbols (whether visually on a page or auditorially in speech). Communication implies a “meeting of the minds,” which necessitates the sharing of meaning. Linguistic structures (words, grammar, syntax, etc.) aren’t irrelevant to meaning, but they are neither synonymous with meaning nor sufficient for it. In the final analysis, context is both essential and determinative for meaning. Even a child recognizes that the same words, expressions, and ideas can have very different – even antithetical – meanings when set in different contexts.
Context is critical to meaning, but context involves much more than simply the surrounding statements within a written correspondence (as people so often conceive of the notion of “biblical context”). Context is an existential category: It refers to the human setting in which communication occurs, and includes not simply matters of place, time, and argument, but also personal and relational dynamics. Linguistic forms – as every instrument of communication – must be interpreted to be communicative, and context is the framework for interpretation. Communication depends upon meaning and meaning depends upon context (in the sense discussed above) and its correct interpretation. The critical implication is that, for God to communicate with men – for Him to reveal Himself, He must control and interpret for men the context for His words and actions. If God came to men only with bare propositions, the meaning of His words would be left to the hearers themselves to assign. Even if He used what He regarded to be the perfect words to express truth about Himself, it would still be up to human beings to assign the meaning of His statements. God can say, “I am a God of glory,” but the statement itself is meaningless; short of Him conveying His meaning (by controlling and interpreting the context for His words), the hearer is left to assign his own meaning. And whatever he may conclude, in the end his interpretation is strictly human. Thus, in themselves, bare propositions fail at two points: First, they have no context to assign and control meaning (except the context the hearer supplies); secondly, and as a result, whatever meaning is assigned, it is entirely human – it has no essential connection with the God who has spoken.
All of this discussion is to substantiate and explain the truth that God reveals Himself through His self-interpreted actions. He employs words in the process of revelation, but words set in the relational context of His own activities and interactions with His creation. The divine “word” thus consists in divine acts interpreted by both divine commentary (itself a kind of action in that it explains, instructs, warns, exhorts, etc.) and further divine acts. This is precisely why the Scripture – as the written account of God’s revelation of Himself and His relation to and purpose for His creation – consists of the two components of narrative and commentary. God acts in His creation (the narrative storyline) and then interprets His actions (commentary). In this way He makes known the truth of Himself in the only way creatures can know Him, which is in creaturely terms and relations. God has spoken, and He interprets His words in terms of the existential context of His own interactive activity in the world: Scriptural propositions are set within an historical and salvation-historical context. God’s spoken word is itself a “speech act,” and it is precisely from this perspective that men are to understand the doctrine of Jesus Christ as the Word of God. From the day of creation the Creator/Lord and Father has revealed Himself in His self-interpreted actions – interpreted through the lives and lips of men, and this “word” of revelation has now reached its truest and consummate expression in the incarnate Word: the singular divine action and commentary which binds together all others (cf. John 1:1-18, 14:1-11; Revelation 19:10-13; also Colossians 1:15, 2:9; Hebrews 1:1-3).
God can reveal Himself to men only by entering into their existential context: He must come to them where they are and encounter them within the context of their human existence. For long ages He did so by His acts and interaction on the stage of human history; now He has brought His self-revelation to its pinnacle by taking to Himself man’s humanness as the ultimate entrance into the human existential context (cf. Zechariah 2-3 and 6:9-15 with Haggai 2:1ff; Malachi 3:1). “What Jesus Christ does as the Son of God and in virtue of his divine essence, and what he does as the Son of Man and in exercise of his human essence, he not only does in the conjunction but in the strictest relationship of the one with the other. The divine expresses and reveals itself wholly in the sphere of the human, and the human serves and attests the divine.” (Karl Barth, emphasis added) The point of all of this is to provide the proper foundation for understanding and applying Paul’s exhortation to do all things unto the glory of God. And it shows that, as a starting point, if the divine glory has something to do with the divine being, and if it is something which men can discern and also worship and serve God in light of (i.e., it can be the focus and goal of all their doings), then Paul’s exhortation and the saints’ compliance with it must be centered in the person of Jesus Christ and the relevance of His person and work for the creation. This is not merely a logical or theological conclusion, but is evident in Paul’s larger argument. Nothing could be clearer than that his exhortation wasn’t a call to the Corinthians to have some vague, theological notion of God’s excellence before their minds as they went about their daily lives. But neither was he calling them to apply some sort of moral litmus test to their actions – to “glorify” God by conforming their conduct to the moral uprightness that marks His “glory.” Indeed, if that was Paul’s charge, then he applied a different standard to himself. Paul was exhorting the Corinthians to follow his own example of seeking God’s glory in all things by subjugating every arena and aspect of their lives to the cause of Christ’s gospel and its full fruitfulness in the lives of men. The God of glory had caused the light of His glory to shine into and illumine Paul’s heart – not to give him a fresh and deeper spiritual awareness or sense of moral obligation, but as communicating to him the light that is the true knowledge of His own glory which is in the face of Christ. The living God revealed Himself to Paul by revealing in him (not merely to Him) His divine glory which is embodied in and communicated to men in the God-man, Jesus Christ (cf. Galatians 1:15-17, 2:20; Colossians 1:25-27). And He did so with the intent that Paul would “do all things for His glory” by giving himself entirely and in all things to the testimony of the “good news” of Jesus Christ who is the radiance of His glory – the divine radiance that shines into the darkness and calls men into His glorious light (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:1-6; Colossians 1:24-29; cf. also Isaiah 35:1-10, 40:1-11, 42:1-12, 44:21-23, 59:20-60:3; also Ezekiel 43:1-7; Haggai 2:6- 9; Zechariah 6:9-15; Malachi 3:1 and Hebrews 1:1-3 with 1 Timothy 1:1-11).
Doing all things for God’s glory means subjecting every aspect and exercise of life to the cause of God’s gospel (9:23), and this involves becoming the slave of all men for the sake of their faith (9:19-22). The implication ought to be obvious, but Paul made it explicit: Doing all things unto the glory of God means “giving no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God” (10:32). These two exhortations are inseparable but also mutually interpreting: Each explains the meaning of the other. Paul wasn’t suggesting that the Corinthians were to prevent every conceivable form of offense in all of their interactions with other people. If this was his meaning, then he was instructing the Corinthians counter to his own example (including his example with them – ref. 1 Corinthians 4:1-21; 2 Corinthians 11:1-15, 13:1-3; etc.), not to mention the example of Jesus Himself. Paul knew all too well that offense is inevitable if one is committed to glorifying God in His gospel; there will always be men who stumble over the stumbling stone (John 15:18-25; 2 Corinthians 2:14-16, 4:1-5; cf. 1 Peter 2:6-8), and even laboring for the godliness and growth of the saints will risk their offense (Galatians 2:11-21, 3:1-5; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15; 1 Timothy 1:1-7, 2:9-15; etc.). Paul wasn’t talking about offense in any and every regard, but offense that works against the truth, testimony and fruitfulness of the gospel. His charge to not give offense to any man – Jew, Gentile or Christian – is precisely his charge to become all things to all men for the sake of the gospel. Those who give offense in the way Paul was speaking are those who fail to partner with the gospel (9:23), whether they do so out of ignorance, carelessness, foolishness, or selfishness. Christians should expect that some will take offense with them, but this offense must come from the gospel itself, not because of the one who testifies to it. Paul’s interaction with men provoked offense and opposition, but because He preached Christ Jesus – not himself or his own notions or agenda – and there are those who cannot see the light of the gospel of Christ’s glory (ref. again 2 Corinthians 4:1-5). The Corinthians weren’t obliged to guard against all offense, but every offense that doesn’t derive from the true gospel of Jesus Christ as it is proclaimed and lived out in truth and love. If a Christian finds someone taking offense at him when he is serving the cause of the gospel in this way, he can rejoice and count himself a faithful servant; he is simply bearing in himself the reproach of Christ. This is what Paul meant by “pleasing all men in all things” (10:33): It is “pleasing” every man in the sense of being careful to not become a “rock of offense” to anyone. It is applying the mind of Christ so as to purposefully pursue every man’s profit – his true spiritual benefit (cf. 10:23) – with the express goal of seeing him be saved. Such a Christian isn’t a “man-pleaser” but a true son of Abraham; such a one glorifies His heavenly Father (ref. 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12). Thus Paul’s bookend: The Corinthians sought his input on the question of “idol meats” and he pointed to his own example in answering them: He followed Christ by subjecting himself to the cause of the gospel; that ethic, not lawfulness, was to be their guide (11:1).[/font][/font]
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Post by Admin on Mar 24, 2024 12:29:47 GMT -5
C. The Matter of Worship Practices The next section of the epistle addresses two issues associated with the Corinthians’ worship practice (11:2-34). The first is more general and has broad application in that it concerns the place of women in the church and their role in the church’s corporate worship (11:2-16); the second issue is very specific, with Paul speaking to the church’s practice of the sacrament of the Lord’s Table (11:17-34). Unlike the previous matter of “idol meats” (and the subsequent one), there’s no explicit indication that the Corinthians raised these two issues in their letter. However, the nature of the first of the two (the one involving women) suggests that the Corinthians had likely broached the subject with Paul. While Paul’s treatment of the Lord’s Table gives the impression that, as a congregation, the Corinthians weren’t consciously aware of – let alone concerned about – their abuses in partaking in the sacrament, that would not have been the case with the matter of women and their place and role in Christ’s Church.
- Greco-Roman culture had its own notions, ethics and practices respecting women, and the personal convictions of individual Corinthian believers were layered on top of these.
- Added to all of this was Jesus’ (and the apostles’) instruction regarding women and their share in His salvation and status in His Church. This clash of cultural, personal, religious and even gender sensibilities and convictions undoubtedly left the Corinthians differing from one another. And given the emotional intensity and wide-ranging implications attached to this matter, the difference of opinion among them had almost certainly resulted in disputes – disputes which quite possibly helped to further the factions that divided the church. Thus it’s entirely reasonable to assume that the Corinthians had raised this issue in their letter. But if they did, Paul made no mention of it or of the nature of their inquiry; any conclusions in that regard must therefore be inferred from his treatment of the topic. 1. Thus it’s important to approach this first context (11:2-16) by taking note of what is clear in Paul’s instruction and then applying that understanding to the interpretation of the more obscure and difficult particulars. Toward that end, the following general observations help to lay the foundation for interpreting the passage as a whole.
- The first is that Paul was addressing the place and role of Christian women within the context of the Church’s corporate life and worship. He wasn’t speaking to questions of male-female roles as such or the husband-wife relationship.
- At the same time, Paul drew upon principles of male-female distinction in making his argument. His instruction concerns the narrow issue of church practice, but it is grounded in general considerations. This is consistent with all of Paul’s epistles, which treat particular issues and concerns in terms of the larger principles which define and govern them. And the overarching principle is the nature, meaning and purpose of the Christian life: Whatever the issue, it can only be understood and properly addressed when it is interpreted and treated in terms of Christ’s gospel.
- And just as the Corinthians’ resolution of this particular matter depended upon viewing and addressing it in the light of the gospel, so it was the failure to rightly apply the gospel that led to the problem in the first place. The implication of this is that the “women issue” in the Corinthian church was just one more manifestation of the one fundamental problem in that body: The Corinthians were operating with natural minds rather than living into the mind of Christ. Again, the natural mind is the mind of man in his natural state: estranged from God and therefore self-isolated and self-referential. It is the mind that operates out from itself and ultimately on behalf of itself; it is the mind of man as he perceives, understands, assesses and approaches all things from the vantage point of his own perspective, sensibilities, interests and desires.
- However the specifics in this passage are interpreted, the fundamental issue was the autonomous spirit that pervaded the church at Corinth. But this circumstance need not be construed as brazen or malicious; autonomy (“self as law”) is simply the natural human paradigm of individualism in which a person relates to all things through the grid of his own perspective, notions, values, judgments, etc. Whether spiritual arrogance, wrongful judging, immorality, the misuse of freedom and spiritual gifts, gender problems or the abuses of the Lord’s Table, all of the problems at Corinth could be traced back to this one core human malady.
- An autonomous mindset and orientation were affecting the Corinthian congregation at all levels, including the way women were viewing themselves and their place in Christ’s Church. This included their perception of their status as Christian women and their relationship to the men of the church (not just their husbands as some commentators argue), which itself was grounded in their sense of their new life in Christ and the new standing and freedom it afforded them. Thus, however one concludes regarding the particulars of Paul’s instruction in this context, what must not be missed is that he was speaking to the same fundamental problem here as throughout the epistle: The women addressed in this context (and the other saints implicated in this issue – ref. 11:16) were guilty of thinking with natural minds; they weren’t despising or rejecting the truth of their new lives in Christ (ref. 11:2), but were failing to think rightly about the implications and application of that truth. For all their knowledge, confidence and zeal, the Corinthians had failed to grasp (in some arenas at least) the true meaning and significance of being “in Christ” and the obligations it imposes; though each in his own way, together the community of believers in Corinth was failing to do all things in the cause of the gospel. These observations are critically important in that they frame the issue at hand. Many believe the problem Paul was addressing had its roots in a feminist mindset present in Corinth (as throughout the Greco-Roman world). The more militant feminists reportedly promoted their egalitarian and liberation doctrine by adopting male grooming, garb and behavior, and the supposition is that this sort of practice was infiltrating the Corinthian church. But viewing the issue in this way results in a particular understanding of Paul’s notion of headship (11:3); in practical terms, it becomes a call to female subordination.
While this approach to the passage is attractive for various reasons, it owes more to conjecture – and the patriarchal patterns of human culture – than to the context and careful exegesis. Paul wasn’t calling for the subordination of women, either as wives or as female Christians; he wanted the Corinthians – men and women – to rightly discern the divinely designed distinctions between men and women and the crucial role of those distinctions in human authenticity and therefore in the Christian’s fulfillment of his/her obligation to bear authentic testimony – i.e., to “do all things for the sake of the gospel.”
- This is evident from the passage itself and also from Paul’s consistent instruction throughout this epistle and all of his writings.
- More specifically, it’s evident from Paul’s use of the relationship between the divine Father and Son to explain and exemplify his notion of “headship” and its meaning for the relationship between men and women. And so, though Paul has here moved his discussion to a new topic, the heart of his instruction remains the same. He wasn’t bringing a new insight and proposing a discrete instruction set devised for a unique situation. Paul was doing what he always did; he was applying the same fundamental gospel principles to yet another problem.
a. Paul notably introduced the change of topic by commending the Corinthians (11:2). At first glance this commendation might appear to be two-fold, with Paul praising them both for “holding him in their remembrance” and for “holding firmly to the traditions” he delivered to them. But a closer look reveals that the two phrases comprise a single thought.
- Paul wasn’t commending them for merely thinking about him from time to time. Neither was he expressing his gratitude for their fond and respectful recollections of him. (Indeed, with at least some of the Corinthians, there was no such fondness or respect.)
- Paul’s commendation was his acknowledgment that the Corinthian saints were holding fast to the things he’d imparted to them (the teachings or “traditions”); it was in this sense that they were holding fast to him in his absence. A more literal rendering makes this clear: “I praise you because you keep me in mind as concerns all matters – even that you hold fast to the teachings just as I delivered to you.” (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 3:6) This introductory commendation is critically important to the context, for it shows that Paul regarded the particular issue with women in the church as arising from their concern to honor and uphold the things he’d taught them. These ladies weren’t insubordinate rebels seeking liberation from male authority, but were acting with the conviction that they were conforming to the truth as Paul had communicated it to them. However one interprets the situation and Paul’s corrective, they must be seen in this light. And what the context suggests is that these women believed they were honoring the freedom that was theirs in Jesus.
Paul had surely taught the Corinthians that in Christ there is no male or female, but that all are one in Him (cf. 12:12-13 with Galatians 3:26-28; Ephesians 4:4-6). They’d come to understand that, in Himself as the first fruits of the new creation, Jesus has inaugurated a profound egalitarianism that contrasts and contradicts the myriad divisions and hierarchical distinctions that mark human societies and cultures. And certainly Corinthian society was filled with such distinctions.
- In the Greco-Roman world (as indeed in most of the world throughout history) women were regarded as little more than property. They had no political or civil rights and were entirely subject to the authority of male figures, whether fathers, husbands, a male relative, etc.
- But one of the glorious truths of the gospel – one which Paul insisted upon but Christians to this day still struggle to grasp and rightly apply – is that all believers have equal status in Christ’s kingdom. There is no inferiority and therefore no subordination for the simple reason that all alike share in Christ’s life by His Spirit. Every criterion by which people are ranked in their status and rights – gender, ethnicity, class, wealth, social standing, etc. – is nullified in Christ. All who are joined to the Last Adam are fully and equally participants in His glorified humanity and are therefore Jesus’ brethren and children of His heavenly Father. The Christian faith confronts culture in a myriad of ways, but not least because it confronts and exposes as illegitimate the hierarchical form of human social structures. The gospel reveals that these structures are grounded in the fall and man’s sense of himself and his own interests in contradistinction to others. Human society (at all levels) reflects and expresses man’s innate sense of personal superiority – superiority which he will attach to any sort of distinction, whether gender, ethnicity, bloodline, class, education, even vocation and appearance. Paul had arrived in Corinth proclaiming a gospel that falsifies and rejects all such distinctions even as it holds forth a new form of human existence, society and culture: the kingdom of God that is the new creation. Paul proclaimed this gospel to all who would listen and discipled those who responded in faith. For a year and a half he imparted the “traditions” of Christ’s gospel to the Corinthians and they were eager and faithful disciples (cf. Acts 18:7-11; 1 Corinthians 1:4-9). Thus, as the prelude to his instruction, Paul was careful to convey his confidence that this situation with some of the women in the Corinthian church was the result of immature faith and an imprecise application of it, not the absence of faith or rebellion against it. This issue, like the previous one involving “idol meats,” seems to have been one of misunderstood and misapplied freedom. These ladies weren’t wrong about their freedom in Christ and the egalitarian nature of His Church as His one unified body; their error lay in the way they viewed distinctions in the context of Christian equality and how these dynamics bear witness to Christ’s gospel in the Church and the world.
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Post by Admin on Mar 24, 2024 12:35:07 GMT -5
b. This failure to rightly discern and uphold distinctions among believers is evident in Paul’s opening corrective (11:3), with the specific concern being male-female distinctions. Importantly, the focal point of Paul’s treatment is the principle of headship: Man is the head of woman as Christ is the head of every man and God is the head of Christ. Two things about this statement are fundamental:
1) The first is that Paul embodied the distinction between men and women (again, not just between husbands and wives) in the notion of headship.
2) Second, Paul drew upon the inter-trinitarian relationship between the Father and Son to define and exemplify his understanding of headship. The obvious implication – but one often missed by Christians – is that headship cannot be rightly defined or understood in terms of human considerations, whether human features, distinctions or interpersonal relations (including malefemale relations). The only way to grasp – and therefore correctly apply – the biblical concept of headship is to consider it in terms of the relationship that exists within the Godhead, specifically the relationship between the Father and the Son. And this relationship is best expressed in terms of the idea of perichoresis, which speaks to the mutual interpenetration (that is, mutual indwelling and mutual sharing in the one divine substance) of the members of the Trinity. “It [perichoresis] follows from the homoousial [having the same substance] identity of the three and the undivided divine being. Since all three persons are fully God and the whole God is in each of the three, if follows that the three mutually contain one another.” (Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity) The perichoretic relation between the persons of the Godhead yields the following insights which are relevant to the notion of headship:
- First and foremost, the relationship between the Father and Son is one of complete equality of essence and divine substance. The two persons are homoousial: each and both are fully and equally God.
- The implication is that any distinction between them – and therefore the Father’s “headship” respecting the Son – is relational and functional, not ontological (that is, not related to their essential being). The distinction between Father and Son resides in their individual hypostases (their individual, distinguishable personhood), not in their divine substance.
- The mutual interpenetration of the Father and Son (and Spirit) highlights the exhaustive intimacy between them – intimacy that reflects the fact of one divine being and not simply a unity and harmony of relationship. The Father and Son are “one” in the sense that they are in each other rather than merely two persons in agreement in purpose and will. John’s gospel especially highlights this truth (ref. 10:22-38, 14:1-11, 17:20-23).
- The mutual interpenetration of the Father and Son also implies mutual submission as the very essence and singular expression of mutual love. This is most evident in the dynamic of mutual glorification in the operations of the persons of the Godhead – mutual glorification which is entirely bound up in the trinitarian work of creational redemption and restoration. (Note how this correlates with the preceding consideration of what it means for Christians to “do all things to the glory of God.”) The Son glorifies the Father by accomplishing the divine redemptive/restorative work, by which accomplishment the Father also glorifies the Son (John 12:23-33, 17:1-5). So the Spirit glorifies the Son, even as the Father, together with the glorified Son, sent the Spirit to testify to the Son as the Redeemer and Restorer of all things. Importantly, the Spirit’s testimony to the Son has its preeminent work in His production and perfection of the Son’s life in the sons of the kingdom (John 3:1-21, 14:8-26, 15:26-16:15; cf. 2 Corinthians 3:1-18). The Spirit testifies to the Son, and in that way glorifies both the Son and the Father who sent Him. (The Father is glorified in the Spirit’s witness to the Son precisely because the Father is revealed and attested in the person and work of the Son.) Finally, the Spirit is glorified by the Father and Son as the One by whom the persons of the Father and Son are revealed in truth to men (John 3:1-8; 2 Corinthians 3) and by whom the Father and Son’s purpose and work are realized in the creation; the Spirit of the first creation is the Spirit of recreation (2 Corinthians 4:1-6). Thus the Spirit is the manifestation of the glory of God the Father even as is the Son (John 14:9-10). But as He is the Spirit of the Father, so also He is the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9-11). However the Corinthians were perceiving this male-female situation, Paul wanted them to approach it in terms of the very real distinctions between men and women and the way those distinctions ought to be understood and expressed – not only for the sake of the congregation itself and its corporate order and harmony, but also for the sake of the church’s witness to the world. The Corinthians needed to approach the male-female dynamic in terms of headship, but headship rightly understood and administered. And this begins with the crucial recognition that headship is defined, not by human features or considerations, but by the divine relationship that exists between the Father and Son. Starting from that premise and applying the above observations, the following truths emerge: - As with the Godhead, male headship doesn’t imply superiority. It reflects and gives expression to divinely-designed distinctions between men and women that are set within the essential sameness of all believers. Form follows function, and so it is with male-female distinctions: God designed all of the various distinctions between male and female in view of the unique roles He intended each to play – not merely in society and marriage, but as living stones in His sanctuary that is the Church.
In the scheme of this world, headship is effectively a form of lordship. But lordship – in whatever form or arena – always operates according to “the procedure of the king.” Thus headship as a point of distinction between male and female (it is the fundamental distinction in terms of Paul’s argument here) is perverted into the differentiation of superior and inferior. The reason is that the natural mind approaches distinction as the occasion for ranking – for assigning relative power, authority, value, etc. To the natural mind – which is self-referential and self-oriented, “me and you” is conceived as “me as distinguished from you,” where the distinction is perceived in terms of comparison and therefore of ranking. In the world we know, distinctions always result in division precisely because they are perceived and processed in terms of ranking – that is, the assignment of significance and value to the other relative to oneself. (This dynamic is the reason people instinctively believe that the remedy for division is the elimination of distinctions; in the Church as well as in society, unity is naturally conceived and pursued in terms of uniformity.) The implication of this for the matter at hand ought to be obvious: Where Christ’s saints yield to the patterns of the natural mind, headship becomes a matter of hierarchy – another arena of perceived superiority which operates in conformity to natural human lordship. Headship is reduced to the “procedure of the king,” however it may be qualified, rationalized or theologized; in this respect, the kingdom of God collapses into the kingdom of man (cf. Matthew 20:17-28; Luke 22:14-27; John 13:1-17).
- Thus the instinctive reading of Paul’s instruction has men concluding that honoring their God-given headship – in the Church as well as in their homes – means exercising their functional (if not ontological) superiority. Paul was all too aware of human patriarchy and so didn’t leave his readers to assign his meaning; he assigned it for them by defining headship in terms of the Father-Son relationship. Authentic headship has no place for superiority (in whatever form); it does, however, imply and uphold distinction and it recognizes distinction as affording advantage. But the advantage headship affords is only further resource for the work of love; headship serves the cause of love and intimacy in willing, joyful submission for the sake of the other’s good and glory. Thus human headship that is authentic – i.e., that is of the new creation in Christ – functions in conformity to the kingdom principle that the greater one expresses his advantage – his “greatness” – by condescending to serve.
- The preceding observation is critically important, not least because it addresses the ongoing dispute between those who argue that headship speaks to authority and those who contend that it is a metaphor for origin or source. (The issue is thus reduced to whether Paul was saying that man has authority over woman or that he is the source of woman).
When one considers the arguments on both sides, it becomes apparent that a naturally-minded view of headship characteristically frames the dispute. The parties may not recognize this, but the usual reasoning shows that this is the case. Generally speaking, those who argue that headship means source take a critical posture (tacitly if not explicitly) toward the notion of male superiority and dominance. On the other side, those who contend that headship speaks to authority labor to show how a hierarchical view doesn’t deny or denigrate the essential equality of men and women. In both cases, the parties are implicitly acknowledging that, in practice if not in doctrine, male headship amounts to authoritarianism. When it’s all said and done, men call the shots and women are to submit and comply. But starting from a new-creational theology of headship – one that is defined by and reflects the inter-trinitarian relationship – eliminates the need to either justify the “authority” view or find an alternative to it. Indeed, it shows how both the “authority” and “source” conceptions of headship have their own contribution to make. In spite of the arguments against it, headship as source has strong biblical and contextual support. Paul explicitly drew upon it in his present argumentation (11:8-9), and his instruction elsewhere affirms that he regarded the creational preeminence of man over woman as fundamental to the matter of male headship in the Church (and in the home) (ref. 1 Timothy 2:11-13). Furthermore, the idea fits well with Paul’s sequence: The Son is begotten of the Father and the creature man (note Paul’s expression “every man” as opposed to “every Christian”) has his origin as well as His destiny in the Son, even as woman originates in man. At the same time, the notion of source embodies the idea of preeminence, a fact which Paul himself recognized. For that which is a “source” enjoys primacy of order over that which proceeds from it (the “subsequent”) and in that way at least has preeminence over it. Moreover, primacy of order suggests a functional component to this preeminence. This suggestion is made concrete by the fact that, in this instance, source and subsequent share essential equality (even the Son is the “head over every man” in the sense of being the Last Adam), which qualifies the authority aspect of headship and shows that it denies both superiority and authoritarianism. God has effected a profound egalitarianism in His Son. All are one in Him, but this sameness doesn’t – and indeed cannot – eliminate all distinctions between men and women. Rather, the essential equality of sharing in the life of Christ (Galatians 3:26-28) results in human distinctions being revealed and exercised in truth as they really are and as God intends them to function in His shalomic creation. In a marvelous, but counter-intuitive way, human sameness in Christ is actually the foundation upon which designed human differences – and not just male-female ones – become authentic in their nature as well as their operation.
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Post by Admin on Mar 24, 2024 12:55:36 GMT -5
c. Paul introduced his discussion of the women’s issue at Corinth by recognizing the church’s intent to hold faithfully to the instruction he’d delivered to them. These saints weren’t guilty of rebellion, but of misjudgment and misapplication respecting the egalitarian nature of Christ’s Church and the freedom it conveys. They didn’t need a stern rebuke or serious correction, but a realignment of their thinking respecting male-female distinctions, the functionality those distinctions were designed to serve, and how it is that their proper ordering and operation in the Church is critical to the saints’ edification and their testimony in truth to the gospel before the world. In Paul’s judgment, this meant first of all reconsidering the principle of headship, and especially as it is exemplified – and so finds its definition – in the inter-trinitarian relationship of the Father and Son. That foundation in place, Paul turned his attention to the particular situation taking place in the Corinthian congregation. Before considering the specifics of it, it’s important to make three general observations:
1) The first is that Paul’s treatment suggests that this situation had both a narrow and a broad component, with the latter both reflecting and being a consequence of the former. The narrow concern pertained to the church’s corporate assembly, and specifically the way in which women were participating in it. The broader issue was the impact this practice and the mindset behind it were having on the harmony and edification of the body of believers and therefore on the testimony it was providing to the world.
2) The second observation – and one that is crucially important – is that the problem wasn’t female participation in the corporate worship, but the way in which women were participating. Paul was explicit that he didn’t object to women praying and prophesying in the public assembly; what he found fault with was them doing so with “uncovered heads” (cf. 11:4-5, 13). The meaning of this phrase – and the relation of this passage to 14:34-35 – will be examined in due course, but at this point it must be noted that women were active participants in the church’s worship and Paul didn’t oppose it.
3) Thirdly, the problem of “uncovered heads” was only symptomatic. Regardless of the particular issue, Paul recognized that a person’s practice is simply the outward manifestation of his perspective and thinking. So it was here: The Corinthians’ thinking and mindset, not their practice, were the real problem, so that the remedy was the reordering of their thought process. Merely covering their heads (whatever that amounted to) wouldn’t solve the problem; they needed to step back and put the whole situation into proper perspective: They needed to reconsider their female identity and status in the light of the new creation, their participation in it, and the role their distinction as females plays in their obligation to do all things for the sake of the gospel and so unto the glory of God. One divorces this context from Paul’s preceding instruction at great peril – peril to his own understanding, and therefore to his true conformity.
Beyond these general observations, it’s necessary to examine the particulars of this situation and the place to begin is the matter of the “head covering.” The reason for starting here is that Paul constructed his argumentation around this phenomenon, so that one must make sense of it in order to understand Paul’s overall instruction, first as it pertained to the Corinthian church, but ultimately as it applies to our own contemporary context. In the end, the task set before the sons of the kingdom – whatever their place and time in Church history – is to discern and then properly apply the unchanging principles of life in Christ to their own cultural context and norms. In this way – and only in this way, they will honor their obligation to become all things to all men for the sake of the gospel and its truthful witness in the world. In this way Christian headship will glorify God. In general, three options are put forth as possibilities for this “head covering.” Two of them are literal and the third is metaphorical.
1) The first is that Paul was speaking of a physical covering of some sort, probably a shawl or veil (rather than a hat in the contemporary sense). If this was indeed the case, the issue was that Christian women were presenting themselves in the church’s corporate gatherings without the sort of head apparel appropriate to their female identity and role. But any such standard of propriety implies either a cultural norm or one imposed by the Church. As to the first, the vast and diverse Greco-Roman world understandably had no uniform norm, and Corinth was a cosmopolitan microcosm of that diversity. The alternative is that apostolic instruction (or Jewish tradition) imposed this standard, and there are those who argue that Paul’s statements here imply this (ref. esp. vv. 13-16).
2) The second option is that Paul was speaking metaphorically. That is, he was using the imagery of a woman having her head covered as a metaphor for her being in proper subjection to male headship. In this way she has the appropriate “symbol of authority on her head” (11:10). Assuming this to be Paul’s meaning, three alternatives for such “headship” are possible: a woman’s husband if she’s married, her father if she’s not, or the male leadership in the church. (Advocates for this view commonly argue that Christian women are to be in subjection to church leadership in addition to their male “household head” – their husband, father, brother, etc.)
3) The third option is arguably the best, which is that the covering Paul was referring to is a woman’s hair. Here the idea is that a woman’s head is considered covered when her hair is bound on top of her head rather than hanging loose. The passage itself supports this view, but it also accords with the general practice in Corinth. The reason the latter is important is that it highlights the critical role of culture in the Church’s practice – not for the sake of the practice itself, but the Church’s witness through it. To fulfill its calling, the Church must communicate with those it engages.
Paul’s ultimate concern was the Corinthian church’s faithful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ – both among themselves and to the unbelieving world. The proof of this is that Paul reasoned and supported his argument from cultural and natural human considerations. He argued on the basis, not of a personal or apostolic directive, but intrinsic principles that every person at Corinth – indeed, every human being – would readily affirm (cf. 11:5-6, 13-15).
- In terms of Corinthian practice, it seems to have been widely accepted that women were not to go out in public with their hair down. They arranged their hair on top of their heads, not out of conformity to contemporary fashion, but as a matter of decorum and dignity. A dignified woman would no more appear in public with her hair down than she would dressed in her bedclothes. Cultural patterns and norms dictated the way females were to present themselves in public, and departure from accepted practice provoked scorn, if not scandal. A woman disgraced herself by appearing in public with her hair down; among other things, that sort of appearance was associated with prostitutes and women participating in certain pagan rituals. (The latter, especially, could contribute to a wrong impression of the Christian faith if Christian women worshipped with their hair down.)
- Female decorum at Corinth dictated how a woman was to arrange her hair, but it also prescribed its length. Consistent with many cultures throughout history, women in the Greco-Roman world generally were distinguished by the length and beauty of their hair. A woman’s hair was her “glory” in that it highlighted and adorned her femininity, whether artfully arranged or draping beautifully over her shoulders and back. And because long hair was commonly regarded as a hallmark of female distinction and beauty, it followed that men would distinguish themselves from women by having short hair (at least by comparison).
- Interestingly, Paul regarded this convention as more than a cultural phenomenon. He saw it as a matter of nature – as intrinsic to male-female distinction as such (ref. 11:14-15). From one vantage point it may appear that Paul overstated his case. It certainly isn’t true that every human culture in every age has prescribed long hair for women and short hair for men. But it is true that, in every human society and culture, hair is one feature by which males and females are distinguished. As with distinctions in clothing and accessories (jewelry, appointments, etc.), so it is with hair: It is one way in which men and women (and boys and girls) are immediately recognizable as such (ref. 11:4-5). So, for instance, in medieval and renaissance Europe men wore their hair longer than many American women do today, but their hair was still very much shorter than the women in that culture. And even in cultures where male and female hair lengths are similar (as in some African cultures), hair still distinguishes men and women by means of coloration, adornment, etc.
These observations affirm the two theses that a woman’s “covering” refers to her hair and that Paul built his case on natural and cultural considerations. Again, such considerations were the proper ground for Paul’s instruction for the simple reason that his concern went beyond order and harmony in the Church to the saints’ responsibility to bear witness to Christ’s gospel within their own culture – to “become all things to all men” for the sake of the gospel and its fruitfulness.
- Thus Paul argued from the premise that every person living in Corinth would agree with his contention that it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut short (let alone shaved off), and so forsake her female “glory” by making herself resemble a man (11:6, cf. 11:14-15). Indeed, every culture in every era has rejected the notion that the distinctions between men and women should be eliminated. (Today and in the past there have been individuals who laud and advocate the notion of an androgynous society, but no culture has ever embraced that philosophy and practice.) But the same cultural norm that rejected short (or shaved) hair for women dictated that it was disgraceful for a woman to “uncover her head” by letting her hair down in public. Thus Paul’s logic: If a woman was willing to shame herself by uncovering her head in this way, then she might as well cut her hair short or even shave her head; the disgrace was the same.
- These standards of female decorum pertained to Corinthian civil culture, but for that very reason had implications for the public assembly of the saints (11:4-5). These gatherings were “public” in the sense that the whole congregation was assembled, but Paul was thinking beyond that: The gatherings of the saints were public assemblies in the sense that they existed in the sight of the larger community, even to the point that individuals outside the church occasionally joined with them (ref. 14:23). When the Corinthian saints gathered as a corporate body they did so for the express purpose of worshipping their Lord and edifying one another. But they did so in the sight – and occasionally in the presence – of the unbelieving world, and therefore needed to recognize that their worship was itself a crucial component of their testimony to their Lord and His gospel. And this was as much the case with the order and administration of their corporate worship as it was of its specific content.
- Thus the whole Corinthian church – and not just the women – needed to understand that the disgrace of a woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered (11:5) reached beyond the confines of the church itself and its sensibilities and order; it had serious implications for the church’s external witness. On the one hand, this matter spoke to the church’s obligation of mutual edification by “doing everything properly and in an orderly manner” (14:40); on the other, the church’s harmonious order was vital to its accurate testimony to the gospel of the new creation in Christ.
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Post by Admin on Mar 24, 2024 12:59:25 GMT -5
d. The matter of head covering is at the center of Paul’s discussion, but as it pertains to the larger issue of male-female distinction and male headship. That is, Paul saw the problem of “uncovered heads” among the women as a symptom of the church’s misunderstanding and misapplication of the principle of male headship as it expresses a fundamental point of distinction between men and women. Paul also recognized (and acknowledged) that the women in the Corinthian church were seeking to honor and attest the truth that Jesus Christ has, in Himself, formed a new, unified humanity in which there is no male or female (Galatians 3:27-28; cf. Ephesians 2:11ff). But, ironically, their very efforts to testify in this way to the gospel of new creation insured that their witness fell short of their goal. The reason is that their assembling with the Church with “uncovered heads” conveyed the wrong message – a message which effectively undermined the gospel – because of how those witnessing their behavior interpreted it. Whether with respect to their fellow believers or outside observers, these women were a stumbling block to the gospel and faith, not because there is any intrinsic righteousness in a covered head versus an uncovered one, but because of how their appearance was viewed by the culture in which they found themselves.
- Expressing their equality and freedom in Christ in this way amounted to their refusal to “become all things to all men.” And by “scandalizing” those who observed them, these women forfeited the opportunity to testify in truth to the gospel reality that there is no male or female in Christ.
- As with the previous issue involving “idol meats,” they had unwittingly subjected themselves and their freedom to the condemning conscience of another (ref. again 10:27-30). Instead of pointing others to the truth of the gospel, these women were effectively pressing them away from it. Corinthian custom frowned on women appearing in public with their heads uncovered (i.e., their hair down), and the result was that the truth of freedom and equality in Christ was maligned where believing women failed to conform to the prevailing cultural norm. Again, there was nothing intrinsically wrong in a Christian woman wearing her hair down outside her home, but cultural sensibilities made it wrong because of the offense it caused and the obstacle it erected to the gospel and its fruitfulness. In this, too, Paul pressed the Corinthians with the critical truth that one can be entirely right and yet be very wrong and so come under judgment. The ministration of love in the cause of the gospel, not correctness or freedom, is the ultimate determination of the rightness of an action. Thus Christians must discern the importance of culture and allow it to play its appropriate role in their decisions and conduct. But culture reflects and expresses nature: universal patterns of human thought, conviction and practice – patterns which the Church ignores or disregards to its own detriment. One of those universal patterns is the distinction between males and females and the fact that hair is one way in which male-female distinction is affirmed and manifested.
All people recognize – and every culture upholds – fundamental differences between men and women, and Paul understood these differences to be a matter of nature rather than nurture: There are differences between male and female that are inherent rather than inculcated, and Paul’s biblical worldview told him that these differences are by design. God created the human creature male and female, designing into them certain inherent distinctions suited to His purpose for them. As with every created thing, so with the creature man in his maleness and femaleness: Form follows function. And precisely because intrinsic male-female distinctions reflect divine design and purpose, they are not to be denied, altered, diminished, or confused. Doing so not only opposes God and His intentions, it opposes the truth of man as male and female. Thus Paul strengthened his case by drawing upon certain truths respecting the created nature and function of male and female, and his argumentation highlights the following particulars:
1) Most notable among them is that Paul distinguished between male and female in terms of the divine image (11:7). This statement has caused no little controversy among scholars and commentators because it seems to contradict the creation account in the first chapter of Genesis. That account explicitly states that both male and female were created in God’s image (1:26-27); Paul here appears to ascribe the divine image only to males: Man is the image and glory of God, while woman is the glory of man. Not only does the creation account include woman in the divine image, it nowhere states that woman is the glory of man. These difficulties have been resolved in various ways, including the proposal that Paul was speaking according to rabbinical tradition rather than the biblical text. But the best and most reasonable solution has Paul upholding the biblical text rather than deviating from it. That is, Paul wasn’t denying the mutual participation of male and female in the divine image and glory, but was simply highlighting the primacy of Adam in that regard. Eve equally was created in the divine image and likeness and therefore shared in the divine glory, but derivatively rather than directly: That is, she shared in the divine image as one created out of man, the original image-bearer (cf. again Genesis 1:26-27 with 2:18-23). Interpreted in that way, Paul’s statement shows his adherence to the totality of the creation account.
2) This interpretation finds direct support in Paul’s clarifying assertion that man enjoys primacy of order over woman (11:8-9). Eve had her origin in Adam, not the other way around. Woman is ishah because she derives her existence from ish (ishah is the feminine form of ish). But this order of creation reflected divine purpose: God intended it to reveal to Adam and Eve the nature and role of woman in relation to man: She is of man because she was created to be a suitable helpmate to him; she is the same creature as man (image-bearer), and yet distinct so as to complete him.
Uniquely created in the divine image and likeness, there was no other creature suited to Adam. He was the lord of God’s creatures, and only another creature just like him – another “image-lord” – would be a suitable companion. God understood Adam’s unique nature and role in His creation, but Adam needed to discern himself, and his examination and identification of all the other creatures allowed him to see his uniqueness and therefore what sort of companion would truly be suited to him (ref. again Genesis 2:18-20). A suitable companion would have to share fully in Adam’s unique nature, but while also being distinct from him in order to complement and complete him. This is why God chose to create Eve the way He did, forming her from a part of Adam that lay at the very center of
– and thereby symbolized – his innermost being. And so, what may appear at first to be Paul ascribing superiority to man over woman is exactly the opposite. He noted man’s primacy of order in creation and the fact that woman shares in the divine image derivatively through him, not to exalt male over female, but to exalt the Creator’s purpose in them and so exalt and glorify them both. Women is of man and unto man, but for that very reason she is one with him in all that he is as divine image-bearer and vice-regent over God’s creation. 3) Woman’s suitability to man implies distinction in the context of sameness. In order to complement and complete him, she must be of the same substance as him while also being distinct from him. This complementary relationship, in turn, implies mutual dependence, which is a third component of Paul’s argument: “In the Lord, neither is woman apart from man, nor is man apart from woman” (11:11). Male-female interdependence has a myriad of components, but Paul cited the one most closely tied to his present discussion: Man may have the primacy of order in creation, but woman enjoys primacy of geniture; while woman had her origin in man (“out of the man”), every man since Adam has his personal origin in woman (“through the woman”) (11:12). It is also noteworthy that Paul qualified this mutual dependence of male and female as being “in the Lord.” Here, too, scholars differ in their understanding of the contribution of this phrase. Some interpret it as highlighting the creation truth that divine purpose lies behind male-female interdependence: In the Lord’s design, woman is not apart from man and man is not apart from woman. Others interpret it in terms of the new creation as emphasizing the truth that the interdependence of male and female is authentically realized and expressed only “in Christ.” Still others hold that Paul intended both meanings, each in its own appropriate way. This latter view is arguably the best, for it takes into account both the contextual emphasis on creational considerations and Paul’s larger concern with male-female relations in the Church as it embodies the new humanity of the new creation in Jesus Christ.
4) A fourth particular is Paul’s cryptic statement regarding the angels (11:10). If the passage as a whole is difficult, this verse is arguably the most challenging. Paul interjected it without explanation or comment and this has left commentators struggling to situate it within the context and Paul’s overall theology in the hope of making sense of it; not surprisingly, interpreters reach different conclusions. The following observations may perhaps prove helpful in seeking to discern Paul’s meaning. The first thing to note is that Paul added this statement as an inference drawn from his creation argument: Man has creational primacy over woman as a matter of divine design; therefore, she is to attest this truth by having “authority on their head.” (The contextual focus on a covered head has led various English translations to supply the modifier sign or symbol, while the KJV adopted a more literal (but less apt) rendering.) A second observation is that Paul assigned an additional reason for believing women attesting the “authority” on their heads: “For this reason, the woman ought to have authority on her head, on account of the angels.” Paul’s prepositional phrase, “for this reason,” thus looks in two directions: It draws on his preceding argument regarding man’s creational primacy and it also looks forward to the prepositional phrase, “because of the angels.” Many English versions highlight the former (ref. the NIV), while the NKJ, ASV and NAB highlight the latter. Finally, Paul’s statement must be kept in context. His argument emphasizes natural and cultural sensibilities, but because of their importance in the Church’s internal and external life. Paul’s (and God’s) concern wasn’t with fabric on the head or hairstyle, but with women (and men) living out the truth of the gospel of new creation and bearing true testimony to Christ by not giving a wrong impression or otherwise becoming a stumbling block to the faith of others. Christ’s saints have a solemn obligation respecting their lives in Him and their witness to Him, and God’s angels share that sense of solemnity since they are ministering spirits, appointed by Him to serve the faith and well-being of His people (cf. Acts 5:17-20, 8:25-38, 10:1-8, 12:1-11 with Hebrews 1:1-14). Taken together, these observations suggest that Paul was speaking from the vantage point that God’s angels are present in and concerned about the Church’s life and ministry. Whatever the saints’ ignorance, foolishness or carelessness regarding the gospel and its ministration, the angels have no such shortcoming; sent by the Lord as servants of His kingdom, they are ever faithful to “do all things for the sake of the gospel.” So also they grasp the critical role of distinctions in the community whose members share equally in Christ’s life and Spirit. They are jealous for the truth as it is in Jesus, and thus jealous for His saints to manifest a body which is many yet one; a body ordered in the unity and submission of mutual love.
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2024 11:03:13 GMT -5
Excursus: Applying Paul’s Principles of Headship As with every issue, Paul addressed the matter of male-female roles in the Church in terms of the larger governing principles of the kingdom of God and the new creation in Christ. For Christ’s saints to live out their new lives in Him – whether in the Church or in the world – they first need to understand who they are; Christians are called to be in their practice who they are in their persons, and this demands that they grasp what it means for them to be “in Christ.” And so, while Paul wasn’t unconcerned with the particular matters raised by the Corinthians, he recognized that addressing those particulars required him to first establish the general principles that alone enabled the particulars to be rightly discerned and so properly addressed. Short of that, any instruction he might bring to bear would amount to nothing but an incentive to mechanical compliance devoid of understanding, and therefore devoid of authentic obedience. So it was with the issue of male-female distinctions and their place in the life of the Church. Paul approached the matter in terms of principles, but in doing so he didn’t leave the specifics unanswered; he did instruct the Corinthians concerning the way women are to function in the assembly’s worship and ministration. The present context provides part of that instruction, but it must be filled out from the sum of Paul’s teaching – some of which deals with the topic directly (so, for instance 14:34-36 and 1 Timothy 2:9-15), some indirectly (ref. 14:1-33; Romans 16:1-4; Philippians 4:3; 1 Timothy 3:11; Titus 2:3-4; etc.), and some by contributing to Paul’s doctrine of the Church (so 12:1ff; Galatians 3:28; etc.).
1. Headship in the Church This arena of male headship is the appropriate starting point in this excursus since it is the specific concern in Paul’s instruction. And the place to begin the consideration of this topic is where Paul did, namely with the relationship between the Father and Son. As noted previously, the Father-Son relationship best demonstrates the principle of headship within the Godhead, but this doesn’t mean that it differs in an essential way from the relationship which exists among all three persons of the Trinity. - The inter-trinitarian relationship is perichoretic, with the Father, Son, and Spirit each mutually and exhaustively interpenetrating and indwelling one another in a uniform relationship of mutual love, submission and glorification. - The implication is that the headship of the Father with respect to the Son must be defined and understood in terms of this fundamental perichoretic relationship, and so it is with the headship of man over woman. This is not to say that the male-female relationship is perichoretic in the inter-trinitarian sense, but it is to affirm that this relationship, too, is defined by the principles of mutual submission, mutual service and mutual devotion. The reason is that love requires it to be so: In its very essence love is submissive – it yields to the other and devotedly serves the other for the sake of the other’s good. Where there is no submission there is no love; there is only the exploitation of advantage that defines the “procedure of the king.” This is as true of male headship as it is of the Father’s headship over the Son.
With this framework in place, the next thing to consider is the way male headship functions in the Church. Paul recognized two dimensions to it. The first pertains to leadership in the Church; the second to male-female functionality in the Church.
a. With respect to the former, male headship means that men are to hold the positions of authority in the Church. The New Testament specifies that men are to be elders (alternately referred to as overseers or pastors) (cf. Acts 20:17-28 with 1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9) and nowhere implies or suggests that women can hold this office. There is debate as to whether the office of deacon has a female counterpart (“deaconess” – ref. Romans 16:1-2), but even where that view is held it is still maintained that deaconesses serve under the headship of the male elders.
b. The second arena of male headship in the Church has to do with functionality rather than authority or leadership. Here, too, Christians disagree with one another, but a careful, unbiased reading of Paul’s instruction would seem to indicate that he believed women are to function in every arena of the Church’s ministration, but always in a way that adorns the gospel by manifesting order in the body and upholding male-female (and other) distinctions. So, for instance, gifted and mature women are permitted to teach, but not autonomously or in a way that sets them alongside, confuses them with, or otherwise contradicts the elders as the teaching authority in the assembly of believers (cf. 11:26-36 with 1 Timothy 2:11-15). Women are to teach in submission to the authority and oversight of the church’s elders, acting effectively as an extension of the elders’ ministry of the word (as is the case also with their male counterparts). In that way order, unity and harmony are preserved in the body and the gospel is exalted in the Church and in the sight of the world. Each member complements and brings order and fullness to the whole body without confusing or altering the inherent distinctions between each member, including the distinctions of male and female. This pattern of distinction in the context of equality is best demonstrated by spiritual gifts and the way they function in the life of the Church. The Spirit gives every believer – female and male – spiritual endowments that uniquely equip him or her to serve the good and edification of the rest of the body. In this way, all believers are one while yet remaining individually distinct (12:4-25). No gift is better or more needful, and every gift is given to serve the common good. Thus a right understanding and right use of spiritual gifts nurtures unity and well-being in the body, not disorder and disunity. And because the Scripture nowhere indicates that the Spirit distributes His gifts along male-female lines, it follows that all arenas of ministry in the Church are open to women as well as men. Gifting, not gender as such, determines how a person is to serve the body. At the same time, gender – being itself an endowment of the Spirit – plays its own role in the use of spiritual gifts. So, for instance, the Spirit endows some women with gifts consistent with leadership (i.e., gifts of administration, discernment, teaching, exhortation, etc.) and they are obligated to employ those gifts. But they must do so in truth, which means in accordance with their distinction as females. Among other things, that means exercising their leadership gifts, not so as to assume leadership status (whether official or otherwise), but in such a way that they serve and advance the leadership of the elders.
Female or male, Christians are obliged to honor and uphold all that distinguishes them – their gifts as well as their gender. And so, a woman who denies or refuses to employ her teaching (or other leadership-oriented) gift because she’s a female dishonors Christ and disfigures His body just as much as she does by denying her femaleness and trying to function as a leader in the Church. In the same way, male leadership which denies or suppresses the giftedness of the women in the body is guilty of grieving and quenching the Spirit and usurping its own obligation to submit to Christ as Head of His Church. The principle of mutual submission (and Paul’s instruction, especially in 12:1-25) teaches that no gifting of the Spirit – let alone any individual believer – is superior or more necessary to Christ’s Church than any other. Like every other member of Christ’s body, leaders are merely exercising their gifts on behalf of the edification of the whole. They lead, but as servants; they enjoy a kind of authority as shepherds, but as care-givers and stewards who devote themselves to Christ’s sheep for His sake and under His authority. Leaders are as accountable to the saints they lead and oversee as the saints are to them. Paul was unequivocal that headship in the Church exists in the context of the mutual submission and mutual ministration of all the saints, and the truth of his conviction has been born out in the Church’s life ever since. Where a congregation’s male leadership fails to recognize the egalitarian nature of Christ’s body and the obligation and absolute necessity of mutual submission among its members, local churches are reduced to a counterfeit, worldly facsimile of what the Church actually is; they become just another social entity operating in conformity to the patterns of natural human societal structures. Undoubtedly, the emergence of an institutional clergy-laity distinction has played a huge role in this perversion, and the Church’s life and witness have greatly suffered for it: - This distinction has given birth to a hierarchy in the Church (implied if not overt) which sets leadership in a place of effective superiority. This distinction is poignantly displayed in Roman Catholicism, in which priests, through the power of transubstantiation conferred upon them by the sacrament of ordination, stand as mediators between God and men. The priests’ spiritual superiority is such that their ministration is absolutely essential to men’s final salvation: God’s saving grace is conveyed through the Eucharist, and there is no Eucharist – and no administration of it – without the priests and their powers of transubstantiation. Protestantism rejected the priesthood and transubstantiation, but, not surprisingly given human nature, retained Rome’s fundamental clergy/laity distinction. The Church’s leaders were still distinguished by ordination, but one reflecting and giving voice to formal theological training in the academy rather than a mystical sacrament conveying the power to transubstantiate the cup and host. Prior to and throughout the medieval period, clergy were among the few literate persons in European societies, and this afforded them great advantage in the Church: They alone could read the Scripture, and this enabled them to assume the place and authority of God’s word in relation to men. Having sole control over the Scripture, the clergy had absolute power over the community of adherents.
Literacy increased during and after the Reformation, but clergy power respecting the Scriptures continued on: The issue was no longer the ability to read; it was the ability to interact with the Scripture with the expertise afforded by the academy. The Renaissance saw educational institutions in Europe becoming more widespread and accessible, and this trend wasn’t lost on the Protestant Church. Formal theological training quickly became a core criterion for church leadership, and this academic distinction between the clergy and the laity insured the continuance of the Church’s hierarchical structure and ministry pattern. - The result is a long-standing tradition of viewing (and treating) church leaders as separate from the rest of the body. This separation is perhaps most obvious in the unilateral orientation of the Church’s instruction: Church leaders – especially the vocational pastors/elders with formal theological training – do the instructing and the congregation does the imbibing. The pastor is the teacher and the congregants are the students. This pattern is so entrenched that few notice that the Scripture assumes every believer is a teacher (i.e., one who communicates the truths of the faith to others), and church leaders are not exempt from such teaching. The mutual ministration of Christ’s body is without bounds, and this means instruction is multi-lateral, not unilateral (cf. Ephesians 5:18-21 with Hebrews 5:11-12). This is not to deny teaching gifts (cf. 12:28-29; Ephesians 4:11) or the teaching authority which Christ has given to those who serve as elders in the churches (cf. 11:29-32; 1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:5-9); it is, however, to affirm and insist that such individuals are themselves in need of instruction, exhortation, admonition, and encouragement in the word. The Church’s shepherds are undershepherds; they, too, are sheep within Christ’s flock who are in need of shepherding. Those who lead in the Church in submission to the Spirit’s call (as opposed to their own designs) are simply employing their gifts in the body as the Spirit intends. But precisely because no gift is greater than another and all gifts work synergistically for the good of the body, leaders are just as dependent upon – and must be just as receptive to – the ministration of others as others are dependent upon them. The hierarchical and ministerial separation of church leaders is evident in the teaching function, but also in the arena of intimacy and accountability. The more that pastoral qualification is associated with specialized academic training, the more congregations and leaders alike are inclined to afford a unique status and standing to those who hold leadership positions. Theological and scriptural acumen are readily confused with maturity and godliness, so that it often doesn’t occur to congregations – or to those who lead them – that leaders must themselves be vitally and intimately connected with and accountable to the body they serve. Thus male headship in the Church is the servanthood of submission and self-sacrifice – submission to the female saints and their good as much as to the male ones. As with the Son and Father, so with God’s children: Where the truth of headship is understood and honored, equality and distinction intertwine in a divinely-ordained dance of mutual love, submission and care. And where that occurs, the gospel is proclaimed in all its glory.
2. Headship in Marriage Though Paul’s instruction in this context pertains to the assembly of the saints, it can be extended to the relationship of husband and wife. However, this application must itself conform to the principles Paul has established. With that in mind, the starting point is again the relationship that exists within the Godhead, for it is the paradigm for all relationships, whether between human beings or between human beings and God. If one would discern the truth of authentic relationship (whether that of husband and wife or any other relationship), he must discern the relationship between Father, Son and Spirit. Thus headship in the home parallels headship in the Church: The perichoretic relationship within the Godhead shows that the husband-wife relationship is also to be one of mutual love, submission, and deference for the sake of the other’s genuine good. But this truth is further highlighted by the fact that God designed the marital relationship to represent and portray the relationship He has with His people – the relationship that has now come to its fulfillment and ultimacy in the spiritual “marital” union between Jesus Christ and His Church (cf. Isaiah 50:1-3 with 54:1-8; cf. also Jeremiah 31:31-32; Ezekiel 16 and 23; Hosea 1-2 with John 3:25-29 and Ephesians 5:22-33). Headship in the home is husbandry, and true husbandry is defined by and authentically expressed in the divine-human relationship which, according to divine design, has its full and most explicit manifestation in the relationship between Jesus Christ and His saints. Jesus is the full revelation of the Father, and so the full revelation of the Father’s husbandry of His people. In the incarnate Son, the divine husbandry has attained its consummate realization and expression, and the focal point of Jesus’ husbandry is His submissive and sacrificial self-giving for the sake of His bride. The implication is clear: As a form of authority, headship – like lordship itself – defies and contradicts the natural human paradigm that is the “procedure of the king.” The Father, Son and Spirit exercise their divine sovereignty as self-sacrificing servants for the sake of love’s triumph and glory, and so it is to be with human headship – whether in the Church or in the home. The husband-wife relationship is to be one of mutual submission in which male-female and husband-wife distinctions are allowed to function in a complementary way for the sake of mutual edification (Ephesians 5:18-21). Where husbands love their wives in this way – employing the mind of Christ in giving themselves for the sake of their good (Ephesians 5:25-27), wives will gladly yield to their husbands, even as the husband’s headship manifests Christ’s headship: Wives submit to their husbands as to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22), not to their husbands as also to the Lord (i.e., two “lords” over them). They submit to their husbands as one expression of their entire submission to Christ. At bottom, male-female distinctions, like all human distinctions, are designed by God and are crucial to His purposes for His creation. Indeed, man cannot be image-bearer without them, for the triune God is characterized by distinctions – distinctions without which love cannot exist. A unitary God could not be love (1 John 4:8-16), and man cannot be image son – a creature defined by love – without human distinctions. Distinctions serve the cause of love; every deviation from this, in whatever form, lies against the truth.
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2024 11:05:50 GMT -5
2. The second matter Paul addressed pertaining to the Corinthians’ worship practice was their celebration of the Lord’s Table (11:17-34). As with the preceding head covering issue, the Corinthians didn’t raise this concern in their letter to Paul; rather, he’d been informed about it from someone associated with the Corinthian congregation – likely either the visitors from Chloe’s household (1:11) or the individuals who carried the Corinthians’ letter to him (probably the three men mentioned in 16:17-18). Whoever informed Paul, he saw this as an issue which he needed to address in his own response letter. Moreover, he viewed this situation as entirely different from the one pertaining to head covering: In that instance, Paul recognized that the involved parties were sincerely attempting to uphold his instruction and he praised them accordingly; in this instance, however, he could give them no such praise (cf. 11:1, 17a). The way in which the Corinthians were celebrating the Table exposed, not merely their abuse of it, but the fact that they were guilty of despising it. What made matters worse was that this situation wasn’t due to a lack of understanding; Paul had instructed them in the sacrament and its meaning (11:23). The problem wasn’t ignorance of the sacrament itself, but the Corinthians’ deviation in their thinking and practice from the truth of the Table. The result was that some in the congregation were being offended and hurt even while others were oblivious to their abuse and the offense they were causing. Paul’s rebuke indicates this obliviousness, but it is also evident in the consistent pattern between this particular issue and the others Paul addressed in this epistle: Though different matters with different specifics, all of problems at Corinth were symptoms of the same fundamental sickness: The Corinthians were perceiving and ordering their Christian lives with “fleshly” minds (ref. again 3:1-3), and so were failing to live into the truth of their participation in the new creation in Christ (ref. 2 Corinthians 5:14-17). They were thinking like “mere men,” and this was reflected in the autonomy, self seeking, and divisiveness that corrupted and defaced every arena of the church’s “body life,” from their perception and use of their gifts to the way they viewed Christian maturity and freedom to the way they participated in the Lord’s Table. As a body, the Corinthians were sadly a naturally-minded people, and this made them a factional, schismatic people. The natural mind sees everything in relation to itself and so it was at Corinth; for all its spiritual wealth in knowledge and giftedness, the Corinthian church was plagued by the idolatry of “worldly wisdom” (3:1-4:13). It was a community of the Spirit which was, in many ways, being led by the “spirit of the age”: the natural human “spirit” of pride, independence and autonomy which results in each man being driven by his own desires, interests and judgments (cf. 1:18-2:16 with 8:1-12, 10:14-33). This spirit of self-seeking was nowhere more poignantly and painfully exposed than in the way the Corinthians were celebrating the Lord’s Table. What they apparently regarded as a spiritual koinonia centered in their shared faith and life in Jesus Christ was actually a gathering of independently-minded, self-seeking individuals; the Corinthian saints were sharing the same space and occasion at their agape meals, but that was the extent of their “fellowship.”
Whatever the Corinthians may have believed about their gatherings, Paul recognized that they were for the worse and not for the better (11:17b). Indeed, he regarded their celebration of the Table as a fraudulent exercise: Their intent in their assembling may have been to celebrate Christ’s Table, but that wasn’t at all what they were doing (11:20). Their observance was a blasphemous counterfeit, but not because they were violating the mechanics of the observance. True, there was abuse in the way the Corinthians were observing the Table, but that was only symptomatic; it was the mindset and heart behind their practice that so offended Paul and caused him to make his pronouncement. Paul made his shock and outrage evident by his qualification: “When you come together as Christ’s ecclesia – one purpose for which is the celebration of Christ’s Table, I have been told that your koinonia is characterized by schisms, and to a degree I believe this” (11:18). Paul wasn’t here expressing a measure of doubt concerning the truthfulness of the report he’d received; he was expressing his incredulity that such a thing could actually be true of Christ’s saints. He was, in effect, saying, “It’s all I can do to believe that this is actually occurring among you.” Divisions in the ecclesia are bad enough; schisms in the observance of the Table of Christ are outrageous and unthinkable.
a. Paul wasn’t unconcerned with the specifics in the Corinthians’ abuse of the Lord’s Table (11:20-22), but he recognized that the fundamental issue was that they were thinking and functioning as a group of independent, self-seeking people. The ordinance that most powerfully testifies to the unity of Christ’s body had become a testimony to the divisions among them (1:18). The very eating and drinking which symbolized and highlighted their oneness in Christ served only to distinguish and divide them.
b. The Corinthian church was deeply divided, and Paul expressed this dividedness in terms of schisms (11:18) and factions (11:19). Verse 19, especially, has been subject to various interpretations, which underlines the critical importance of understanding the contextual distinction between the two terms and the way Paul was applying them in his argument. The first thing to note is that the term schism is more generic than its counterpart. Both embody the idea of division, but the second term (faction) refers to a distinct and separate party or group or body of teaching as opposed to a more general or unspecified dividedness. The English transliteration is heresy, and the King James Version adopts this rendering (cf. Acts 26:5; 2 Peter 2:1). But the noun more often refers to a religious sect (Acts 5:17, 15:5, 24:5, 14, 28:22) or a faction within a larger group, as is the case here (cf. Galatians 5:20). Though the term “heresy” has an obvious negative connotation, the Greek noun itself is not inherently negative; context and usage determine whether it is negative, neutral or positive. Just as Paul applied it alternately to the sect of the Pharisees and that of the Nazarene, so it could appropriately denote the gospel as a body of doctrine uniquely distinctive in the world of religious thought. However, in its two New Testament uses in relation to distinct doctrine it denotes false teaching – that which stands apart from and undermines or contradicts the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The rendering, factions, is more appropriate to this context than the notion of false teaching. Paul wasn’t talking about doctrine that is divisive or outside the bounds of the true gospel, but divisions among the Corinthians themselves. It is true that factions are commonly grounded in doctrinal differences (cf. Acts 20:28-30; 1 Timothy 1:3-7, 6:3-5; Titus 3:9-11; 2 Peter 2:1-3), and undoubtedly there were doctrinal differences among the Corinthian saints. (So the disputes over “idol meats” and “head covering.”) But the divisions at Corinth – and especially as they related to the present matter of the Lord’s Table – reflected natural thinking more than false teaching in the church (cf. 1:10-13, 3:1-4). A sectarian spirit, rather than divisive doctrine, was the primary cause of the schisms among the Corinthians, so that the church’s outward factions merely gave expression to the thinking which existed in their minds. The Corinthians were a divided people because they were a self-centered and self-seeking people; it was inevitable that their schismatic attitudes and orientation would bear their fruit in factions. Paul condemned and lamented the factions at Corinth, even while recognizing that they are necessary as well as inevitable. Immaturity and natural-mindedness insure that every body of believers will, at some point, experience factions, but this dividedness nonetheless operates according to divine purpose: Factions act to reveal those who are “approved” (11:19). The Scripture treats this “approval” in two aspects: On the one hand, factions serve to distinguish the mature from the immature; on the other, they are also a means by which unbelievers in the body are identified and properly dealt with (2 Corinthians 13:1-7). - In the former case, factions reveal the disobedient among the saints – those believers whose ways are unacceptable (“unapproved”) to God (cf. Romans 14:17-18, 16:10; 2 Corinthians 10:17-18; 2 Timothy 2:15). - In the latter case, factions help to reveal the unsaved in the Church – most importantly, the wolves and false brethren whose presence and actions serve to undermine and even devastate the faith of the saints and the unity of Christ’s body (cf. again Acts 20:28-30; Titus 3:9-11; 2 Peter 2:1-3; cf. also 2 Timothy 3:1-9). Paul clearly had the first meaning in mind, but not to the exclusion of the second one: It was entirely possible that some of those who were provoking division and factions at Corinth were unsaved; in that case, their natural-mindedness reflected the absence of the mind of Christ, not the failure to employ it. Paul’s statement has an inherent ambiguity which he likely intended. For, in that way, he pressed the Corinthians to make a sober assessment of themselves: Were they guilty of foolishness and disobedience, or was it possible they were outside the faith? c. The next thing to consider is what was actually taking place in the Corinthian church and why Paul objected to it. And that requires an understanding of the early Church’s practice of the Lord’s Table – especially the practice of the churches within the Greco-Roman world. 248 The churches of the first century celebrated the Table in a much different way than is commonly the case in churches today. First and foremost, the sacrament was administered as part of a fellowship meal – a meal that spoke of brotherly love and so came to be referred to as an agape (“love feast” in Jude 12). The agape was typically celebrated daily as a communal evening meal. As with the church’s formal worship, these agapes took place in the home of one of the saints. The agape was more than a shared meal with the Eucharist appended to it; together, the two components of the agape spoke to and gave expression to the community’s oneness and intimate mutuality which they enjoy by virtue of their mutual sharing in the Lord Jesus Christ by His Spirit. Though many, the saints are one: In Christ, all distinctions by which people are separated and ranked are removed, and the agape attested that truth to the community of believers and the watching world. The agape – with its apex in the Eucharist – was a continual, tangible and poignant reminder to the saints that they are fully and equally members of God’s family and therefore members of one another. The agape was a meal of common-union and this was reflected in the way the food was prepared and provided. The whole body contributed to the meal and the foods that were brought were then set before the whole gathering to be shared. This was the ideal which reflected the meaning of the agape and its celebration in truth, but various factors – all related to the diversity of the body – acted to alter the practice of the agape and so undermine its blessing and testimony. - The first was that the churches were economically diverse. Congregations always reflect the makeup of the communities in which they exist, and so it was in the first century. Thus a given congregation would likely have a few members who were very poor and perhaps a few who were relatively well off (if not wealthy.) The rest of the members would have spanned the spectrum, with most being of the poorer sort. - The second factor was that the churches increasingly became socially and culturally diverse. This was especially the case in the Greco-Roman world, and Corinth was no exception. It was a cosmopolitan city characterized by every sort of human, social and cultural distinction, and these distinctions were increasingly reflected in the church there. Other factors could be cited, but these are sufficient to demonstrate what was happening in the Corinthian church in regard to its agape meals. First of all, as the church body grew in numbers it was necessary to have larger accommodations (most homes in the ancient world were very small and modest), and this meant moving the gatherings into the homes of the wealthier members. Even then it would have been necessary to segregate the saints because the typical dining room (triclinium) in a Roman villa could only seat around ten persons. The rest of the congregation would have to stand (and some could perhaps sit) in the atrium, which was the open-air courtyard located in the middle of the home.
The obvious implication is that the host had to decide who among the saints would be seated in the dining room and who would eat outdoors in the courtyard. And in the nature of the case, such hosts were wealthier individuals, and wealth always meant social standing and status. (This isn’t always the case in entrepreneurial America where “commoners” can become wealthy, but it certainly was in the ancient world; social class determined status and wealth.) The host had no choice but to distinguish between his guests, and his natural tendency would be to seat in his dining room those whom he was closest to – if not personal friends, certainly those who shared his social status and cultural background. The result was that the Christians of lower standing (the poor, slaves, freedmen, etc.) were typically relegated to the courtyard, where the least significant among them were further distinguished by having to stand. The community that alone is truly one was tragically denying itself and fracturing its unity by succumbing to the natural pattern of segregating individuals according to natural considerations. Compounding this segregation was the way the food situation was handled. Initially, the agapes were simple meals in which the emphasis was on the Eucharist and the fellowship of the saints, not the food. But as time went on and congregations grew, the number and diversity of the saints bringing the food items led to the meals becoming more elaborate. - The poorer saints could contribute little, if anything, to the meal, and what they did provide would have been meager and unappealing. - In contrast, the more prominent saints would have provided foods consistent with their wealth and social practice. Even if motives were pure and there was no intent to distinguish and exalt one believer over another, the mere fact of a more extensive and elaborate meal comprised of personal contributions insured that the poorer saints felt ashamed and marginalized. Seating arrangements and food contributions served to distinguish and segregate the Corinthians (and other early church bodies) at their agapes, but there was one further segregating factor that Paul noted in his rebuke – a factor which proceeds out of the previous two. And that is that different groups of people and different foods required that the components of the meal be distributed among the saints. In the case of the Corinthian church, apparently foods were being distributed and consumed according to who brought them; the more prominent saints – who likely enjoyed select seating in the dining room – were eating the better foods (the ones they themselves provided) and the rest of the meal items were being sent out to the courtyard. Moreover, the saints who brought food were comfortable helping themselves; the poorer Christians who had little or nothing to contribute would have self-consciously held back and waited until everyone else had been served.
In at least some instances, they were being left out altogether: “In your eating, each one goes ahead with his own supper, and the result is that some are deprived and left hungry while others have more than enough – so much so that they are able to become drunk” (ref. 11:21). It was bad enough that the poorer saints were distinguished and made to feel ashamed because they couldn’t contribute as others did; set aside and overlooked, they were being left out altogether. It’s important to note that Paul didn’t object to wealthier saints hosting elaborate dinners and enjoying meals with invited guests; neither was he finding fault with the agape meal or the Corinthians’ sacramental theology as such. He condemned the Corinthian practice of the agape as obscuring, defiling and even denying true koinonia around Christ’s Table. Christians are free to invite and entertain guests in their own homes as they please; what they must not do is confuse the agape meal and its celebration of the Lord’s Table with a dinner party and thus despise both the Table and its communicants (11:22). True, the agape was a supper meal that went beyond the Eucharist, but it was a fellowship meal intended to adorn and provide a fitting context for the Eucharist as its focal point. The agape was a meal, but it was about the koinonia of the saints, not food; its intent was to highlight Christ’s Table as His gift to His Church whereby His saints celebrate and attest the truth of their union with Him and common-union with one another. Christ’s Table speaks to the fact that the community of believers consists of individuals joined together into one spiritual body in which all distinctions that separate and rank individuals and groups have been set aside. In Christ there is no male or female, Jew or Gentile, barbarian, Scythian, slave or freeman, and communities of believers must be careful and jealous to uphold, promote and manifest this truth . This was precisely the reason the agape was devised as a simple, unadorned meal. - First of all, this kept the poor from being singled out and embarrassed; when everyone brought the same sort of simple foods, no food contribution – and no person – could be distinguished as superior. - But it also kept the focus where it needed to be, namely on the communion of the saints and their fellowship in Christ as attested in the Eucharist. A simple fare meant that no one came to an agape meal with the expectation of a sumptuous feast; food wasn’t the issue in the gathering, and so no one worried about how much he got or whether he was honored with the more delectable offerings. The saints were freed up from distraction and the potential for division was minimized. Yes, a large congregation would be physically divided throughout a home, but a common share in a common meal would help to preserve the sense of the unity of the body; no one would have the first, the best or the most. Under that sort of circumstance, the Christian hosting the meal would be far less likely to distribute the saints in his home based on a preferential ranking. The common sharing in the meal – even as it pointed to the common-union in Christ signified by the Eucharist – served as a poignant reminder of the oneness of Christ’s body and the need for mutual recognition, devotion and deference.
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2024 11:09:08 GMT -5
Understanding the dynamics in the Corinthians’ observance of the agape meal and Lord’s Table is critical to understanding Paul’s outrage and corrective instruction. And as noted, the issue wasn’t the church’s theology of the Eucharist as such; they’d gotten that from Paul himself. But neither did Paul find fault with them for setting the sacrament within a larger fellowship meal. He had no problem with the fact of an agape meal; he objected to the way the Corinthians were approaching it. And the reason for his objection lay in the intimate relationship between the agape and the Eucharist itself. The agape was an enlargement of the Table in that it was devised to highlight and exalt the Table by giving expression to the common-union in Christ which the Table attests. Therefore, any development in the agape which undermined the church’s communion (whether or not it directly nurtured division) served to undermine the Table. Whatever the Corinthians may have believed about their agapes, Paul insisted that they recognize that their fellowship meals were for the worse and not the better; they were merely another occasion to manifest the fundamental dividedness of the body. The church may be coming together in the same house to eat a meal, but they were not celebrating the Lord’s Table. Paul’s pronouncement no doubt offended and perhaps even shocked some of the Corinthian saints, but the body as a whole needed to come to grips with the fact that their observances were lying against the truth of Christ’s Table, however well they were complying with the mechanics of the ordinance as Paul had instructed them. This is important, because it can appear from a casual reading of the passage that Paul’s concern was with the way the Corinthians were administering the Table rather than with their thinking. (The tendency to interpret Paul that way is heightened by the fact that the “words of institution” (vv. 24-25) are often the focal point of interaction with this context, especially as it is cited in churches’ administration of the sacrament.) But the truth is, Paul here rehearsed the particulars of the ordinance, not to instruct the Corinthians how to administer the Table, but to remind them of what the sacrament represents, and thereby show them how grievously they were violating the truth of the Table by their so-called fellowship meals.
d. Paul’s ministry among the Corinthians had included instruction in the ordinance of the Table, and here he reminded them of what he’d taught them (11:23-25). That reminder consists of a recitation of the words of institution followed by a brief commentary (11:26). Paul’s intent was to show the Corinthians the true nature of their offense and their culpability in it, but in order to discern how they had strayed and erred they needed to recognize the Table for what it really is. By reciting the words of institution, Paul reminded the Corinthians that they represent the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. But forming the context for that representation is the fact that the Lord instituted His Table, not as an innovation or new sacrament, but as the fulfillment of the Passover ordinance (cf. Exodus 12:1ff with Matthew 26:17-29; Luke 22:7-20). Specifically, the bread and the cup of Jesus’ institution corresponded to the unleavened bread and the third of the four cups of the Passover meal. The third cup was the “cup of redemption”; it was taken after the meal (11:25; cf. Luke 22:20) and represented the blood of the Passover lamb by which Israel was delivered from the plague of the first-born.
Just as Jesus Himself fulfilled the preparatory salvation history, so his self offering fulfilled the prophetic typology of the Passover event (1 Corinthians 5:7) and His Table fulfilled the annual Passover celebration by which Israel commemorated the original Passover event (Exodus 12:4ff). Again, Paul’s goal in rehearsing the words of institution was to remind the Corinthians of what the Table represents, but because it fulfills the Passover ordinance, the meaning of the Table can only be determined by considering the Passover event and its role in the salvation history as it pointed to and has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The first thing to note in that regard is that the Passover event spoke to Israel’s deliverance from bondage and the way in which Yahweh achieved it. The Passover reflected and gave expression to Yahweh’s faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham: It highlighted Yahweh’s fulfillment of His covenant promise to liberate the Abrahamic people (cf. Genesis 15:1-21 with Exodus 3:1-10), gather them to Himself in His sanctuary (cf. Genesis 17:1-8 with Exodus 15:17) and bind them together as His corporate, covenant son (Exodus 4:22-23). This redemptive deliverance (exodus) and constitution of Israel as the son of God initiated their new “life” (Exodus 12:1-2) and set them on a course toward the inheritance of Yahweh’s rest in His sanctuary land. The Passover event stood at the heart of the new birth of the Abrahamic people, and Israel was to celebrate its “birthday” every year with a week-long feast commemorating the Passover. These events and circumstances were central to Israel’s existence, self-identity and relationship with God, but they looked beyond themselves to a future Passover and a second Exodus for Abraham’s children (ref. for example Isaiah 51:9-11). - Yahweh promised to again arise in faithfulness to His oath to Abraham and once again deliver His enslaved and oppressed people (Luke 1:67-73). And once again He would do so through the blood of the Passover lamb and the death of the first-born. - And as He had done with Israel of old, He would lead His people from their bondage into His sanctuary – this time, however, in order that He would be their God and they would be His people in reality and in truth. - And by binding them to Himself in true spiritual union and communion, Yahweh would bind them to one another, making them, as a body, His beloved covenant son. He had regarded and treated Israel as a unified people, and much more would He do so with the Abrahamic community joined to Him and to one another, not in name, bloodline or external conformity, but in Spirit and in truth (cf. John 1:11-13, 3:1-21 and 8:31-42 with Romans 3:21-4:25; Galatians 3:1-29; Ephesians 2:11-3:11). So the Table speaks to the realization of the long-promised exodus in Jesus Christ, and partaking in it speaks to one’s participation in that exodus with all it embodies and implies. Thus Paul saw in the Table a past, present and future significance:
On the one hand, the Table constitutes a remembrance; it looks backward to and commemorates Jesus’ self-sacrifice – in Paul’s words, it “proclaims the Lord’s death” (11:26). But it does so in the same way that the Passover celebration commemorated the Passover event. The feast of the Passover didn’t proclaim the death of the sacrificial lamb as such, but what it represented and accomplished: It proclaimed Yahweh’s enduring faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham, manifested in His liberating hand and fatherly love in forming, gathering to Himself and communing with a people for His own possession. So it is with the Table, and those who conclude (and communicate) that it recalls and proclaims merely Jesus’ sacrificial death at Calvary sorely miss Paul’s point (not to mention the full meaning and import of the Table). But because of what the Table remembers, it also is forward-looking; it speaks to and turns the gaze of the partaker to the day of the Lord’s Parousia (11:26b). Again, this corresponds with the Passover celebration: In the first instance, the Passover anticipated Israel’s eventual inheritance of the promised land – the land that was Yahweh’s sanctuary and so the place of His presence. But the fact that Israel was obligated to continue observing the Passover feast throughout its life in the land of Canaan signified that the nation’s true inheritance was yet to be realized. The authentic life of sonship in Yahweh’s presence – as it were, the inheritance of Yahweh’s rest in His restored Eden – awaited the coming kingdom. Israel was obligated to keep the Passover ordinance throughout its generations precisely because the true deliverance and ingathering the Passover signified awaited a future day; it awaited the eschatological Day of Yahweh and the second Exodus by which He would truly and forever liberate His people from their captivity and usher in His everlasting kingdom. Thus Christ’s Table: It celebrates in remembrance what the Passover anticipated as yet to come. But it, too, looks forward – not to the day of fulfillment, but the day of consummation. The Table points forward to the Lord’s coming when His inaugurated kingdom will at last attain its consummate glory – when the whole creation will become in its experience what it is in truth (cf. Romans 8:12-25 with Colossians 1:19-20). Finally, because of what the Table recalls and proclaims as past and yet future, it also has critical import for the present. Christ’s Table proclaims the “already but not yet” of His new covenant (v. 25) and the new creation in Him, and this imposes a solemn obligation for the Church’s understanding and practice as the first-fruits of that new creation. The Table reminds Christians of what it means to be a Christian; it reminds them who they are in Christ and what that requires of them as they seek to discern and live out the truth as it is in Him. Stated in terms of Paul’s larger argument, Christ’s Table is a sober reminder of the obligation of all believers to do all things for the sake of the gospel unto the glory of God. These truths are bound up in Paul’s brief rehearsal of the particulars of the Lord’s Table and they form the basis and framework for his indictment of the Corinthians’ observance and his corrective respecting it.
e. Doubtless some of the saints at Corinth would have agreed with Paul that the church’s gatherings to celebrate the Lord’s Table were for the worse and not for the better. That was certainly true of those being marginalized, but there apparently were others whose consciences were offended by what they observed, among whom were those who informed Paul of the situation. But Paul went further in his indictment: The Corinthian observance was not Christ’s Table, though the mechanics of the sacrament were in place. And for that reason, the church was actually incurring guilt in their practice of the Table. They were eating in an unfit and improper (“unworthy”) manner and, in Paul’s judgment, that rendered them “guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord” (11:27). Scholars (and readers) differ in their understanding of what Paul meant by this expression, but the starting point must be Paul’s objection and concern with what was occurring at Corinth: The nature of the Corinthians’ violation determined the nature and scope of their guilt. Beyond that, Paul’s own commentary and other contextual clues must be examined. In view of such considerations, and as a first observation, it is clear that Paul was not speaking about guilt incurred because of coming to the Table with unconfessed or unaddressed personal sin. The reason for emphasizing this is that many – perhaps most – believe this was the issue. But to the contrary, Paul saw the problem as corporate, not personal, and hence the church was guilty before God, and not simply a few individual believers. The Corinthian violation which was incurring guilt was their failure to “rightly judge the body” (11:29). Their failure lay in their thinking and judgment; their flawed practice was merely symptomatic. They were judging the body wrongly and that resulted in the abuses Paul noted and rebuked (vv. 21-22). But what did Paul mean by the body? - Drawing upon 11:24, some maintain that he was talking about Christ’s body and therefore about Christ Himself. In this view, the Corinthians were misjudging Christ’s self-sacrifice at Calvary and so were guilty of demeaning it and Him. (Another historical view is that they were not recognizing the sacramental change in the bread into Christ’s body.) - Others believe Paul was referring to the Church as Christ’s body (12:12ff). In this case, and evident in the way they were coming together to observe the Table, the Corinthians were guilty of wrongly discerning Christ’s Church and this resulted in their abuses and guilt respecting His Table. In the end, it’s not necessary to choose between the two options; in fact, each of the two implies the other. Paul’s summary exhortation (11:33-34) and his subsequent instruction clearly support the second option: There is no doubt that the Corinthians were guilty of flawed judgment respecting the body that is Christ’s Church. But precisely because the Church is Christ’s body (12:12-13), misjudging and wrongly interacting with the body of believers amounts to misjudging, despising and even abusing Christ Himself.
The Church isn’t a collection of individuals who happen to believe Christian doctrine and follow Christian practice; it is the tangible manifestation of the presence and truth of Jesus Christ in the world. This is so because the Church is the dwelling of God – and therefore of Christ – by the indwelling Spirit. Now, in the age of fulfillment, the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9-10), and He is working to perfect Jesus’ life and likeness in His people – not for the sake of their individual salvation, but in order to build them together into His body (cf. Ephesians 2:11-22; 1 Peter 2:4-6). The Church isn’t a community of individuals as such, but neither is it a religious, social or organizational body; it is “the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (cf. Ephesians 1:22-23). And so, though the abuse of the Table involved individual believers, it wasn’t an individual matter; the violation was corporate rather than personal. The way the Corinthians were practicing the agape showed contempt for their brethren, and that contempt was proof that they were guilty of misjudging and despising Christ’s body. Their “unworthiness” wasn’t about unconfessed sin or arenas of personal unrighteousness, but approaching Christ’s Table in a manner that doesn’t befit it – a manner that denies it by lying against it. Thus the Corinthians were guilty of the body and blood of Christ, not because they were somehow desecrating the sacred elements of the cup and host by their behavior (a common view in the medieval Church), but because they were setting themselves against Christ Himself (cf. 8:11-12). Their natural-minded approach to Jesus’ Table effectively put them in the same category with those who crucified Him: Wrongly discerning His Church, they were guilty of judging Him according to their own natural notions, and the fruit of that judgment was their rejection of Him as He actually is. In effect, they placed themselves “among those who were responsible for the crucifixion, and not among those who by faith receive the fruit of it” (Barrett). And the result was that, in partaking in what they regarded to be Christ’s Table, the Corinthians were actually condemning themselves: They were “eating and drinking judgment to themselves” (11:29).
f. The Corinthians had brought themselves into judgment, and not a judgment that was reserved merely for the last day. Their abuse and despite of Christ’s Table was incurring present judgment in the form of sickness and even death (11:30). This statement raises all sorts of questions and Paul provided no further commentary. Does God really take Christians’ lives when they sin against Him? If so, in relation to which sorts of sins and under what circumstances? And how does one distinguish between sickness and death as a natural feature of life and as divine judgment? Because every Christian experiences infirmity culminating with death, Paul must have been referring to specific instances of them. The only other option is to hold that all sickness and death constitutes divine judgment against that individual, in which case Paul’s warning becomes meaningless. Because Paul provided no clarification one must be careful not to over-speculate. But there are a few things that are clear and important to note:
- First of all, Paul was talking about physical infirmity, illness and death. The reason for mentioning this is that some have used this passage as a proof-text for the notion that a person can lose his salvation through serious, unrepentant sin. But Paul clearly wasn’t talking about the spiritual death of final condemnation and the next observation proves the point. - Paul regarded this judgment as discipline. These instances of infirmity, sickness and death weren’t acts of divine condemnation, but of love and protection. God’s purpose in bringing this judgment was that the offenders should not be condemned along with the unbelieving world (11:32). - Thirdly, Paul understood God’s judgment to be self-inflicted and so entirely avoidable (11:31). If the Corinthians would judge themselves – which they weren’t doing, God would have no need to judge them. - Finally, the self-judgment Paul spoke of must be interpreted in the light of the context. Paul was calling for the Corinthians to examine themselves and so celebrate the Table in a manner which conforms to the truth of what it is and what it represents (11:28). Again, this self-examination isn’t inquiring into one’s sins or the state of one’s soul; it is a sober assessment of how one understands and relates to the community of believers as Christ’s body. The issue in this self-judgment is how a Christian judges the body (cf. 11:29, 31). And judging the body rightly means applying the mind of Christ to every aspect of one’s relationship with His Church. Taken together, these observations highlight the fact that God is jealous for His Church and its witness. He’s present in His Church in the person of His Spirit and so is intimately aware of – and in a very real sense participates in – what goes on within it and He won’t leave matters untended (ref. Revelation 1-3). God disciplines His people for their good, but in relation to His larger purpose: The triune God’s concern with the individual is His concern with the believing community and, beyond it, with the whole creation. And so, when God disciplines one of His own, the intention of that discipline looks beyond that person to the Church and then to the world. God disciplines His children for the sake of their conformity to Christ (Hebrews 12:1-13), but with the goal that their growth will serve the well-being and growth of the body (Ephesians 4:11-16), and so the truthful testimony of the gospel to the watching world (cf. John 13:35, 17:18-23).
g. Paul concluded his treatment with a summary exhortation (11:33-34), but one which presumes all of the above considerations: His instruction to wait for (or receive) one another and satiate one’s hunger at home indicates his corrective; it wasn’t the substance of it. That is, Paul wasn’t saying that doing these two things would rectify the Corinthians’ observance of the Table. Rather, those things are expressive of a heart that comprehends the truth of Christ’s Church and its relation to His Table. Employing Christ’s mind, such ones will celebrate the Table in truth; they will celebrate as the body the Table defines, attests and nurtures.
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2024 11:13:07 GMT -5
D. The Matter of Spiritual Gifts Paul turned next to the topic of spiritual gifts. This matter, like the Lord’s Table and women’s issue, pertained to the Corinthians’ corporate worship practice (ref. esp. 14:18-40), but it reached beyond that to the way the community was ordering its life together. The Corinthians’ abuse of their spiritual endowments was pervasive, and the cause was the same one implicated in all of their maladies as a body: Many in the church were viewing their gifts with natural minds. Paul knew from his own ministry there that God’s grace had come abundantly to Corinth, so that he could affirm without reservation that the Corinthian church was enriched in knowledge and utterance, not lacking any gift (ref. again 1:4-7). The problem wasn’t a deficit of divine gifts and graces, but the failure of the saints to regard and apply them with the mind of Christ. Paul raised the issues of the Lord’s Table and the conduct of women in the assembly based on reports he’d heard, but in the present matter of spiritual gifts he was once again responding to the Corinthians’ letter (12:1; cf. 7:1, 8:1). His treatment spans chapters 12-14, and one of the important implications of this is that the so-called “love chapter” of chapter 13 must be viewed and interpreted as a core component of Paul’s larger argument regarding spiritual gifts and not as a separate and distinct context. Contemporary practice notwithstanding, Paul didn’t have weddings in mind when he penned chapter 13. To divorce this passage from the rest of the context is to impoverish and weaken his message, if not to lose it altogether.
1. Paul used his customary transition to introduce this new topic (“Now concerning…”), and a number of things should be noted at the outset. - First of all, Paul employed a term that refers broadly to spiritual entities or matters rather than spiritual gifts as such. Throughout the context Paul characteristically uses the term charisma to refer to spiritual gifts (or more properly, gracious endowments of the Spirit; cf. 12:4, 9, 28, 30-31), whereas here (12:1a) his term is pneumatika – in context, that which pertains to or derives from the Spirit. The two ideas are obviously related, but the second is broader: Spiritual gifts (charisma) are but one dimension and expression of pneumatika. - Secondly, Paul’s grammar allows for interpreting this noun in terms of either spiritual things – matters or endowments – or spiritual people, and the larger context supports both ideas (ref. 14:1, 37; cf. also 14:12). In fact, Paul may have been intentionally ambiguous, for each possibility suggests the other: Spiritual things (things pertaining to the Spirit and His work) always have reference to the Spirit’s involvement with people and vice versa. - Lastly, it’s important to keep in mind that Paul was responding to an issue raised by the Corinthians themselves. His terms reflect and address their inquiry; conversely, their inquiry must be inferred from his overall response (and what is known about the Corinthian situation). Taken together, these observations suggest that the Corinthian inquiry was something along this line: “Are spiritual manifestations – manifestations purported to be the workings of the Spirit – sure evidence of spiritual people – that is, people who are being led by the Spirit?”
a. If this is correct, it helps to explain why Paul used the term pneumatika to frame the Corinthians’ inquiry and then addressed the question of spiritual matters primarily in terms of gifts of the Spirit (charisma). Hay’s comments are helpful: “Probably the Corinthians used the term “pneumatika” to describe spiritual manifestations such as tongues and prophecy. They may well have been following Paul’s own example in this usage, for Paul employs the same language elsewhere to characterize aspects of his own ministry (2:13, 9:11)… In any case, it is evident that the Corinthians are well acquainted with manifestations of the Spirit in their worship; thus, when Paul writes that he does not want them to be “ignorant” about “pneumatika,” there may be more than a trace of irony in his tone. The Corinthians consider themselves authorities on such matters already. The trouble is that they are treating these manifestations of the Spirit as signs of their own spiritual sophistication and power.” Not all see Paul’s words this way. Relating 12:1 to Paul’s second statement in verse 2, some commentators conclude that he used pneumatika in reference to pagan spirituality – things that are “spiritual” in the pagan sense rather than in relation to the Spirit. Thus his supposed meaning: Now concerning pagan spirituality, you know that such spirituality characterized you when you were pagans, but it must no longer do so because you are now Christians. The most obvious problem with this view is that Paul associated this particular matter with ignorance (12:1). (Note that Paul used this expression in instances where he was highlighting a truth he believed to be critically important for Christians to understand and put to proper use (cf. 10:1; Romans 1:13, 11:25; 2 Corinthians 1:8; 1 Thessalonians 4:13).) Is it realistic to think that anyone in the Corinthian congregation would be ignorant of the wrongfulness of continuing their former pagan religious practices – especially after enjoying Paul’s personal ministry and instruction for a year and a half? (Paul’s discussion in 10:14-22 might seem to support this view, but the issue there was an immature and foolish view of freedom in Christ, not willful engagement in pagan practices as such.) Paul’s treatment of the Corinthians’ inquiry leaves no doubt that the issue involved the way believers at Corinth were perceiving and employing the Spirit’s endowments. Some may have indeed been viewing the Spirit’s gifts and their manifestations through a somewhat pagan grid – i.e., through a natural mind, but this is far different from embracing pagan spirituality as such. Rather, it seems that the saints at Corinth were disagreeing among themselves as to whether or not all spiritual manifestations are of the Spirit (note the central focus on tongues and prophecy; 14:1-40, esp. vv. 37-38) and, by implication, are therefore sure proof that a person is acting under the Spirit’s leading. Some apparently argued that this was the case while others weren’t convinced. And the skeptics were entirely justified, for it’s clear from Paul’s instruction that the Spirit’s endowments – like every other distinction among the Corinthians – were serving the cause of division and ranking in the body more than unity and edification.
b. The context indicates that the Corinthians wanted Paul to address the question of “spiritual things” as pertaining to both spiritual manifestations and spiritual men. Inferring from Paul’s response, their inquiry likely included (or at least implied) the following sorts of questions: Are tongues and prophecy bona fide workings of the Spirit or merely “Christianized” expressions of pagan spiritualism? And if the former, are there any limitations or boundaries pertaining to their operation in the Church? And how should such endowments by the Spirit be viewed in relation to other “gifts”? Some spiritual manifestations (such as tongues) are conspicuous and notable expressions of the Spirit’s presence and power; are there then superior endowments which grant superior distinction to those possessing them? All of this background is important because it provides a framework for interpreting Paul’s statements in verses 12:2-3. This short passage is arguably the most difficult in the entire epistle (and one of the more difficult passages in all of Paul’s writings), and the difficulty is evident in the differing interpretations offered by scholars and commentators. But when all considerations are taken into account, the best approach seems to be to treat verse 2 as a parenthesis Paul inserted to qualify his statement regarding the Corinthians’ ignorance and verse 3 as his summary answer to that ignorance. The movement of his thought is then something like that proposed by Carson: “I do not want you to be ignorant of certain central truths (v. 1). You know of course that when you were pagans your ignorance on such matters was profound (v. 2). Now (since I do not want you to be ignorant in these matters, vv. 1-2), I am making them known to you (v. 3).”
c. The Corinthians’ ignorance, then, had to do with the way they were perceiving and employing the gifts the Spirit had bestowed on them. Even without knowing their specific concerns in their letter, it’s clear that their inquiry revealed to Paul a lack of understanding which he was committed to addressing. Spiritual ignorance, deception and waywardness were their lot before they’d entered into the light and life of Jesus Christ; like all men, the Corinthians had walked in spiritual darkness and the delusions that mark the natural mind. But now they were children of light in whose minds the light of Christ had dawned; they must therefore move beyond ignorance and walk in the light of Christ’s mind (ref. Ephesians 4:17-5:17). Notably, Paul employed the term Gentile in referring to the Corinthians’ former state (“…when you were Gentiles…”). By doing so he wasn’t suggesting that there were no Jewish believers at Corinth or that only Gentiles suffer from spiritual deception and the ignorance he was referring to. Rather, he was making a crucial point about the “ends of the ages” and the fulfillment that has come in Christ. By referring to the unbelieving state as “Gentile” and indicating that the Corinthians were no longer Gentiles, Paul wasn’t saying that the non-Jewish believers at Corinth had lost – or were to renounce – their Gentile ethnicity or culture. But neither was he saying they had become Jews. Paul was highlighting the core gospel truth that, in Christ, Gentiles become bona fide members of God’s covenant household; together with believing Jews, they are part of the true “Israel of God” (cf. Galatians 3, 6:11-16; Ephesians 2:1-3:11; 1 Peter 2:4-10).
The non-Jewish saints at Corinth were no longer “Gentiles” in the sense that they had entered the community of God’s covenant people; they were no longer “outside the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise.” They had become part of Israel, not by becoming proselytes to Judaism, but by being joined to the True Israel in whom Gentile and Jew alike become Israelites indeed: bona fide children of Abraham and heirs of the promises made to him. This statement, then, which is easily passed over in moving into Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts is profoundly and foundationally important to his argument: - Paul had come to understand – and the early Church grappled with (Acts 15) – the profound way in which God had fulfilled His promise to gather together His people in the Messiah. Gentiles must still become children of Abraham in order to receive the Abrahamic promises, but they do so, not by forsaking their Gentile ethnicity and becoming Jewish proselytes, but by entering Israel – God’s covenant household – through the One who is Himself the fulfillment and embodiment of Israel. Thus Gentiles remain Gentiles while no longer being “Gentile” (ref. again Ephesians 4:17ff). - And no longer being “Gentile,” the Gentile believers at Corinth – as also their Jewish counterparts – were obligated to renounce Gentile ways: the spiritual darkness, deception and practices that mark the natural mind.
d. The Corinthians needed to move past their ignorance respecting the Spirit, His endowments and how they relate to “spiritual” men. Paul would have them know the truth of those matters, and that design lay behind his parallel assertions in verse 12:3. At first glance these statements seem to have no direct relation to the larger context dealing with spiritual gifts; indeed, to many they appear to be a confessional “litmus test” for determining who in a body of professing believers is really a Christian. This perspective, however, only introduces further problems: First of all, Paul was writing to a community of believers he acknowledged as such. He wasn’t trying to help them determine who was saved among them; he regarded them as Christ’s saints – as his brethren in Christ (12:1; cf. 1:1-9). Beyond that, the notion of such a litmus test is entirely foreign to the context. And because Paul believed the Corinthians to be Christians, what purpose would it serve to give them the confessional test of holding Jesus as accursed? What Christian would ever regard the Lord Jesus this way? Recognizing this problem, some commentators have argued that Paul was referring to the emerging practice of civil authorities requiring Christians to publically recant their faith in Jesus. Others similarly speculate that Paul was speaking about Jewish pressure on Jewish Christians to demonstrate their fidelity to Moses by affirming that Jesus of Nazareth is a false messiah under God’s anathema. These solutions, however, solve nothing. They merely render Paul’s assertion pointless and his “test” meaningless, for no one would claim that a person recanting his faith – regardless of whether or not he is actually a Christian – does so by the Holy Spirit.
Another problem with the “litmus test” view pertains equally to both assertions (Jesus as Lord as well as Jesus as accursed). And that is that the notion of a confessional test implies that the utterance of words is sufficient to determine who is saved and who isn’t. Common sense and experience refute this, but the notion also flies in the face of the Scripture’s own teaching. If one could simply administer a confessional test to identify those who are truly Christ’s, then why would John insist that people must “go out from us” – that is, depart from the faith in an overt way – in order to know that they are not authentic Christians (ref. 1 John 2:19; cf. also 1 John 4:1-6 with 2 Timothy 8-19; Hebrews 6:1-9)? Paul knew as well as anyone that mouthing the words, “Jesus is Lord,” no more authenticates one’s faith than saying “Jesus is accursed” proves the absence of it. These considerations suffice to make the case that Paul had something in mind other than a confessional litmus test for the Church. But that being the case, how are these two statements to be understood in themselves and in relation to Paul’s introduction and overall instruction regarding spiritual gifts? The starting point must be the issue(s) the Corinthians raised in their letter since that was the springboard for Paul’s response. And again, Paul’s overall response indicates that the marrow of the Corinthians’ inquiry pertained to spiritual manifestations (pneumatika) and how they are to be understood in relation to the Spirit’s legitimate endowments, their function in the body and what they indicate about the individual believers associated with them. From that vantage point, the following observations and conclusions can be fairly deduced: Paul issued these confessional declarations as a way to convey to the Corinthians critical truths he believed they were somehow missing (“I do not want you to be ignorant… therefore I make known to you…”). His intent wasn’t to provide a salvation litmus test for the Corinthian church, but to highlight the radically christological nature and orientation of the Spirit’s endowments and their authentic operation. In every respect and at all times, the Spirit is working to communicate the living Jesus Christ to men by revealing Him and forming His life and likeness in them (cf. John 14:8-21, 15:26-16:15; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18). Whatever the specifics, the Corinthians’ inquiry gave voice to yet another arena of division (12:4-13:13): They were divided in their perception of pneumatika and their proper use and meaning. Predictably, they sought from Paul a decision on behalf of one faction against the others; but here, too, Paul recognized that resolution lay in discerning and applying gospel principles. In order to answer their inquiry and resolve their dispute – a dispute partly grounded in ignorance, Paul had to first establish the fundamental principle of “pneumatika”: Every authentic manifestation of the Spirit specifically and intentionally attests and serves the cause of Jesus Christ and His gospel. Every other spiritual manifestation is fraudulent – either because it is a misuse of the Spirit’s endowment or because it is not of the Spirit at all. The matter thus goes beyond the question of what is of the Spirit to what the Spirit does in His working.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 12:30:30 GMT -5
2. Paul introduced his treatment of the Corinthians’ inquiry regarding spiritual matters by establishing the foundational principle by which all of the Spirit’s endowments and their manifestations and use must be measured. That foundation in place, Paul turned to the issue of spiritual endowments themselves and their general forms and functions in the Church (12:4-11). As a first consideration, Paul highlighted in this passage the fact that such endowments are charismata: “grace gifts” which the Spirit Himself distributes to every believer (thus Paul referred to diversities or distributions of gifts – 12:4-6, 11), but individually and distinctively according to His design as the divine agent of the new creation (12:4-11). This dynamic underscores several basic principles of spiritual gifts: - As “grace gifts” – gifts bestowed as a matter of divine gracious purpose, spiritual endowments are neither earned nor dispensed by the Spirit on the basis of human considerations. Every individual Christian is gifted by the Spirit, but each one distinctively in accordance with the Spirit’s own determination and design. - Secondly, and as an implication of the previous observation, spiritual gifts cannot be ranked in terms of superiority, importance or needfulness. To claim such distinction is to indict the Spirit’s wisdom and the economy of His work. He cannot be who He is and have any of His gifts and workings be superfluous, redundant, or otherwise inferior or unnecessary. Each must be perfect in every respect: perfect in its nature, purpose and function as well as its contribution, value and necessity to the Spirit’s work and accomplishment. - And if there is no superiority or ranking among the Spirit’s manifold gifts, then there can be no ranking among the community of believers who possess them. Each individual – even as he or she is individually gifted by the Spirit – is perfectly and equally needful and of equal importance in the Church’s life, well being and progress. Each of the Spirit’s endowments is distinct, but none enjoys superior distinction, and so it is with those to whom His gifts are given. - This crucial principle of distinction without ranking or superiority applies as well to individuals who possess the same type of gifts. The Spirit’s gifts represent general arenas of gifting (cf. Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Peter 4:10-11), so that a given type of charisma will itself embrace various forms and functions. This is as true of the seemingly narrow gifts as it is of the charismata of exhortation, giving, serving, etc. Here as well, distinction in form and/or function doesn’t indicate superiority – either of the manifestation itself or the person associated with it. - Finally, the quality of the Spirit’s gifts – the fact that they are diverse and distinct while also equal and mutual – points to their functional role: They are given to produce a unified spiritual body comprised of individually distinct persons – a body in which all distinctions function in a shalomic relationship of mutual interdependence and service unto the mutual good and the perfection of the whole (Ephesians 4:1-16; cf. Colossians 2:1-19). The Spirit distributes and empowers His gifts in order that living stones should together become a spiritual house – the everlasting dwelling of the triune God (Ephesians 2:11-22; 1 Peter 2:4-10).
Taken together with the foundational principle of verse 3, the above considerations highlight a further core truth respecting “pneumatika”: The Spirit bestows His “grace gifts” individually upon each member of the believing community in order to fulfill His purpose to communicate Jesus Christ to the world of men and sum up all things in Him. The Spirit’s gifts and their rightful exercise accomplish that goal by forming, nurturing and perfecting the community of the new creation (the Body of Christ) – not merely for the sake of the community and its members, but also for the sake of its truthful and faithful witness to the “good news” of new creation in Jesus Christ. - The Creator Spirit functions now as the Spirit of re-creation (cf. Genesis 1:1-5 with 2 Corinthians 4:6). And, as He did with the first creation, the Spirit is now ordering and filling the new creation that, at present, consists in the true humanity which has its first-fruits in the Last Adam. (Consider again Paul and Peter’s metaphor of the Church as God’s ultimate dwelling place constructed of living stones built upon Jesus, the Living Stone). The present work of the Re-Creator Spirit – and thus the ministration of His gifts – is unto the constituting of a new humanity: one “new man” sharing the life of the New Man (Ephesians 2:13ff). - The Spirit forms this “new man,” but in Himself; He forms Christ in them by His indwelling, enlivening and transforming work. Stated differently, He is making believers one by binding them together as “spiritual men”: men of the Spirit united in the Man of the Spirit (cf. Isaiah 42:1-7, 61:1-7 with Luke 3:1-4:21 and John 14:16-26, 15:26-16:15, 20:19-23). They are thus members of one another by virtue of being co-sharers in the divine, trinitarian life. - In Paul’s present language, they are joined together as individual members to form one organism: the Body which is joined to, enlivened by and constituted as the fullness of Christ the Head (12:12-27). All of these metaphors and expressions point to the same fundamental truth – a truth revealed by the prophets (cf. Zechariah 4 with 6:11-15): The Spirit is building into the spiritual house that is Christ’s Church by building up the Church. That is, it is by the Church living out its true identity that it attests to the world the truth of the gospel of new creation in Jesus Christ – the gospel which is the power of God for salvation. As the Church authentically lives out its new-creational life in the Spirit, it serves the Spirit’s creative work of ordering and filling until the day when all things are renewed and perfected in Christ (cf. John 17:20-23 with 2 Corinthians 3:1-4:7 and Ephesians 1:9-10). With those foundational considerations, the framework is in place to examine the specifics of Paul’s instruction regarding spiritual gifts.
a. And Paul began his treatment in the appropriate place, with the fundamental truth that the Spirit’s endowments and their operations are characterized by the complementary qualities of diversity and unity. A couple of observations are important to make in this regard.
First, this unity/diversity pattern in the Spirit’s gifts mirrors the same pattern in the Church itself. The above discussion highlights the fact that Christ’s body consists of a diverse group of individuals bound together and unified by one thing: their shared participation in the life of the triune God. But it is the Spirit who makes the many into one, and He does so through His endowments and their operation in the body of believers. He gifts each individual, but unto the goal that the individual living stones should become one sanctuary. Hence the nature and dynamics of Christ’s body determine the nature and dynamics of the Spirit’s gifts. Secondly, this diversity/unity pattern mirrors the Godhead. This should not be at all surprising, for man is divine image-bearer, created in the image and likeness of the triune God for the sake of participating in the divine life and love. The Church is the shalomic communion of individual image-sons who share in the shalomic communion which exists among the Father, Son, and Spirit. Their relationship is one of unity in diversity; how could it be otherwise with the human community which participates in the trinitarian life and communion and manifests it to the created order? Indeed, as the “fullness of Him who fills all in all,” the Church is the tangible testimony in the world to the truth of God Himself; how can it possibly fulfill that role except as it, too, exists as a common-union of individual hypostases – as the manifestation of true unity in diversity? Paul highlights this trinitarian correlation in the way he depicted the principle of unity in diversity: There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; varieties of ministrations (service), but one Lord; varieties of effects (effectual workings), but one God who works all in all (ref. again 12:4-6, 11). As the one God exists in the distinction of Father, Son, and Spirit, so this God pours forth into His one Church a diverse distribution of “grace gifts” which function in a diverse manner and achieve a diversity of effects – but all as and unto an essential, spiritual unity.
b. The one God exists in the distinct and diverse hypostases of Father, Son and Spirit, and yet as an essential and functional unity. Each person of the Godhead possesses the fullness of deity and all three are individually and together fully united in purpose, will and activity. The triune God works “all in all” – that is, all functions and exertions in all persons and circumstances – toward a singularly purposeful goal: the summing up of the entire creation in Christ. So it is with His diverse gifts and their operations: Every endowment and manifestation of the Spirit is given for the “common good” (12:7). That is to say, the Spirit distributes and empowers His gifts synergistically: Whatever the particular gift, its unique functionality in a given circumstance, and its specific effect and fruit, the Spirit’s charismata work together to the advantage and profit of the whole – profit being the building up of all the members of the body into Him who is the Head. This means first and foremost that the Spirit’s gifts are for the body, not the individual to whom they’re given. This is evident in the fact that they are spiritual endowments given to serve the cause of love (13:1ff); and if the cause of genuine love, then the cause of the christiformity of the other (cf. Colossians 1:24-29).
The Spirit gifts individuals for the good of the whole, but this doesn’t mean the individual himself derives no value or profit from his own gifts. He does indeed profit from them, both directly and indirectly. As to the latter, a Christian’s ministration of his gifts to others bears fruit in their growth in Christ, and their growth yields a more fruitful ministry of their gifts to the body. Thus faithful ministration of one’s gifts rebounds to one’s own spiritual profit. At the same time, Christians also derive direct benefit from the proper use of their gifts. This is because exercising one’s giftedness is a critical aspect of “walking in the Spirit,” and purposeful yieldedness to the Spirit’s mind and will (i.e., to the mind of Christ) nurtures the believer’s communion with and conformity to the triune God. Empowered by the Spirit who distributes them and exercised by “spiritual ones” submitted to His mind, the charismata and their manifold workings and effects are symbiotic and synergistic. In every way they are perfectly comprised and fitted together to achieve the common good: the christiformity of the individual members unto the building up of the whole body.
c. Paul emphasized the essential unity of the Spirit’s endowments: They derive from the one and same Spirit and work together toward the same goal. At the same time, the Spirit’s gifts are widely diverse in their nature and function. There are two reasons for this: First of all, the Spirit’s work of re-creation is comprehensive and involves a wide array of distinct operations and ministrations. Secondly, the Spirit performs His work through human beings. He transforms and perfects Christ’s people (2 Corinthians 3:18), but in such a way that “the body causes the growth of the body” (Ephesians 4:11-16). Thus the Holy Spirit accomplishes His all-embracing work by distributing a full complement of diverse endowments to the individual members of Christ’s body (ref. again 12:4-6, 11). Unity in diversity defines the triune God and therefore the creation that reflects and attests Him. But so it is also with the Church and its ministrations in the Spirit. Paul highlighted this diversity by rehearsing with the Corinthians a general catalog of the Spirit’s gifts (12:8-10, 28-30). These gifts will be considered in detail in a later excursus, but a few general observations are in order here. First, Paul’s list proves his point about the diversity of gifts and is not intended to be comprehensive; indeed, no such list can be formed by correlating the four passages which name spiritual gifts (cf. Romans 12:6-8; Ephesians 4:11; 1 Peter 4:11). These lists merely articulate the broad arenas of the Spirit’s gifting and show how they address every facet of Christians’ personal and corporate lives. The second thing to note is the way Paul himself underscored the distinction and differences among spiritual gifts. He alternately employed the two primary Greek adjectives rendered other or another – terms which, in general, refer to another of the same sort (allos) versus another of a different sort (heteros). Examples of the former are found in Matthew 5:39, 8:9, 12:13, 13:5-8 and John 14:16, 18:15; examples of the latter in Matthew 6:24, 10:23, 11:3, 12:45, 15:30 and Mark 16:12.
Noting his use of these two adjectives, some scholars have partitioned and classified Paul’s list of gifts based on them. The result is three divisions: the word of wisdom and word of knowledge (v. 8); faith, healing, miracles, prophecy and discerning of spirits (vv. 9-10a); tongues and interpretation of tongues (v. 10b). Paul’s list is partitioned by the two adjectives, but it’s difficult to find a particular quality that adequately unifies each group and distinguishes it from the others. This is especially the case with the second (and largest) group, which contains both intellectual gifts like the first group and miraculous gifts like the third. A third observation is that Paul’s present list highlights the supernatural quality of the Spirit’s gifting. This is noteworthy because elsewhere Paul gives equal (or greater) emphasis to the natural aspects of spiritual gifts (ref. Romans 12:7-8 and Ephesians 4:11). Four important considerations arise from this: The first is the reason Paul chose to emphasize the supernatural here. Paul clearly intended this, and it likely was due to the sorts of questions and concerns posed by the Corinthians. The larger context indicates that spiritual manifestations were exacerbating the divisions at Corinth by being abused as instruments of personal distinction and self-exaltation. Obviously the more spectacular gifts – the gifts which openly display a supernatural quality – were most suited to this perverse purpose and so stood at the forefront of the controversy. Thus it was appropriate for Paul to focus on such gifts in providing his instruction.
The second consideration is the crucial truth that the Spirit’s gifts do not exclude, deny, or in any way ignore or minimize natural human qualities. To the contrary, not only do spiritual gifts commonly manifest themselves in a manner consistent with natural human actions and activities (teaching, exhorting, giving, serving, etc.), the Spirit most often distributes His gifts consistent with a person’s natural qualities. In this way the Spirit’s gifting enhances and gives spiritual power and efficacy to natural endowments. This is not to say that the Spirit never distributes His charismata in a way that appears inconsistent with a person’s natural inclinations and strengths. So, for instance, He occasionally gives leadership gifts to otherwise unassuming men and calls them to serve as shepherds in the Church – a role they would never naturally aspire to or be willing to undertake. Thirdly, the fact that charismata have both natural and supernatural components highlights as well the truth that God is the author of the whole person. The apostle Paul was gifted and called as Christ’s apostle in connection with his divine encounter on the Damascus road, but that event was merely the ordained culmination of a lifetime of preparation. The God who called and equipped Paul for his apostolic ministry was the same God who set him apart from his mother’s womb (Galatians 1:13-16). The Spirit gave Paul the necessary natural endowments in view of and in preparation for the spiritual gifting to follow. Finally, the natural/supernatural dynamic of the Spirit’s gifts points to the compatibilistic way divine sovereignty operates. For the most part, divine gifts operate and have their fruitful effect through natural human activities, even as the Spirit perfects the saints, but consistent with the body causing the body’s growth.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 12:33:52 GMT -5
3. From his consideration of spiritual gifts themselves, Paul shifted his attention to the persons who possess them. And in that treatment he showed that what characterizes the Spirit’s gifts is also fundamentally characteristic of the gifted community: The Church, too, is marked by unity in diversity. Indeed, when one understands the nature and purpose of spiritual gifts, it becomes obvious that it could not be otherwise; the diversity/unity dynamic of the Spirit’s gifts presupposes the same quality in the community in which those gifts operate and which they serve. From the side of diversity, the Spirit tailors and imparts His gifts uniquely to distinct and diverse individuals and empowers them to function and achieve their effects in unique and individually-suited ways; from the side of unity, the manifold gifts which derive from the one Spirit have the same goal, which is forming and perfecting one people unified by their common share in the divine life. In a word, diverse gifts in a diverse community all proceed from the one and same Spirit and share the one goal of forming one community – and ultimately one unified creation. To explain and illustrate the principle of unity in diversity with respect to the Church and the functioning of the Spirit’s gifts, Paul turned to the metaphor of a body (12:12-30). The appropriateness of this metaphor to Paul’s purposes isn’t lost upon modern readers, but its aptness becomes all the more evident when it is seen in the light of ancient Greco Roman culture. Hays’ commentary is illuminating in that regard. “The comparison between the body and human societies was a rhetorical commonplace in the ancient world, particularly in speeches calling for social concord. As we shall see, Paul develops this well-worked rhetorical topos [in rhetoric, “topos” refers to a standardized method of constructing and handling an argument] in an unexpected direction. This figure was ordinarily used to urge members of the subordinate classes to stay in their places in the social order and not to upset the equilibrium of the body by rebelling against their superiors. Paul uses the body image in a somewhat more complicated way to argue for the need of diversity in the body (vv. 14-20) and, at the same time, interdependence among the members (vv. 21-26). Thus he employs the analogy not to keep subordinates in their places but to urge more privileged members of the community to respect and value the contributions of those members who appear to be their inferiors, both in social status and in spiritual potency.” (emphasis in original)
a. The first thing to note is that Paul’s new topic flows as a natural inference out of his discussion of the charismata (thus Paul’s inferential particle “for” which introduces this context). His thinking follows along this line: The Spirit gives diverse gifts to the Church, but for the common good, because this accords with what the Church is in itself and how it flourishes and grows. The Church is a diverse body consisting of many distinct members (12:12a), but which together comprise a symbiotic and synergistic spiritual organism (12:12b).
b. Secondly, Paul introduced his metaphor of the body in a way that is profoundly important to his argument and the understanding he intended the Corinthians to gain from his instruction. He applied his body metaphor to the Church, but in a very specific sense: The Church is not merely a “body” – that is, a closely related spiritual or religious whole, but the body of Christ.
This much is clear from Paul’s instruction; what tends to be missed is the way in which Paul conceived of the Church as Christ’s body. He indicated his meaning in his introductory statement: “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” (12:12) What is striking is that Paul didn’t say, “so also is Christ’s Church,” though this is clearly what he was referring to. This raises the question of how Paul conceived the connection between the person of Christ and His Church as His “body.” Most believe Paul was employing metonymy, a form of metaphor whereby one term is substituted for another to which it is closely related or of which it is a part (such as when one uses the term crown to refer to a king or his kingship). In this case, then, Paul referred to Christ rather than His Church in order to emphasize to the Corinthians the intimate connection which exists between the two. This is fine so far as it goes, but this interpretation still doesn’t answer the question of the nature and extent of the relationship between Jesus and His Church. This question can only be answered by considering Paul’s teaching on this subject in this context and then, more broadly, throughout his writings. And that consideration shows that Paul regarded Christ’s relationship with the Church to be spiritual and ontological. That is, the community of believers is Jesus’ “body” in the sense that it shares in His life through His indwelling Spirit. “Exegetes have long debated whether the designation of the church as ‘the body of Christ’ is for Paul a mere metaphor or a mystical reality. The truth is that this is a false dichotomy; Paul would probably not understand the terms in which the problem is posed. Certainly ‘body of Christ’ is a metaphor; just as certainly, Paul believes that this metaphor illumines the truth about the church’s union with and participation with Christ.” (Hays) - The Church isn’t “spiritual” because it is concerned with spiritual matters, but because it is of and in the Spirit (cf. 6:11; Romans 8:9). - So it is Christ’s body not because it aligns itself with Him and His teaching and work, but because it is His fullness (Ephesians 1:22-23). As individuals sharing in Christ’s life and bound together in the Spirit to become the dwelling place of the triune God (Ephesians 2:17-22; 1 Peter 2:4ff), Christ’s “body” constitutes His presence and so His fragrance in the world. Paul could speak of the Church in terms of Christ Himself being many members but one body precisely because he understood the Church to be the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Moreover, Paul didn’t invent this notion; Jesus Himself insisted upon it as part of His self-disclosure to him. Paul was persecuting the followers of Jesus; Jesus declared that Paul was persecuting Him (Acts 9:1-5).
c. Paul showed that this was his meaning by his subsequent explanation (12:13). The way in which Christ is one body while consisting of many members is that every believer is baptized into Him by His Spirit and so made to drink of the same Spirit – the Spirit who is Jesus’ own presence and who communicates Jesus’ person and life to men (cf. John 14:16-20; Romans 8:9-10; Colossians 1:27). Some, motivated by theological or ecclesiastical agendas, have seen in Paul’s words an allusion to the two sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist (so Luther and Calvin) or biblical justification for the Pentecostal notion of “spirit baptism” as a “second blessing” to be sought by all Christians and indicated by speaking in tongues. But considered in context apart from any such agendas or other extraneous presuppositions, Paul’s meaning is neither confusing nor complicated; he was merely employing two symbolic images to clarify what it means that the Church is Christ’s body. - His first image is that of baptism. Despite claims to the contrary, it’s clear that Paul wasn’t speaking of water baptism, for he attributes this particular baptism to the Spirit. (Paul’s preposition can be rendered in, with, through or by the Spirit, but each rendering only shades the fundamental meaning that the Spirit is the agent at the center of this work). Specifically, this “baptism” places a person into “one body” – in context, Christ’s body, and that by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit. Paul was thus referring to the spiritual event – being joined to Christ by and in His Spirit – which water baptism signifies (cf. Acts 1:1-5, 2:38, 9:1-20, 10:34-48 and 19:1-6 with Romans 6:1-11; Galatians 3:26-28; Colossians 2:8-14). - Paul’s second image is drinking of the Spirit. Though not strictly synonymous with the accompanying notion of baptism in the Spirit, this expression closely parallels it and so cannot be interpreted in terms of the Eucharist. In the New Testament this verb most often refers to the act of drinking, but this suggests its counterpart, namely the outpouring of that which is drunk (ref. 1 Corinthians 3:6-8). The former emphasizes the recipient of the outpouring; the latter emphasizes the outpouring itself. Paul’s phrasing and grammar (“made to drink” as a singular occurrence in the past), the parallelism of his two expressions, and sensitivity to the larger context together suggest that Paul was speaking of the fact that every Christian has partaken of the outpoured Spirit (cf. Joel 2:28-29 with John 14:12-28 and Acts 1-2, 10:44-45; also Romans 5:1-5; Titus 3:1-7). Thus Paul’s meaning: The body consists of many members, but members who have each drunk of the Spirit whom the Father and Son have poured out and so been baptized into that one and same Spirit (12:3-4, 7-11). And precisely because the Spirit has been sent to communicate Christ to men and perfect His life and likeness in them, those who have so partaken in the Spirit are members of Christ’s body as having been joined to Christ Himself.
d. In opening up this truth Paul first emphasized the body’s diversity, and specifically the fact that its diversity is a matter of necessity. Every member is equally a part of Christ’s body and no member is any more “of the body” than any other (12:14). Moreover, the body analogy leads out the corollary truth that every member is equally necessary and valuable – unless, of course, one can show that a physical body contains redundant or otherwise irrelevant or impertinent parts. But if a body is indeed suitably, fully and perfectly configured and “fitted out” in its various members, then there can be no redundancy or irrelevancy. And that being the case, it follows that the absence or non-functionality of one or more parts of a body results in that body’s deformity and deficiency. So it is with Christ’s Church: The Spirit endows and gathers together in a given church body a diverse assortment of believers, but such that each one and his unique gifts are necessary to the integrity and full function of the whole. There are no redundant, inferior, insignificant or irrelevant gifts or persons. Each individual is equally critical to the body and its function, well-being and progress, and this has important implications for both the seemingly inferior and superior members. The “strong” at Corinth had been trampling the consciences of the “weak,” and a similar dynamic was occurring in relation to spiritual gifts. Gifts and their manifestations were being ranked (in their relevance and value if not their authenticity as actually being “of the Spirit”) and, with them, the individuals with whom they were associated. The result was that some felt marginalized and inferior while others where swollen with a sense of spiritual preeminence. The Corinthians were a divided congregation on numerous fronts, and the distinctions in their gifting only furthered their division. In terms of Paul’s analogy, there were those who felt that, because they were a “foot” and not a “hand” or an “ear” and not an “eye” they had no real place or importance in the body (12:15-16). Whether grounded in a sense of superiority or inferiority, the Corinthians were depreciating certain gifts and Paul would have none of it. If a given member were to be something other than what it is, how would its function in the body be accomplished? If a body has no ears, it cannot meet its critical need to hear; if, in turn, it has only ears, how will its need for a sense of smell be realized? Indeed, if every member were the same, there would be no body at all. So diversity in Christ’s Church isn’t merely a matter of fact; it’s a matter of absolute necessity. Without diversity in the members there is no body (ref. again 12:14).
e. The same body analogy answered those who were taking pride in what they believed to be the superiority of their gifts. Whatever their sense that others’ gifts were less important or even irrelevant, Paul insisted that no body member can say to another, “I have no need of you” (12:21). The reason again is that there is no body if there is not the full complement of diverse members. But the goal is not a multitude of diverse members, but the symbiosis and synergism of the members unto a unified whole. If it’s true that the body is not one member, but many (12:14), it’s equally true that the many members form one body (12:20).
Both those who felt superior and those who felt inferior were guilty of the same error of ranking the Spirit’s gifts and so ultimately ranking the individuals associated with those gifts. Those who possessed seemingly inferior gifts were regarded – and probably to some extent regarded themselves – as inferior and less needful to the body, if not altogether gratuitous. But the truth is that appearances neither determine nor necessarily coincide with reality (12:22-24a). - Continuing with his body analogy, Paul reminded the Corinthians of what every human being knows by personal experience, which is that the parts of our bodies which, in some sense, we deem weaker or less “honorable” – that is, less presentable, attractive, or distinguished – we actually invest with a distinct value and honor, evident in the way we treat them. - Conversely, those parts we instinctively regard to be more “seemly” (more presentable and/or less subject to weakness or shame) we deny such distinction, concern and care. In context, Paul’s language points toward what we would call “private parts,” and the “honor” we bestow upon them consists in the way we grant them a unique status of covering and care and shield them from exposure and shame. We take no such concern for our seemingly more significant and needful eyes, ears and hands.
f. And as it is with a human body, so it is with Christ’s body: God has composed and arranged the body so as to give more abundant honor to the members which seem to be inferior or lack importance or strength (12:24b). This statement has troubled many, for it appears to ascribe to God the very thing Paul has been denying and rebuking the Corinthians for, namely the practice of distinguishing gifts and their possessors in terms of ranking or honor. Indeed, Paul’s entire argument and the exhortation attached to it are disqualified if God grants greater honor to certain members of the body. But a more careful reading reveals Paul’s point and shows that it perfectly accords with his argument. The key to Paul’s meaning is the way he correlated God’s treatment of the Church’s “lesser” members with how we treat the “less seemly” members of our bodies: Paul used the latter to illustrate the former and employed similar expressions in doing so. Thus the way we honor our “lesser” parts – those that are delicate, seemingly insignificant and unpresentable (vv. 22-23), shows us how God “honors” the “lacking” members in Christ’s body: He treats them according to the truth of what they are by affording them their due distinction and respect. A person doesn’t denigrate his hand or eye by acknowledging the uniqueness and importance of his body parts that are less robust, “comely” and presentable, and neither does God exalt one member of Christ’s body over another by recognizing and properly honoring the distinctiveness and value of the seemingly “lesser” members – those who are weak or immature or unappealing or insignificant from a natural vantage point.
g. This divine orientation attests and serves the divine purpose: The Father has devised and ordered, and now, by the Re-Creator Spirit, is filling out Christ’s body as the beginning of His new creation. - The Spirit has created a diverse body, but one defined and ordered by love: defined by love because of sharing in the life of the God who is love, and ordered by love so as to manifest His life and truth in the world. - The Church is the beginning of the christified creation – the creation as it will finally and everlastingly commune with God in the immediacy and full enjoyment of His love. The creation that is even now reconciled to God in Christ (Colossians 1:15-20) awaits the day when it will enter into the intimacy with its Creator which it presently enjoys in principle. Shabbat and shalom are the destiny God eternally ordained for His creation, and the Church is the first of that creation to realize that destiny. The new creation that is embodied in the resurrected person of Jesus Christ has its first expression in the community that is His body and fullness. The Church is the beginning of the creation’s foreordained “rest” and “peace,” but these realities (in their true substance) presuppose unity in diversity: diversity which exists and operates in the context of mutuality – mutual interdependence, concern and support. Thus Paul emphasized that God has devised and composed a diverse body, but one so ordered and interrelated that “there should be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another” (12:25). This is not Pauline rhetoric or some lofty ideal, but the very nature and destiny of the Church as the “shalomic” and “shabbatic” community of God’s image-sons: - In the place of division there is to be true unity, which means each member being unable to think of himself except in relation to the whole. - Where that sort of unity is in place, the suffering of the one is the suffering of the whole body and the honor of the one is the point of exultation and rejoicing for the whole (12:26). As it is with a healthy organism, so it is with the spiritual organism that is Christ’s body. True unity in the Church flows out of the symbiosis and synergism of the many diverse members. As with a living organism, the life dynamics of any one member of Christ’s body are wrapped into the life of the whole so as to both affect the whole and be affected by it. In terms of the Church’s life, this means that each member functions according to his unique gifting for the common-good, not his own good or the good of a select few (12:27-30). Each one thus serves the well-being and progress of all others (and, in that way, his own good as well). If the Spirit’s gifts are to fulfill this role, they cannot be instruments of division, for division opposes the common good by tearing down and destroying. So also each member’s gifting must be exercised so as to express equal care for all the other members; the Spirit’s gifts must operate so as to unify and build up.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 12:37:04 GMT -5
4. Paul’s treatment thus far has highlighted the symbiotic and synergistic nature of Christ’s body and how this “body life” dynamic implicates and depends upon the diverse functioning of the Spirit’s gifts. The Church’s order, well-being and growth depend upon the proper functioning of the members’ gifts and endowments, but as they are utilized in a certain manner arising from a certain understanding and mindset: The Spirit’s gifts operate properly and so serve the “common good” of the body of believers only when, and to the extent that, they are a sincere exercise of love. This is the subject to which Paul turned his attention (12:31-13:13), but this shift in focus is not at all a shift in context. Paul was not moving on to a new topic, but to that which is the core issue in the matter of spiritual gifts and their relation to Christ’s Church. It is no accident that the “love chapter” is situated at the center of Paul’s treatment of the Corinthian questions concerning pneumatika (12:1); it is the centerpiece of his treatment precisely because it speaks to the central concern in matters of the Spirit (indeed, in all matters pertaining to the Church and its life and work as Christ’s body). This means that chapter 13 must be read and interpreted within the larger topic of the Spirit’s gifts and their purpose and proper function in the Church. More narrowly, this means that Paul’s discussion of love must be read against the background of his body analogy as it speaks to the Church as Christ’s body. - Paul represented the diversity in the Spirit’s people in terms of the various members of the human body, and the diversity of the Spirit’s gifts in terms of the unique function of each respective part. - Moreover, the body analogy allowed him to spotlight and clarify the principle of “unity in diversity” – the fact that a body is many members (12:14) while, at the same time, all the members together constitute one body (12:20). An organism exemplifies “unity in diversity” and underscores the fact that this concept must be understood in terms of symbiosis and synergism: An organism is symbiotic in that each part is suited to and functions in harmony with all of the other parts; it is synergistic in that the function of each part is essential and works in combination with the functioning of the other parts unto the good of the whole. - But Paul’s concern wasn’t physiology, but ecclesiology. His discussion of the human body had its purpose in informing and correcting the Corinthians’ understanding and approach to the “body” that is Christ’s Church (12:12). - Paul was working from the human body back to Christ’s body; he intended the Corinthians to correlate the symbiosis and synergism of a human body to the Church’s life and experience as a “body.” And this means answering the question of how the Church manifests the truth of its “unity in diversity” in terms of the essential principles of symbiosis and synergism. The human body functions as a harmonious, organic whole rather than a collection of parts functioning independently, in isolation or at cross-purposes. How does Christ’s body realize this essential quality characteristic of every “body”?
Paul’s answer to that crucial question is love: Love is what makes the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit symbiotic and synergistic, and so it is with the community of image-children which shares in the inter-trinitarian life and relationship. Without the bond and authentic operation of love, Christ’s body is merely a group of independently functioning – albeit perhaps richly gifted – individuals; it is like an organism which possesses all of its members, intact and fully functional, but with each part acting on its own. Every member might be healthy and functioning properly, but there is no body because there is no effective symbiosis and no synergism. Whatever may be true of the body’s individual parts, the body itself is diseased and dysfunctional. So it is with Christ’s body: Without love, a community of believers is reduced to a sick and dysfunctional organism set at odds with itself. It is like a body filled with cancer in which all of the cells are operating energetically, but independently and chaotically; whatever their vigor, their life processes are working only toward the destruction and death of the body itself. A community of believers may be greatly gifted and zealous in the use of their gifting, but, in the absence of love, their gifts serve only to undermine and weaken the body, not build it up and nurture its wholeness and well-being.
a. This is the framework for understanding the relation of chapter 13 to the larger context of chapters 12-14, and it is key in interpreting Paul’s transitional statement in 12:31. The most basic aspect of that interpretation is determining whether Paul intended his first sentence as a statement of fact (indicative) or an exhortation (imperative). The grammar is ambiguous, so that Paul could have meant either “You are zealous for the greater gifts” or “Be zealous for the greater gifts.” Settling the matter depends upon the larger context and, more narrowly, Paul’s second sentence (“And I show you a still more excellent way.”). For Paul’s two statements are clearly interdependent, so that the interpretation of the one is affected by and also affects the interpretation of the other. This means that they must be considered together. Commentators are divided, even where there is agreement on the fundamental indicative/imperative question. Scholars see all sorts of nuances in Paul’s reasoning and purpose for these statements, and it would require considerable space to interact with even the more popular interpretations. At bottom, there are reasonable arguments for both the indicative and imperative views, and a general rendering of Paul’s meaning in each instance goes something like this:
1) Be zealous for those gifts which truly are superior rather than those which only appear to be so. But even so, there is a more excellent way – a way of approaching all of life in Christ – which transcends even the greatest gifts and actually enables them to function as the Spirit intends.
2) You Corinthians are obviously zealous for what you perceive to be the greater gifts; you are concerned with excellence in regard to the things of the Spirit, and yet there is a more excellent way to think about and approach the Spirit’s gifts and their manifestations.
Verse 14:1 is often cited in support of the first (imperatival) view, since it seems to reiterate the same exhortation to “earnestly desire spiritual gifts.” However, in this verse Paul returned to the noun pneumatika, whereas he used charismata in verse 12:31. Moreover, this change in terminology reflects the fact that he was making a slightly different argument in these two passages. Thus his imperative in 14:1 cannot be used as direct support for the same meaning in 12:31. In the end, although both of the views have legitimate contextual support – and the two meanings are not entirely dissimilar, the second (indicative) option seems to fit best with Paul’s overall argument. Several reasons could be cited, but perhaps the most compelling is the fact that he’s been arguing that all of the Spirit’s endowments have equal necessity and value; why, then, would he now exhort the Corinthians to seek after the greater gifts? The context indicates that they were already ranking the Spirit’s gifts and exalting those they deemed superior; this was something Paul was rebuking, not encouraging. Thus it makes better sense to have him saying to the Corinthians: You are zealous for what you believe to be the greater gifts; let me show you a yet more excellent way – the supreme manifestation of the Spirit which you ought to earnestly desire.
b. And that “more excellent way” is the way of love. Love is what determines the proper exercise and effectiveness of the Spirit’s gifts and so also their fruitfulness in the Church. Without it the Spirit’s endowments are unprofitable and even detrimental; they act to undermine the community they’re given to build up, just as the autonomous functioning of individual body parts compromises the well being of the whole organism. Again, this is the case even when the parts are themselves perfectly healthy and function properly and with all vigor. And as with the human body, so with Christ’s body. Paul makes this point in powerful fashion by means of a series of contrasts involving the Spirit’s gifts and their operation. The broader context suggests a fascination among the Corinthians with the pneumatika of tongues, knowledge and wisdom, and so it was appropriate for Paul to draw on those in his examples. He presented four hypothetical scenarios (13:1-3), each of which follows the same pattern: Paul assigned each particular gift its superlative form and function and then assessed it – and the individual possessing it – when that gift exists and operates in the absence of love. Paul’s first scenario involves the gift of tongues. Viewed alongside the other three, it seems clear that he was employing hyperbole as a rhetorical device. Thus he posited a gifting that goes beyond the bounds of human language to embrace heavenly utterances – so-called “tongues of angels” (12:1). Paul was not commenting on the fact or nature of angelic speech, let alone implying that the Spirit gifts human beings to speak in a heavenly language used by angelic beings. Many charismatics make such a claim in order to justify “tongues-speaking” that is incoherent and has no relation to human languages. But as with each of his examples, Paul was simply allowing for the gift of tongues to assume its greatest conceivable form and expression in order to make his point regarding love.
“If the Spirit had so gifted me that I could transcend human language and speak as one of God’s holy angels, in the absence of love even my sublime heavenly utterances would be nothing more than obnoxious, incoherent noise. Without love, my astonishing and enviable gifting renders me, not an exalted voice from heaven, but a noisy gong or a banging cymbal.” Paul conjoined his second and third examples pertaining to prophecy, knowledge and faith (ref. 12:8-10). - The gift of prophecy involves communicating the things of God to men, and so implies knowledge of heavenly truths and mysteries. Here again Paul employed hyperbole, posing the impossible scenario in which he was gifted as a prophet who apprehended all knowledge and fathomed all divine mysteries. Endowed in this way, Paul wouldn’t merely have the ability to communicate divine truths to men; he would effectively speak to them as God Himself, for there would be nothing God could reveal to men which Paul could not communicate to them. - The gift of faith is also closely related to knowledge. Whereas a prophetic gift has to do with the proclamation of divine truths, the gift of faith has to do with the personal conviction and power arising from those truths. As a spiritual gift, faith does not refer to so-called “saving faith” – the faith by which a person believes the “good news” and entrusts himself to Jesus Christ. Rather, it is a depth, strength and courage of conviction that enables a person to cleave with unshakeable confidence to God’s word of truth and power in the most trying or seemingly impossible circumstances. Once again Paul posited this gift as being possessed in superlative form: The faith he spoke of is not the mere courage of one’s convictions, but the sort of faith that believes God even for the miraculous or impossible (cf. Matthew 17:14-20, 21:18-21; also John 3:1-15, 11:1-44). Surely an individual who possesses and exercises gifts of prophecy and faith to such a superlative degree is worthy to be esteemed as a distinguished man of God. Surely even Paul would regard himself that way if, as he proposes in his scenario, he were the one who was so gifted (cf. 2:6ff). And yet he insisted that, in the absence of love, he would be nothing (13:2). Once again Paul notably passed judgment, not on the gift, but the person endowed with it. His point is clear and arresting: Even if he transcended every other human being by virtue of possessing all knowledge and insight, without love he not only would not surpass his fellows, he would fall beneath them all as a man of no consequence. Recall again that, in ranking the Spirit’s gifts and their operations, the Corinthians were ranking the individuals associated with them. In their minds, a prominent gift implied a prominent person, and this thinking likely was the reason Paul spoke as he did. The Corinthians needed to understand that love makes a person significant in Christ’s Church, not gifts, however notable or potent.
Paul’s final example is a hyperbolic treatment of the gift of giving (cf. Romans 12:8) – giving in its superlative expression of delivering over everything one possesses, including one’s own life (13:3). Importantly, Paul’s scenario involves voluntary surrender, not compelled compliance; he was concerned with giving as pneumatika – a matter of the Spirit, not that which is reluctant or coerced. Accordingly, Paul treated this giving as altruistic and devoid of selfish concern or personal agendas: The person’s material possessions are given as a matter of philanthropy and his life is given as a matter of self-sacrifice. And once again Paul assigned this manifestation of the Spirit’s gifting to himself: “If I were to give all that I possess to provide for the needs of others and even deliver over my own body to be burned in the flames…” Surely no one would hesitate to commend such an individual. Indeed, human philosophies and religion have always regarded sacrificial giving as a hallmark of virtue and piety. The reason is the universal recognition that giving which is free of conditions or personal interest is antithetical to the intrinsic self-centeredness of human nature. Giving doesn’t come naturally to people, and so those who are “givers” tend to be noted and honored. Indeed, men esteem philanthropy and self sacrifice even when motivated by selfish concerns – even when, as Paul observes here, such giving is devoid of love (cf. Matthew 6:1-18, 23:1-28; Luke 11:37-44, 18:9-14). How much more would a person be worthy of distinction and honor if his giving were absolute and entirely altruistic? But even assuming this unimaginable scenario – and no doubt to the amazement of his Corinthian readers, Paul insisted that such a giver profits nothing in the absence of love. The issue in determining the worth and profit in one’s giving isn’t its absoluteness or its altruism, but whether it is an expression of love. Where that is not the case, nothing is gained. Paul’s previous examples indicate that he was here speaking primarily of benefit for the giver – benefit in the form of honor, distinction or praise. But the notion of benefit or profit does have secondary application to the act of giving and even to the gift itself. Paul obviously recognized and would have acknowledged that any act of giving benefits the recipient in a material way. But, in the absence of love, philanthropy and self-sacrifice are reduced to merely human enterprise and human exertion; whatever benefit they might supply, they are not the working of the Spirit and His gifts and so are stripped of their worth and true efficacy.
c. By these scenarios Paul has suggested what he will soon make explicit: Love is the indispensable element in the things of the Spirit (pneumatika). Love makes the Spirit’s charismata truly “spiritual”; without it, even authentic and potent gifts are rendered fleshly and unprofitable (for the gifted one and those he serves). Love informs and empowers the Spirit’s gifts, but it also transcends them because it is more than the truth and power of the divine gifts; it is the essence and power of the divine life. The Spirit’s gifts are for this life and this age; love abides forever.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 12:40:49 GMT -5
Paul understood love to be the critical issue in things of the Spirit (pneumatika, 12:1). There is no legitimate or effectual use of the Spirit’s gifts apart from love, even as love gives life and power to every dimension of the Christian’s existence. The reason this is so is that Christians have become partakers in the divine nature as those who share in the life of the triune God – the God who Himself is love (cf. Colossians 2:6-12, 3:1-4; 2 Peter 1:2-4; 1 John 4:8-16). And being sharers in God’s life, Christians are also sharers in His love. They not only live in His love, they live out His love: Love defines their authentic humanity as image-sons, and therefore conformity to their authentic selves (i.e., a life defined by righteousness) consists in a life of love (cf. John 15:1-17 with 1 John 2:1-11, 3:1-24, 4:7-21). Love authenticates and empowers the Spirit’s gifts in the saints, but only because it authenticates and empowers the totality of their lives as those born of the Spirit. (So Paul’s repeated phrase, “have love,” in 13:1-3 suggests both aspects of love: love as an endowment of the Spirit and as the essence of life in the Spirit.) In every way, love is the issue in the consideration of the things of the Spirit. Paul demonstrated by his four examples that the Church’s gifts and their function and efficacy are utterly dependent on love. In the absence of love, Christ’s saints are nothing (13:2) and their use of the Spirit’s endowments is empty (13:1) and without spiritual profit or benefit (13:3). Everything in the Christian life depends on love, and this means that Christ’s saints need to know what it is and how it is. Christians can neither know themselves rightly nor fulfill their identity and calling as members of Christ’s body and as witnesses to the world unless and until they discern love in truth and give themselves to live it out.
d. A person’s relationship with love begins with recognizing it for what it really is, but this requires that love be defined in terms of God Himself. In his fallen state, man can neither discern love truly nor live it out. People have a conception and practice of love, but one that exists in the context of the essential lovelessness of their alienation and self-isolation. Love presupposes a right relation with another being (or oneself, in the case of self-love), and no such relation exists for fallen man. As they are in themselves, people pursue and embrace “love” and its practice, but according to their own innate self-referential, self-centric perspective. They “love,” but in a natural way suited to their natural state. This condition didn’t define the Corinthians, for they were a community born of the Spirit. Moreover, there’s no doubt Paul instructed them in love and its ways during his extended ministry among them. He had taught and modeled to the Corinthians the life of love; the problem was that they had lost sight of his instruction and allowed themselves to slip back into their natural way of thinking about love and its operations. The Corinthians were functioning as naturally minded people, and they were bringing this mindset to the matter of love. Their fleshly perspective and preoccupation left them concerned only with the Spirit’s gifts and the way they manifest themselves; it didn’t occur to them that love provided the answer to their questions.
Paul understood what was going on at Corinth and recognized the need to remind the saints there of what love really is and the way it expresses itself. Thus his inspiring, positive treatment of love had an important negative purpose: Paul’s goal was not to exalt love for its own sake, let alone to paint an idealistic portrait of love as a natural human virtue (a notion readily embraced by people and eminently suited to the aesthetics and idealism of a wedding ceremony); his purpose was to confront, reprimand and provide the corrective for the Corinthian divisions and factions to which their view of spiritual gifts was contributing. Paul intended that his depiction of love would inspire his Corinthian readers, but by setting in front of them the “more excellent way” appointed for them as image sons and unto which the Spirit had equipped and empowered them. Their inspiration was to spring from the divine nature and quality of love, not a natural notion of it as a natural virtue. Authentic love is in God and flows to men from Him as they share in His life, and this is the perspective from which Paul’s depiction must be read. To not do so insures that his words will be humanized and love’s divine excellencies transformed into a cheap and profane imitation.
e. In working through Paul’s list of love’s qualities (13:4-7), some have tried to organize them and even assign a hierarchy to them. One reasonable arrangement is to partition them in terms of what love is like versus how it behaves; that is, love’s active qualities versus its passive ones. This arrangement doesn’t provide any profound insight, but it is helpful in that it highlights the fact that love conducts itself (positively and negatively) according to the truth of what it is. Thus one could argue that love’s essential (passive) qualities are primary since its practical (active) ones flow from them, but, in the end, they’re really two sides of the same coin: Love does what love is, and love is what it does (just as God’s being is the essence of His work and His work gives substance to His being). Paul, then, begins with the fact that love is patient. Starting from the premise that love is a divine quality which becomes “human” only as human beings share in God’s own life, it is evident that Paul was speaking of a patience that transcends the human trait which one finds among men in their natural state. In other words, if this patience is a quality of love and only those who’ve been born of God love, it follows that such patience exists only in the realm of the community of the Spirit. There must, therefore, be a fundamental and substantial distinction between patience as Paul identified it and as it exists naturally among humans. And the basis for determining that distinction is a comparison of God’s patience and natural human patience. Paul’s verb is sometimes rendered “long-suffering,” and its basic sense is a slowness to become negatively impassioned, whether that passion takes the form of frustration, agitation, anger, wrath, etc. Both the verb and noun forms are used of men as well as God, so that the best course is to examine how this term speaks to God’s patience. This usage occurs five times in the New Testament in relation to God (Luke 18:7; Romans 2:4, 9:22; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 3:9-15) and once with respect to Christ Himself (1 Timothy 1:16).
The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) also employs this term numerous times in speaking of God, but exclusively in relation to His own articulation and explanation of His name as Israel’s covenant God (cf. Exodus 33:12-34:7 with Numbers 14:1-19; Nehemiah 9:5-17; Psalm 86:14-15, 103:7-8, 145:1-8; also Joel 2:12-13; Jonah 4:1-2; Nahum 1:1-3). True, the Septuagint is not inspired, but what matters is that this Greek term signifies God’s patience, which God Himself treats as a core aspect of His self-disclosure to His covenant people. Specifically, God’s patience as a feature of His self-disclosure to Israel (His “name”) speaks to His unwavering commitment to the Abrahamic people by virtue of His commitment to His covenant with Abraham. God’s “name” speaks to His essential nature and character, and naming Himself patient serves to highlight His commitment to carry out His purposes for His creation. That purpose is the restoration of all things to Himself in and through the Abrahamic people, and ultimately the singular Seed of Abraham. - Thus God’s patience is purposeful; He was patient with Abraham’s descendents, not because it’s merely His nature to be so or because of self restraint, but in view of the goal He had for the nation to be the agent for bringing His blessing to all the earth’s families. In a word, God’s patience with Israel was unto the appointed day of Christ’s coming and His fulfillment of His calling as the Seed of Abraham and true Israelite. - This means that God’s patience is also gospel-oriented. He bears with men – both during the time of the preparatory salvation history and now in the age of fulfillment – in view of the consummate realization of His purpose to sum up all things in the created order in Jesus Christ. Paul’s second descriptor closely parallels his first one: Love is kind. This verb occurs nowhere else in the Scripture, but its noun and adjective cognates are common in both the New Testament and Septuagint. As with patience, this kindness is most often associated in the Scriptures with God, and it is typically rendered by some form of the English word good. - First and foremost, the Septuagint uses this term to describe God Himself (Psalm 25:8, 34:8, 52:9, 86:5, 100:5, 119:68, 145:9). - But it also assigns (or relates) this quality of goodness to God’s covenant faithfulness (His hesed, often rendered “lovingkindness”) (cf. Psalm 25:7, 69:16, 106:1 and 109:21 with Jeremiah 33:11). - In the New Testament, God’s children are said to share in this quality which He possesses (cf. Luke 6:35 with Romans 2:4, 3:12). And they share in this quality by being sharers in Him. Outside of Him and His work in the human heart, “there is none who is good” (Psalm 14:1-3).
The biblical quality of kindness (goodness) is consistent with patience in yet another way that is critically important: It, too, speaks to God’s purposes for His creation – His purposes which are proclaimed in the gospel. - God’s goodness determines and is present in all His works and all His ways with His creation (Psalm 31:19, 65:9-11, 68:9-10, 85:12, 104:27-28, 119:68, 145:5-17). - These good works and ways have their grand expression in His great restorative accomplishment in His Son (Ephesians 2:4-7; Titus 3:4-7). - So also God’s goodness leads men to repentance (Romans 2:4; 1 Peter 1:22-2:3) and sustains them in their faith (Romans 11:22). God’s patience is purposeful and gospel-oriented, and so is His goodness. Finally, as expressions of love, kindness and patience are reciprocal and mutually dependent. The meaning of the two terms makes this evident, but Paul also suggested it by the way he juxtaposed his two clauses (“Love is patient, love is kind”) as precise mirror images of one another. The two clauses are grammatically identical, but their syntax is reversed: The first has the form subject-verb while the second has the form verb-subject. Paul’s construction thus serves two related purposes: It makes the verbal ideas the focal point of the two clauses and it also sets them in intimate relation to one another. The meaning of the two verbs only punctuates the reciprocal relationship between them. - Patience speaks to the idea of bearing with another individual in his deficiencies, especially in terms of personal failures and wrongfulness. Moreover, patience implies an active quality and not merely a passive one. That is, the patient person (in the biblical sense) doesn’t passively “put up with” the sin and failures of others; he actively – and purposefully – refuses to treat those persons as they deserve. In the language of the psalmist – and speaking of God’s patience in contradistinction to human “patience,” God “has not dealt with us according to our sins or repaid us according to our iniquities…” (Psalm 103:10-14; cf. Isaiah 55:1-9). - Patience is purposeful, and therefore has a crucial counterpart. Patience refuses to treat a person as he deserves, but its refusal isn’t a “blind eye”; it has a goal, and that goal is the person’s true good (which is precisely what love is concerned with). Patience refuses for the sake of kindness’ provision: Kindness involves treating others as they don’t deserve. Patience and kindness are thus symbiotic and synergistic partners, working together negatively (restraint) and positively (bestowal) as instruments of love unto the true good of the other, which is the forming of Christ in him. Individually and together, patience and kindness are purposeful servants of the gospel.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 12:45:15 GMT -5
f. From patience and kindness as two of love’s positive qualities, Paul turned to some of love’s negative ones – that is, qualities which describe what love is not (13:4-6). Before considering them individually, it’s important to note that Paul lumped them together in one very important way: He treated them all as absolutes. In other words, love is never, at any time and to any extent, characterized by any of these negative qualities. The first of those is that love is not jealous. Again, because Paul was talking about love as it truly is, he was referring to love as it is in God Himself. God is love, and the implication, then, is that God is not jealous. This raises an immediate problem, for God insists that He is a jealous God. So much so, in fact, that He declared to Moses that His name is Jealous (cf. Exodus 20:5, 34:14). This implies one of two things: Either the love Paul was speaking of doesn’t characterize God, or the jealousy he was referring to is of a different sort than that which God ascribes to Himself. The first option is impossible since there is no authentic love except that which exists in God; therefore, there must be a jealousy which expresses love and another which contradicts it. This is exactly what one discovers from the biblical text. There are indeed two kinds of jealousy and they can be distinguished by the following considerations:
- First of all, jealousy in every form involves an intense inward passion. This passion can be negative or positive. In contemporary American usage, jealousy (or envy) tends to convey the negative connotation while zeal conveys the positive one. Another example of a negative connotation of jealousy is the notion of covetousness (cf. 3:3, 14:1, 39 with Acts 7:9, 17:5, 21:20, 22:3; Romans 10:2; 2 Corinthians 7:6-11, 9:2, 11:2, 12:20; Galatians 1:14, 4:17-18, 5:19-20; Philippians 3:4-6; Titus 2:14; James 3:14, 4:2; 1 Peter 3:13). In the case of the Corinthians, Paul noted that they were zealous for what they considered to be the greater gifts (12:31, 14:12), but this was but one manifestation of an overall pattern of jealousy which fueled the divisions and factions among them (3:1-3).
- Secondly, and suggested by the previous consideration, jealousy has both an internal and external dynamic. It is first and foremost an internal disposition and only then an external manifestation. Jealous conduct is the outward expression of a jealous heart, and that is the case for righteous zeal as much as unrighteous jealousy (cf. Acts 7:9, 2 Corinthians 11:1-2).
- Third, the nature of a being’s inward jealousy (or zeal) determines its outward manifestation, but it also determines what will arouse that jealousy in the first place. That is, jealousy speaks to an inward passion, but one that is provoked and then driven to outward expression by certain stimuli. People’s jealousy – positive and negative – is provoked by differing concerns and interests, and what inflames one individual may leave another completely unmoved.
The above observations apply to jealousy in general, whether in its positive or negative form and regardless of its orientation and intensity. They are important because they provide the basis for identifying the essential differences between the jealousy (zeal) which characterizes the Father and Son (and so those who share in the divine life) and that which contradicts love. As noted, the connection between jealousy’s inward passion and outward expression resides in its nature and orientation. Jealousy is aroused and made manifest on account of that which provokes it, and this means that the nature of the provocation illumines the nature of the jealousy itself. And though any number of stimuli can incite a person’s jealousy, they can all be placed into one of two categories: concerns pertaining to God and concerns pertaining to oneself (whether directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously). - In the case of the persons of the Godhead, their jealousy (zeal) is always associated with the former. God is jealous for Himself (His “name”) – not because He’s self-centered as men are, but because He is goodness and truth and all His ways, purposes and works are true and good. Thus divine jealousy expresses itself positively in deliverance, provision and preservation and negatively in judgment, chastening and even destruction (cf. Exodus 33:12-34:16; Deuteronomy 4:1-40, 29:1-21; Isaiah 9:1-7, 59:1-21; Zechariah 8:1-3). But in every case, it reflects the same internal passion and orientation of the one God who is love (cf. Deuteronomy 32:1-35 with 36-43; also Psalm 78:40-72; Joel 2:1-32; Zephaniah 3:1-20). The Old Testament scriptures highlight Yahweh’s jealousy as oriented toward the accomplishment of His design for His creation. His zeal is directed in condemnation and destroying power against that which contradicts and opposes His purposes, but only because He is jealous for the creation’s true good and final, consummate perfection. Understood in this way, Jesus is the embodiment of Yahweh’s jealousy. In His person as much as His work, Jesus is the full revelation and realization of His Father’s zeal (cf. John 2:13-17 with Psalm 69:1-9). - Conversely, all natural human jealousy (and zeal) is tied to personal concerns. This is not to say that people can’t be zealous for righteous causes or the well-being of others, but all such zeal flows from a mind that is nonetheless intractably centered in self. Only as a person comes to participate in the divine life and mind does he partake in the jealousy which characterizes the Father, Son and Spirit – the jealousy that is born of love (2 Corinthians 7:1-11, 9:1-2, 11:1-3; Titus 2:1-14; Revelation 3:14-19). And even so, such jealousy is not a given; those born of the Spirit can still think and act contrary to love and so fall prey to the jealousy Paul decried. Rather than being zealous for Christ and the good of His body, Christians can be zealous for selfish concerns (though they may appear righteous and God-honoring). Such was the case at Corinth.
These considerations show that there is a jealousy which expresses love and one which contradicts it. The former jealousy characterizes the God who is love, and it is provoked by and exercises itself toward the cause of love. Thus, like patience and kindness which are themselves qualities of love, this sort of jealousy is purposeful and gospel-oriented. Unlike the jealousy Paul referred to, this godly zeal is neither self-centered nor self-seeking; defined and driven by love, it is just one more way in which love exerts itself toward the true good of its object – the good which is bound up in Jesus Christ and flows out to men through His Spirit. Paul’s second and third negative qualities are closely related and can be considered together: Love doesn’t boast and is not arrogant. These complement each other in that this boasting is one way in which arrogance manifests itself.
1) Paul’s verb rendered boast occurs nowhere else in the New Testament; in fact, neither the New Testament nor the Septuagint contains any cognate form of this Greek word. However, its use outside of the Scriptures shows that it carries the idea of bragging or overt self-promotion. It doesn’t connote the person who acknowledges his gifts and accomplishments, but one who “toots his own horn” with great enthusiasm and fanfare. Obviously people can brag about anything, but Paul’s concern in this context was with self-promotion in regard to spiritual matters. The Corinthians were guilty of spiritual boasting in various arenas, including their associations (1:10-31, 3:21-23) and their sense of spiritual superiority (4:6-8) and mature understanding and liberty (5:1-6). And though Paul doesn’t explicitly say so, the present context implies that their boasting even extended to the area of spiritual gifts and their manifestations (cf. 12:20-21, 14:18-20, 37-38). The general pattern among the saints at Corinth was to covet spiritual gifts considered to be superior, and the result was that those who possessed these “greater” gifts boasted in them while those without them felt inferior and marginalized (if not envious). Paul decried the Corinthians’ boasting as contrary to love, and yet he’d have readily acknowledged that, just as with jealousy, there is a kind of boasting (“glorying”) that accords with love and the mind of Christ. In fact, the two kinds of boasting – as the two kinds of jealousy – are distinguished in just that way: on the basis of their relation to love. Paul condemned the Corinthians’ boasting, yet he embraced his own boast – a boast which pertained to himself as well as other Christians. Paul had no problem boasting, but his boast was merely his “glorying” in Christ and His gospel (ref. 2:1-31, 9:1-27, 15:30-32; cf. also 2 Corinthians 7:1-9:15, 10:1-12:13; Galatians 6:1-17). This was the marrow of Paul’s exultation, so that even when he took note of his own gifts and ministration it was only as he was Christ’s servant for the sake of His gospel (ref. 4:1-13; cf. Romans 15:14-19; 2 Corinthians 2:14-4:15, 11:1-12:13). Paul possessed superlative gifts, but he boasted in them as empowering his servanthood.
2) If boasting refers to open, unashamed bragging, arrogance speaks to the inward attitude of heart which lies behind boasting. This is the sixth time Paul used this verb in this epistle (cf. 4:6, 18-19, 5:2, 8:1) and, as noted before, it carries the basic sense of being puffed up or inflated. In our contemporary vernacular, it refers to the person who is “full of himself.” This imagery highlights the self-centered frame of reference which defines and determines man in his alienation from God; it is the hallmark of the “natural mind,” and so characterizes those who lack the mind of Christ as well as those who fail to employ it, as was the case with the Corinthians. Unlike jealousy and boasting, this arrogance has no counterpart consistent with love. It is always negative in its connotation and antithetical to love: Love builds up; it doesn’t puff up (ref. 8:1). Here again Paul was putting his finger on a characteristic malady at Corinth. In context, the Corinthians were “puffed up” with respect to their gifts and their operations, but the Spirit’s charismata were simply one more occasion for the arrogance that filled their hearts: The Corinthians weren’t puffed up because of the inherent superiority of their gifts; rather, they regarded their gifts arrogantly because they were inherently full of themselves. They had an inflated view of themselves, and simply drew upon what they considered to be their superior distinctions in order to vindicate their arrogance. - They congratulated themselves for their apparent insight and discernment respecting the men they aligned themselves with (4:6) and those they minimized or spurned (4:18-19). - Some among them exulted in their open support for the brother who had taken his father’s wife, believing that it proved to the rest of the body (and to themselves) their superior wisdom and mature understanding (5:6). Others might have overly-sensitive scruples dictated by an immature faith and an unsophisticated sense of holiness, but that was not the case with them. - So also many at Corinth found what they believed to be legitimate ground for their sense of superiority in their mature knowledge and liberty in the matter of sacrificial foods (8:1-2). But whatever these arrogant and boastful saints could point to – even bona fide spiritual attainments which are marks of Christian maturity, in the end their sense of themselves (and the bad fruit it bore) attested, not their maturity and wisdom, but their lovelessness (cf. 4:6-21, 5:3-8, 8:1-13). And that lack of love neutered the efficacy and nullified the value of all their distinction and giftedness: If a man has all knowledge and wisdom and possesses superlative gifts, but exercises them in the absence of love, it is all to no profit. In a profound irony, the endowments and attainments which, employed in the service of love, would indeed grant the Corinthians a boast, instead left them with only loveless, puffed-up hearts.
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