1. Jack Kuhatschek, Taking the Guesswork Out of Applying the Bible (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 33.
1. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington: Glazier, 1983) collects together and comments on the most relevant texts, inscriptions, and artifacts from the ancient Greco-Roman world germane to a study of Corinth during the period leading up to and including Paul’s founding of the church there.
2. Donald Engels, Roman Corinth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 84.
3. This is a point seldom observed in the major commentaries, but stressed by Richard E. Oster, Jr., “Misuse and Neglect of Archaeological Evidence in Some Modern Works on 1 Corinthians (1 Cor 7:1–5; 8, 10; 11, 2–16; 12, 14–26),” ZNW 83 (1992): 55–58.
4. See esp. Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982); John K. Chow, Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth (Sheffield: JSOT, 1992).
5. David W. J. Gill, “In Search of the Social Elite in the Corinthian Church,” TynB 44 (1993): 323–37.
6. Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 3.
7. William Baird, The Corinthian Church: A Biblical Approach to Urban Culture (Nashville: Abingdon, 1964).
8. For the most recent discussion, see Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Paul and Gallio,” JBL 112 (1993): 315–17.
9. Some commentators have assumed that only those topics subsequently introduced with the formula “now about …” (7:1, 8:1, 12:1, 16:1, 12) were actually in the letter Paul received and that intervening topics (head coverings, Lord’s Supper, resurrection) must have resulted from Paul’s personal informants. But it is not likely that the purpose of “now about” is to specify which items have come from the written letter; they merely form one of several ways of introducing a new topic. See esp. Margaret M. Mitchell, “Concerning PERI DE in 1 Corinthians,” NovT 31 (1989): 229–56.
10. The most detailed reconstruction of the events that led up to 1 Corinthians, including suggestions as to the contents of all of these various prior communications, is John C. Hurd, The Origin of 1 Corinthians (New York: Seabury, 1965). Admittedly speculative in places, Hurd’s overall approach is compelling, except for his idiosyncratic dating of the epistle in relation to the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15.
11. John M. G. Barclay, “Thessalonica and Corinth: Social Contrasts in Pauline Christianity,” JSNT 47 (1992): 64.
12. Nigel Watson, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (London: Epworth, 1992), xxxiii.
13. D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 281–82. A major study of Greco-Roman rhetoric more generally, which stresses its difference from philosophy per se, and which reconstructs the historical context in Corinth in terms of a church enamored with position and social privilege, is Stephen M. Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia: The Rhetorical Situation of 1 Corinthians (Atlanta: Scholars, 1992).
14. For a detailed study, see Andrew D. Clarke, Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth: A Socio-Historical and Exegetical Study of 1 Corinthians 1–6 (Leiden: Brill, 1993).
15. See esp. James A. Davis, Wisdom and Spirit: An Investigation of 1 Corinthians 1:18–3:20 Against the Background of Jewish Sapiential Traditions in the Greco-Roman Period (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984).
16. It is probably best to call the distinctively Corinthian manifestation of this dualism a proto-or incipient Gnosticism, rather than full-fledged Gnosticism on the one hand or purely Hellenistic wisdom speculation on the other. See esp. R. McL. Wilson, “Gnosis at Corinth” (pp. 102–14), and John Painter, “Paul and the πνευματικοί at Corinth” (pp. 237–50), both in Paul and Paulinism, eds. M. D. Hooker and S. G. Wilson (London: SPCK, 1982).
17. See esp. Anthony C. Thiselton, “Realized Eschatology at Corinth,” NTS 24 (1977–78): 510–26.
18. Cf., e.g., George Gallup, Jr. and Sarah Jones, 100 Questions and Answers: Religion in America (Princeton: Princeton Religion Research Center, 1989), 68, 166.
19. See Martin E. Marty, Protestantism in the United States: Righteous Empire (London: Macmillan; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1986).
1. For an excellent analysis of ancient Greco-Roman letter writing and an assessment of the New Testament epistles in that light, see Stanley K. Stowers, Letter-Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986).
2. An excellent brief overview is Richard N. Longenecker, The Ministry and Message of Paul (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971).
3. So most commentators, since Paul’s use of the first person plural usually implies “I and other apostles” or “I and other Christians” or is simply an editorial “we.” Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Co-Authorship in the Corinthian Correspondence,” RB 100 (1993): 562–79, finds Sosthenes’ contribution behind the “we” forms in 1:18–31 and 2:6–16.
4. See esp. Peter T. O’Brien, Introductory Thanksgivings in the Letters of Paul (Leiden: Brill, 1977); for incisive, popular exposition, cf. D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992).
5. See esp. William W. Klein, “Paul’s Use of Kalein: A Proposal,” JETS 27 (1984): 53–64; idem, The New Chosen People (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 199–209.
6. E. Earle Ellis, Pauline Theology: Ministry and Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 26–52.
7. Fee, First Corinthians, 37.
8. David Prior, The Message of 1 Corinthians (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 24–25.
9. For a recent, reasonably well-balanced discussion of several of these themes, see Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993).
10. Indeed, such a claim virtually disproves itself, for as Dale Moody (The Word of Truth [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981], 324) puts it, “Perfect sanctification is good to pursue, but self-righteousness is sure to follow any claim that it has been achieved.”
1. Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991), 75.
2. C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 42.
3. See esp. Richard A. Horsley, “Wisdom of Word and Words of Wisdom in Corinth,” CBQ 39 (1977): 224–39.
4. Watson, First Corinthians, 8.
5. For an excellent example of such application, see D. A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry: An Exposition of Passages from I Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), on 1:18–4:21 and 9:19–27.
6. See, for example, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Children of Promise (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979).
7. Graydon F. Snyder, First Corinthians: A Faith Community Commentary (Macon, Ga.: Mercer, 1992), 25.
8. One of today’s most articulate spokespersons against this segregation, who personally pastors a church currently modeling cross-cultural diversity, is Anthony T. Evans. See esp. his America’s Only Hope: Impacting Society in the ’90s (Chicago: Moody, 1990).
9. For a more balanced perspective from within the church growth movement, and against earlier paradigms, see Thom S. Rainer, The Book of Church Growth: History, Theology, and Principles (Nashville: Broadman, 1993).
10. Helpful suggestions for facilitating this unity, drawing on the examples of the early church, appear in Luke T. Johnson, Decision-Making in the Church: A Biblical Model (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).
11. For excellent suggestions on the way baptists and paedobaptists could remove many of the obstacles which still separate them, see David Bridge and David Phypers, The Water That Divides (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1977).
12. For an incisive treatment of many of the issues at stake, see Leith Anderson, Dying for Change (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1990).
1. Barclay M. Newman, A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament (London: United Bible Society, 1971), 4.
2. Markus Lautenschlager, “Abschied vom Disputierer: Zu Bedeutung von συζητητής in 1 Kor 1, 20,” ZNW 83 (1992): 276–85, prefers “philosophical investigator” to “debater.”
3. Less likely, but still possible, is the view that this triad of titles corresponds to the three leaders in a Pharisaic school (bet midrash): the sage (hakam), scribe (soper), and commentator (darsan). See Martin Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul (Philadelphia: Trinity, 1991), 42.
4. For an interesting study of the determinative role of the Jeremiah verses on this entire paragraph, see Gail R. O’Day, “Jeremiah 9:22–23 and 1 Corinthians 1:26–31: A Study in Intertextuality,” JBL 109 (1990): 259–67.
5. Andrew D. Clarke, Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 95–99.
6. See esp. Christopher Forbes, “Comparison, Self-Praise, and Irony: Paul’s Boasting and the Conventions of Hellenistic Rhetoric,” NTS 32 (1986): 1–30.
7. On Paul’s theology of the cross more generally, see Charles B. Cousar, A Theology of the Cross: The Death of Jesus in the Pauline Letters (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990).
8. Stephen M. Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia (Atlanta: Scholars, 1992), 140.
9. I owe the formulation of these questions to James A. Davis, “1 Corinthians 1–6” (Unpublished manuscript, 1993): s.v. 1:18–2:5, “Form/Structure/Setting,” but the formulation of the answers is my own.
10. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, 1 Corinthians (Wilmington: Glazier, 1979), 14.
11. Peter Lampe, “Theological Wisdom and the ‘Word About the Cross’,” Int 44 (1990): 117–31.
12. John B. Polhill, “The Wisdom of God and Factionalism: 1 Corinthians 1–4,” RevExp 80 (1983): 330.
13. Cf., e.g., Bruce L. Shelley, The Gospel and the American Dream (Portland: Multnomah, 1989).
14. For a full history, see Robert G. Clouse, Richard V. Pierard, and Edwin M. Yamauchi, The Two Kingdoms: The Church and Culture through the Ages (Chicago: Moody, 1993). For additional implications, cf. L. L. Welborn, “On the Discord in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 1–4 and Ancient Politics,” JBL 106 (1987): 110: “What is certain is that [Paul’s] attempt to avoid any complicity in the affairs of this world, to separate religion as far as possible from practical politics, proved to be of historic significance. Its repercussion can be heard in Augustine’s negative evaluation of the civitas terrena and in the political naturalism of Machiavelli and Rousseau.”
15. Cf. Matthew 5:3 with Luke 6:20. The reason these verses do not contradict each other lies precisely in this twofold significance of the term poor.
16. On chapters 1–4 in particular, see esp. K. E. Bailey, “Recovering the Poetic Structure of 1 Cor. 1:17–2, 2,” NovT 17 (1975): 265–96 (more convincing on 1:18–30 than on the rest); J. Bradley Chance, “Paul’s Apology to the Corinthians,” PRS 9 (1982): 145–55 (on the function of 1:4–6:20 as a defense of Paul’s apostleship); and Benjamin Fiore, “ ‘Covert Allusion’ in 1 Corinthians 1–4,” CBQ 47 (1985): 85–102 (on the proliferation of figures of speech and their rhetorical functions in these chapters).
17. Timothy H. Lim, “ ‘Not in Persuasive Words of Wisdom, but in the Demonstration of the Spirit and Power’,” NovT 29 (1987): 149.
18. J. W. Beaudean, Paul’s Theology of Preaching (Macon, Ga.: Mercer, 1988), 118.
19. Cf. the particularly poignant exposition of these themes in Molly T. Marshall, “Forsaking a Theology of Glory: 1 Corinthians 1:18–31,” Ex Auditu 7 (1991): 101–4.
20. See the challenging treatment of this theme in Robert Lupton, Theirs is the Kingdom (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1989), 60–61.
21. This is the strength, for example, of the often maligned but stunningly successful ministries of people like Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller.
22. Cf. the only slightly overstated critique by Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993).
23. For a balanced perspective, see Lewis B. Smedes, ed., Ministry and the Miraculous (Pasadena: Fuller Theological Seminary, 1987).
24. See esp. Douglas Groothuis, Revealing the New Age Jesus (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990).
25. For details, see Ronald J. Sider, One-Sided Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993).
26. For a more academic study of this theme, see David A. Black, Paul: Apostle of Weakness (New York: Lang, 1984). For challenging practical applications to the way Western Christians do ministry, see Alice F. Evans, Robert A. Evans, and William B. Kennedy, Pedagogies for the Non-Poor (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1987).
1. Wesley Carr, “The Rulers of this Age—1 Corinthians II.6–8,” NTS 23 (1976–77): 20–35, strongly disputes this, noting that the plural of the noun is never so used in the New Testament. But he has to play down the possible influence of incipient Gnosticism (which regularly used ἄρξοντες for quasi-angelic or demonic beings) as well as the cluster of New Testament concepts surrounding “the powers of this age” or “this world,” which often include demonic forces.
2. See esp. Raymond E. Brown, The Semitic Background of the Term “Mystery” in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968). Chrys C. Caragounis, The Ephesian “Mysterion” (Lund: Gleerup, 1977), has made a convincing case that the term also refers to an element of inscrutability in God’s ways.
3. The Greek reads pneumatikois pneumatika sunkrinontes. The second adjective is clearly neuter; the first could be either neuter (referring back to logois—“words”—in verse 13a) or masculine (referring to people and looking ahead to verse 14). A third possibility is to translate sunkrino as “compare,” which could yield “comparing spiritual things with [other] spiritual things.” Cf. Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 90–91.
4. Harold Mare, “1 Corinthians,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), 10:203, helpfully defines anakrino in both of these uses as “to make intelligent spiritual decisions.”
5. For how these terms would have been used in Hellenistic or Jewish circles influenced by pre-Gnostic tendencies, see esp. Birger A. Pearson, The Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology in 1 Corinthians (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1973); Richard A. Horsley, “Pneumatikos vs. Psychikos: Distinctions of Spiritual Status Among the Corinthians,” HTR 69 (1976): 269–88.
6. Barrett, First Corinthians, 69.
7. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 51.
8. On this anthropological dualism, see esp. John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989).
9. Cf. esp. Peter Stuhlmacher, “The Hermeneutical Significance of 1 Cor 2:6–16,” in Tradition and Interpretation in the New Testament, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and O. Betz (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 328–47.
10. For an excellent layperson’s introduction to the principles of biblical interpretation, see Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, rev. 1993). For a more detailed survey, cf. William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993).
11. Fee, First Corinthians, 120.
12. Cf., e.g., Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991), 96–97.
13. A simple, introductory manual with constructive advice for discerning Christian truth from error is Robert M. Bowman, Jr., Orthodoxy and Heresy (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992).
14. Michael Green, To Corinth with Love (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1982), 90.
15. Kenneth L. Chafin, 1, 2 Corinthians (Waco: Word, 1985), 47.
16. William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956, rev. 1975), 28.
17. Wendell Willis, “The ‘Mind of Christ’ in 1 Corinthians 2:16,” Bib 70 (1989): 110–22, rightly stresses that verse 16 is an implicit appeal for appropriate community life.
18. Aída B. Spencer and William D. Spencer, “The Truly Spiritual in Paul: Biblical Background Paper on 1 Corinthians 2:6–16,” in Conflict and Context: Hermeneutics in the Americas, ed. Mark L. Branson and C. René Padilla (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 247–48.
1. In verse 1, the term is sarkinos (“belonging to the flesh,” or “having the characteristics of the flesh”); in verse 3, sarkikos (“composed of flesh,” or “full of fleshly activities”)—Mare, “1 Corinthians,” 206.
2. W. H. Ollrog, “συνεργός, συνεργέω,” in Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 3:304, defines συνεργός here as “a person who is active with and like Paul a representative of God in the mission ‘work’ of proclamation … not synergistically God’s fellow ‘workers,’ as the context clearly shows.”
3. For this meaning, and for the significance of related terms in this paragraph, see Jay Shanor, “Paul as Master Builder: Construction Terms in First Corinthians,” NTS 34 (1988): 461–67.
4. Harm W. Hollander (“The Testing by Fire of the Builders’ Works: 1 Corinthians 3:10–15,” NTS 40 [1994]: 89–104) believes that Paul has derived his imagery from the Testament of Abraham 13, but has reapplied language about the judgment of the righteous and wicked to two kinds of believers.
5. Commentators often try to limit this work to doctrine or teaching, to working specifically for the church, or to aspects of Christian character. Paul does not suggest any such limitations. More helpful, therefore, is Leon Morris, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 65: “Probably none [of these interpretations] is completely out of mind, and it is best to see the reference as quite general.”
6. Cf. Gaston Deluz, A Companion to 1 Corinthians (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1963), 40.
7. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 60. Cf. TEV: “But if anyone’s work is burnt up, then he will lose it.”
8. Cf. esp. William F. Orr and James A. Walther, 1 Corinthians (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), 173.
9. The present tense may well be conative (referring to attempted action), as suggested by Barrett, First Corinthians, 91. Phtheiro could also be translated “corrupt” in its first usage, but it must be rendered “destroy” in its second.
10. The psalmist actually says, “the thoughts of [sinful] man.” Paul makes the observation all the more pointed by substituting “wise” to indicate the subgroup in Corinth that most needed to learn this lesson.
11. Cf. esp. Brendan Byrne, “Ministry and Maturity in 1 Corinthians 3,” ABR 35 (1987): 83–87.
12. John F. MacArthur, Jr. has often been associated with this view. What he says, in The Gospel According to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 97, n. 2, is that 1 Corinthians 3:3 was “not meant [to] establish a special class of Christianity.” It is easy to see why he has been interpreted as he has, but the rest of his footnote explains simply that “these were not people living in static disobedience.” He does add, however, “Paul does not suggest that carnality and rebellion were the rule in their lives.” True, but neither does he deny it.
13. Charles C. Ryrie, So Great Salvation (Wheaton: Victor, 1989), 59–66, is not as extreme as some but still defends the possibility of a prolonged period of carnality on the basis of the four-to-five years that these Corinthians had been Christians. But that is based on an assumption that goes well beyond the text—that these believers were in an uninterrupted state of carnality for all these years.
14. A definitive treatment of this topic appears in Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981).
15. See esp. Fee, First Corinthians, 124–27.
16. Cf. James Francis, “ ‘As Babes in Christ’—Some Proposals Regarding 1 Corinthians 3:1–3,” JSNT 7 (1980): 57: “Maturity is possible for every Christian who has received the Spirit, and Paul is urging the Corinthians to grow in the sense of realising afresh what they have received.” Conversely, “Paul chides his readers not for failure to advance their understanding (some were exceedingly proud of their knowledge), but for failing to allow what they had known and realised to be true to inform their ongoing Christian life.”
17. Fee, First Corinthians, 128.
18. E.g., Craig A. Evans, “How Are the Apostles Judged? A Note on 1 Corinthians 3:10–15,” JETS 27 (1984): 149–50.
19. Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1929), 61–62.
20. Indeed, this notion developed in part as an attempt to salvage something of the Catholic concept of purgatory—see Emma Disley, “Degrees of Glory: Protestant Doctrine and the Concept of Rewards Hereafter,” JTS 42 (1991): 77–105.
21. See further Craig L. Blomberg, “Degrees of Reward in the Kingdom of Heaven?” JETS 35 (1992): 159–72. Cf. John B. Polhill, “The Wisdom of God and Factionalism: 1 Corinthians 1–4,” RevExp 80 (1983): 335: “Rewards are difficult to square with a doctrine of salvation by grace and can easily become the back door for a theology of works.” Again, “it is best to avoid seeing this in terms of graduation [sic] in heavenly rank or in materialistic terms such as various types of heavenly real estate. It is more likely that both Paul and Jesus had something in mind like the Lord’s commendation, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’ (Lk 19:17)”; and Watson, First Corinthians, 33: “Perhaps the reward will simply be the satisfaction of seeing one’s work survive, the penalty the mortification of seeing it dissolve in the flames.”
22. See esp. William V. Crockett, “The Metaphorical View,” in Four Views on Hell, ed. William Crockett (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 43–81; and his “Response to Clark H. Pinnock,” pp. 171–74.
23. Fee, First Corinthians, 146.
24. This is the central theme of the very helpful, detailed study by David W. Kuck (Judgment and Community Conflict [Leiden: Brill, 1992]), subtitled Paul’s Use of Apocalyptic Judgment Language in 1 Cor. 3:5–4:5.
25. See, e.g., Sharing the Abundant Life on Campus (San Bernardino: Campus Crusade for Christ International, 1972), 209–17, which reproduces the widely used tract, “Have You Made the Wonderful Discovery of the Spirit-Filled Life?”
26. As especially in the contrast between MacArthur, Gospel According to Jesus, and Ryrie, So Great Salvation.
27. For a well-balanced assessment and mediation of this debate, see Darrell L. Bock, “A Review of The Gospel According to Jesus,” BSac 146 (1989): 21–40.
28. As most notably in Zane C. Hodges, Grace in Eclipse: A Study on Eternal Rewards (Dallas: Redención Viva, 1985); and Joe L. Wall, Going for the Gold: Reward and Loss at the Judgment of Believers (Chicago: Moody, 1991).
29. For good suggestions on implementation, see Frank R. Tillapaugh, Unleashing Your Potential (Ventura: Regal, 1988).
30. An outstanding example is S. Bruce Narramore, No Condemnation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), though at times he may swing the pendulum too far in the opposite direction.
31. Cf. Paige Patterson, The Troubled Triumphant Church (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), 55: “In a sense, the tendency to identify more strongly with Christian leaders than with Jesus, the founder of Christianity, is another sure insight into one’s stature as a babe in Christ.”
32. Jerry Vines, God Speaks Today (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), 73.
33. For elaboration of the ideas in this paragraph, see the outstanding discussion and practical suggestions in Chap Clark, The Performance Illusion (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993).
34. An important international symposium on this and related topics is Right with God: Justification in the Bible and the World, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992). Paul, in his own way as much as James, teaches that good works necessarily flow from saving faith. P. T. O’Brien helpfully surveys recent approaches to justification by faith and judgment by works in Paul in his article in this volume entitled, “Justification in Paul and Some Crucial Issues in the Last Two Decades” (pp. 69–95; see esp. pp. 89–95), correctly concluding that they “are two poles of the same matter” (p. 94).
1. Paul Ellingworth and Howard Hatton, A Translator’s Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (New York: United Bible Societies, 1985), 75. Many commentaries commit the fallacy of defining this word (huperetes) according to its etymology (as “under-rower”), but there are no known uses of this word in ancient Greek literature with this meaning. See D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 27–28.
2. Colin Brown, “Conscience,” in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), 351.
3. Nigel Turner, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1965), 132.
4. The word translated “applied” in v. 6 normally means “transformed.” This has suggested to a few writers that Paul is really talking about the local leaders of the Corinthian factions but “transforms” his references to himself and Apollos to be less direct. See esp. David R. Hall, “A Disguise for the Wise μετασχηματισμός in 1 Corinthians 4:6,” NTS 40 (1994): 143–49.
5. For each of these three views, see, respectively, Morna D. Hooker, “ ‘Beyond the Things Which Are Written’: An Examination of 1 Cor. IV.6,” NTS 10 (1963–64): 127–32; L. L. Welborn, “A Conciliatory Principle in 1 Cor. 4:6,” NovT 29 (1987): 320–46; C. H. Talbert, Reading Corinthians (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 8. Verse 6b is admittedly quite difficult, because it reads literally, “In order that you might learn in us the not beyond what is written.” Conjectural emendations of the text, while clever, lack all textual evidence and therefore fail to persuade.
6. On which, see esp. Peter Marshall, Enmity in Corinth: Social Conventions in Paul’s Relations with the Corinthians (Tübingen: Mohr, 1987), 209.
7. For an excellent articulation of Paul’s theology of persecution, taking 1 Cor. 4:10–13 as its starting point, see Anthony T. Hanson, The Paradox of the Cross in the Thought of St. Paul (Sheffield: JSOT, 1987). Cf. also John S. Pobee, Persecution and Martyrdom in the Theology of Paul (Sheffield: JSOT, 1985).
8. See further Boykin Sanders, “Imitating Paul: 1 Cor 4:16,” HTR 74 (1981): 353–63.
9. One of the most balanced treatments of this theme is James E. Means, Leadership in Christian Ministry (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989). On p. 58 he defines spiritual leadership as “the development of relationships with the people of a Christian institution or body in such a way that individuals and the group are enabled to formulate and achieve biblically compatible goals that meet real needs. By their ethical influence, spiritual leaders serve to motivate and enable others to achieve what otherwise would never be achieved.”
10. Andrew D. Clarke, Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 119.
11. Robertson and Plummer, First Corinthians, 76, quote T. C. Edwards (1885) as explaining the difference between these verses: “Self-knowledge is more difficult than revealed truth.”
12. F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1971), 48.
13. For an outstanding introductory treatment of several of these themes, see D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990).
14. This point is often obscured in our contemporary milieu, which has been particularly sensitized to gender issues. Hence, e.g., Eva M. Lassen (“The Use of the Father Image in Imperial Propaganda and 1 Corinthians 4:14–21,” TynB 42 [1991]: 127–36) correctly stresses the hierarchical, paternalistic emphasis in Roman Corinth against its more democratic Greek background. But when she concludes that Paul’s invocation of a father figure thus stresses his authoritative relationship over his congregation, she loses sight of the fact that it is parental rather than male authority which he is invoking. Conversely, Prior (1 Corinthians, 67–68) throws the baby out with the bathwater when he vehemently insists that Paul’s role as father carried with it no overtones of authority and that to claim otherwise represents “false teaching” which “is arguably the strongest barrier to the growth and health of the church in our day”!
15. Cf. the opposite results John predicts for the equally faithful Christians in Smyrna (Rev. 2:9–10) and Philadelphia (3:8–10).
16. Cf. esp. Timothy George, “The Priesthood of All Believers and the Quest for Theological Integrity,” CTR 3 (1989): 283–94.
17. George Gallup, Jr. and Sarah Jones, 100 Questions and Answers; Religion in America (Princeton: Princeton Religion Research Center, 1989), 42: Only 42% of Americans polled could name five commandments; only 46% could name all four Gospels, and only 42% knew who delivered the Sermon on the Mount.
18. For implementation, see, e.g., Lawrence O. Richards, Creative Bible Teaching (Chicago: Moody, 1970); Howard G. Hendricks, Teaching to Change Lives (Portland: Multnomah, 1987).
19. Green, Corinth, 127.
20. For an extremely sympathetic yet adequate critique, see Bruce Barron, The Health and Wealth Gospel (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987).
21. See esp. Jonathan J. Bonk, “Doing Mission out of Affluence: Reflections on Recruiting ‘End of the Procession’ Missionaries from ‘Front of the Procession’ Churches (1 Corinthians 4:1–13),” Missiology 17 (1989): 427–52.
22. Karl A. Plank, Paul and the Irony of Affliction (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987), 93.
23. Contrast Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief (New York: Basic Books, 1993), who calls for preserving a special role for religious communities as consistent with the First Amendment and the enhancement of our democratic traditions.
24. A study of Paul’s behavior in Acts proves particularly instructive. Paul asserts his legal rights as a Roman citizen when and only when the benefit of others and the advance of the gospel more generally are at stake. Cf. Acts 16:37 (he could have appealed before being imprisoned but did not), 22:25–29 (he knew the primary debate was with the Jewish, not the Roman leaders), and 25:10–11 (he already knew God wanted him to go to Rome [23:11]). The dominant pattern of Acts finds Paul simply leaving a given region without protest once persecution begins.
25. Cf. Michael Green’s provocative suggestions in Acts for Today (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1993), 174.
26. See, e.g., Christian Smith, Going to the Root: 9 Proposals for Radical Church Renewal (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1992).
27. William D. Spencer, “The Power in Paul’s Teaching (1 Cor 4:9–20),” JETS 32 (1989): 61.
28. The title of the immensely popular book by James Dobson, originally published by Tyndale House, Wheaton, in 1970, and frequently reprinted and revised.
1. On all of these details, cf. further Andrew D. Clarke, Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 74–85.
2. Many commentators cite Cicero’s slightly exaggerated outrage at the marriage of a woman to her son-in-law: “Oh! to think of the woman’s sin, unbelievable, unheard of in all experience save for this single instance!” (Pro Cluentio 15). Talbert, Corinthians, 13–14, supplies a good catalog of other relevant Jewish and Greco-Roman perspectives on the topic.
3. Brian S. Rosner, “ ‘ΟΥΧΙ ΜΑΛΛΟΝ ΕΠΕΝΘΗΣΑΤΕ’: Corporate Responsibility in 1 Corinthians 5,” NTS 38 (1992): 470–73, makes a plausible case for viewing Paul’s words against a Hebrew background of corporate responsibility, in which the church should have mourned in the sense of “confessing the sin of the erring brother as if it was their own” (p. 472).
4. A woodenly literal translation of verses 3–4 might read, “For I, absent in the body but present in the spirit, have already judged, as present, the one who has done this thing, in the name of the (our) Lord Jesus, when you have gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus….”
5. Anthony C. Thiselton, “The Meaning of ΣΑΡΞ in 1 Corinthians 5:5: A Fresh Approach in the Light of Logical and Semantic Factors,” SJT 26 (1973): 204–28, helpfully speaks of the “flesh” as referring here to the man’s professed “self-sufficiency” or “self-satisfaction.” For a good overview of the main arguments in favor of the NIV rendering, see Fee, First Corinthians, 210–13; cf. also N. George Joy, “Is the Body Really to Be Destroyed? (1 Corinthians 5:5),” BT 39 (1988): 429–36; and James T. South, “A Critique of the ‘Curse/Death’ Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 5:1–8,” NTS 39 (1993): 539–61.
6. It is often objected that the man in 2 Corinthians must be someone else, because there it is a matter of personal affront to Paul. But in light of the intervening events between 1 and 2 Corinthians, it is entirely conceivable that Paul and this man had a personal “run-in” which accounts for his language in his second letter. See esp. Colin Kruse, The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 41–45, 81–84.
7. Barth Campbell (“Flesh and Spirit in 1 Cor 5:5: An Exercise in Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament,” JETS 36 [1993]: 331–42) believes, in the light of the corporate references in verses 6–11, that the flesh refers to the sinful element in the church and that saving the spirit is the restoration of corporate spirituality. There may be secondary implications along these lines, but it is hard to see such definitions as primary.
8. Brian S. Rosner, “Temple and Holiness in 1 Corinthians 5,” TynB 42 (1991): 132–45, argues that 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 forms the theological framework for understanding Paul’s commands: the incestuous man has defiled God’s holy temple and must be put out of the assembly just as ritually defiled persons were excluded from the Old Testament congregations of God’s people.
9. Ellingworth and Hatton, First Corinthians, 103.
10. Two particularly helpful studies are J. Carl Laney, A Guide to Church Discipline (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1985); and John White and Ken Blue, Healing the Wounded: The Costly Love of Church Discipline (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1985).
11. Cf., e.g., Walter A. Trobisch, “Church Discipline in Africa,” Practical Anthropology 8 (1961): 200–206.
12. See esp. Adela Y. Collins, “The Function of ‘Excommunication’ in Paul,” HTR 73 (1980): 251–63.
13. On which, see esp. Jack W. Hayford, Restoring Fallen Church Leaders (Ventura: Regal, 1988).
14. On which, see esp. G. W. H. Lampe, “Church Discipline and the Interpretation of the Epistle to the Corinthians,” in Christian History and Interpretation, ed. W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule and R. R. Niebuhr (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 337–61.
15. For balanced approaches, cf. Alan Storkey, A Christian Social Perspective (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1979); with John Gladwin, God’s People in God’s World (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1979).
16. Barclay, Corinthians, 44–46.
17. See, e.g., Thomas D. Lea and Hayne P. Griffin, Jr., 1, 2 Timothy, Titus (Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 109–10; C. H. Dodd, “New Testament Translation Problems II,” BT 28 (1977): 112–16.
18. Good, practical suggestions for implementing this are found in Jay E. Adams, Handbook of Church Discipline (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 99–118.
19. One thinks of the examples of “tough love” of parents for children outlined in Bill Milliken, Tough Love (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming Revell, 1968). But for these models to be practical in Christian fellowship more generally, strong bonds of friendship will have to be developed before problems arise.
20. Michael E. Phillips, “Creative Church Discipline,” Leadership 7, no. 4 (1986): 46–50.
21. As described, e.g., in Karl F. Pansler, “Church Discipline and the Right of Privacy,” in Christian Ministries and the Law, ed. H. Wayne House (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 65–78.
22. See the helpful discussions by Jay A. Quine, “Court Involvement in Church Discipline,” BSac 149 (1992): 60–73, 223–36; Laney, Discipline, 136–38; and Pansler, “Church Discipline.”
23. For help for both offenders and victims, see Earl D. Wilson, A Silence to be Broken (Portland: Multnomah, 1986).
24. See Tom Sine, Wild Hope (Dallas: Word, 1991), 282–84, and throughout.
25. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 80, 83.
26. For incisive surveys and only slightly overstated critiques of these idolatries, see Os Guinness and John Steel, No God but God (Chicago: Moody, 1992); and Michael Horton, ed., Power Religion (Chicago: Moody, 1992).
27. Cf. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 83: There is a “desperate need for Christians to excise innumerable church meetings in order to free their diaries for proper meeting with unbelievers.”
28. On which, see esp. Joseph C. Aldrich, Life-Style Evangelism (Portland: Multnomah, 1981).
29. Anthony Campolo, The Kingdom of God Is a Party (Dallas: Word, 1990), 3–9. There are conflicting reports as to whether this story which Campolo describes ever actually occurred; be that as it may, the vision remains on target.
30. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 79. The alternatives are frightening. One possible scenario is sketched in William Pannell, The Coming Race Wars? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993).
1. A less likely option is that the “dispute” of verse 1 refers back to the problem of chapter 5: the immorality there had occasioned the lawsuit here. For this suggestion, see Peter Richardson, “Judgment in Sexual Matters in 1 Corinthians 6:1–11,” NovT 25 (1983): 37–58.
2. See esp. Alan C. Mitchell, “Rich and Poor in the Courts of Corinth: Litigiousness and Status in 1 Corinthians 6:1–11,” NTS 39 (1993): 562–86.
3. Cf. the paraphrase by Reginald H. Fuller, “First Corinthians 6:1–11: An Exegetical Paper,” Ex Auditu 2 (1986): 100: “Are you actually appointing to adjudicate your cases the very people whom as church people you otherwise hold in contempt?”
4. Watson, First Corinthians, 56.
5. See, e.g., David E. Malick, “The Condemnation of Homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 6:9,” BSac 150 (1993): 479–92.
6. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 89.
7. Fee, First Corinthians, 238, helpfully observes that litigation should hopefully be the last resort even with non-Christians. Only “if it is out of concern for the one defrauded and for all others who might be so taken in” is it fully justified.
8. Cf. S. Bruce Narramore, No Condemnation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 26–34; Paul Tournier, Guilt and Grace (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 63–71.
9. Robert D. Taylor, “Toward a Biblical Theology of Litigation: A Law Professor Looks at 1 Cor. 6:1–11,” Ex Auditu 2 (1986): 105–16, esp. 110–13.
10. As demonstrated by James B. De Young, “The Source and New Testament Meaning of ΑΡΣΕΝΟΚΟΙΤΑΙ, with Implications for Christian Ethics and Ministry,” Master’s Seminary Journal 3 (1992): 191–215.
11. See esp. David F. Wright, “Homosexuals or Prostitutes? The Meaning of Arsenokoitai (1 Cor. 6:9, 1 Tim. 1:10),” VC 38 (1984): 125–53; cf. Talbert, Corinthians, 23–25.
12. Cf. Mark A. Noll, One Nation Under God? (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988); with Richard A. Fowler and H. Wayne House, Civilization in Crisis (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988).
13. See esp. H. Wayne House, “Reconciling Disputes Among Christians,” in Christian Ministries and the Law, ed. H. Wayne House (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 79–88, for a description of the Christian conciliation process, and “Appendix D,” 219–20, for a sampling of some of the Christian conciliation ministries of North America.
14. Snyder, First Corinthians, 77.
15. This is part of the broader polarization of public discourse ably documented in James D. Hunter, Culture Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1991).
16. For a balanced treatment of the theology of homosexuality more generally, see Richard F. Lovelace, Homosexuality and the Church (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming Revell, 1978).
17. For male homosexuals, absence of a positive adult male role model is particularly common. See esp. Elizabeth Moberley, Psychogenesis: The Early Development of Gender-Identity (London: Routledge, Kegan, and Paul, 1983); idem, Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic (Greenwood, S.C.: Attic Press, 1983).
18. Cf., e.g., William Consiglio, Homosexual No More (Wheaton: Victor, 1991); Darlene Bogle, Strangers in a Christian Land (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming Revell, 1990); and Gerard van der Aardweg, Homosexuality and Hope (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1985).
19. One thinks especially of the nationwide network of organizations under the umbrella of Exodus International. For a good anthology of approaches to helping the church “promote hope and healing for gays and lesbians,” see J. Isamu Yamamoto, The Crisis of Homosexuality (Wheaton: Victor, 1990).
1. Morris, First Corinthians, 96.
2. Brendan Byrne, “Sinning Against One’s Own Body: Paul’s Understanding of the Sexual Relationship in 1 Corinthians 6:18,” CBQ 45 (1983): 613.
3. Barclay, Corinthians, 56–57.
4. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 96.
5. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 64, quotes D. S. Bailey: Verse 16 “displays a psychological insight into human sexuality which is altogether exceptional by first-century standards … he insists that it is an act which, by reason of its very nature, engages and expresses the whole personality in such a way as to constitute an unique mode of self-disclosure and self-commitment.”
6. Two excellent treatments of a Christian theology of sexuality are Tim Stafford, The Sexual Christian (Wheaton: Victor, 1989); and Randy C. Alcorn, Christians in the Wake of the Sexual Revolution: Recovering Our Sexual Sanity (Portland: Multnomah, 1985). On pp. 163–72, Alcorn discusses the backlash against the permissiveness of the sixties in certain more recent secular circles. For help in “healing and preventing affairs in Christian marriages,” see esp. Henry A. Virkler, Broken Promises (Dallas: Word, 1992).
7. A significant number of contemporary Christian writers concur. See, e.g., Jack O. Balswick and Judith K. Balswick, The Family: A Christian Perspective on the Contemporary Home (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 184–87; Clifford and Joyce Penner, The Gift of Sex (Waco: Word, 1981), 230–36; Lewis B. Smedes, Sex for Christians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 160–64, 243–46.
1. Some writers have thought they could discern reasons for associating this pro-celibacy movement more with one particular gender. Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Women Holy in Body and Spirit: The Social Setting of 1 Corinthians 7,” NTS 36 (1990): 161–81, finds in these words of verse 34, as with later Greco-Roman Christian asceticism, evidence for women being the ones most inclined to refrain from sex. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “The Divorced Woman in 1 Cor. 7:10–11,” JBL 100 (1981): 601–6, on the other hand, believes ascetic husbands to be a key problem, at least behind verses 10–11 on divorce.
2. See esp. Fee, First Corinthians, 266–357. Cf. more briefly, W. E. Phipps, “Is Paul’s Attitude Toward Sexual Relations Contained in 1 Cor. 7:1?” NTS 28 (1982): 125–31. For a good, brief exposition of the whole chapter along the lines advocated here, see David E. Garland, “The Christian’s Posture Toward Marriage and Celibacy: 1 Corinthians 7,” RevExp 80 (1983): 351–62.
3. Some take verse 6 as referring back to verse 2 or to all of verses 2–5, in which case marriage becomes the concession to Paul’s preference for singleness. But on our interpretation of verse 2 this is impossible, and even on more traditional understandings of verse 2 it is still less likely, inasmuch as verse 5 forms the nearest antecedent for verse 6 and contains within it an explicit concession.
4. So most commentators. For Peter Richardson, “ ‘I Say, Not the Lord’: Personal Opinion, Apostolic Authority, and the Development of Early Christian Halakah,” TynB 31 (1980): 65–86, the distinction is between previous oral tradition (of Jesus’ teaching) and Christian “halakah” (quasi-legal decisions required by new circumstances). But either way, attempts to distinguish levels of the authority of the two kinds of statements fail.
5. Patterson, Troubled, Triumphant Church, 118, 119–20.
6. See esp. R. L. Roberts, “The Meaning of Chorizo and Douloo in 1 Corinthians 7:10–17,” RestQ 8 (1965): 179–84.
7. It is also possible to take verse 15b as supplying further rationale for verses 12–14, with verse 15a as parenthetical. Then God would be calling people to the peace of preserving marriages. Verse 16 can then be translated more hopefully than in the NIV, as, e.g., in the NRSV: “Wife, for all you know you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you might save your wife.” But this makes the “nevertheless” in verse 17 almost unintelligible. One has to take it as contrasting not with the immediately preceding verse 16 but with verse 15a. Far more straightforward and plausible is the rendering we have given. The de with which verse 15b begins (not reflected in the NIV) need not be translated as “but,” but as a looser connective: “and,” “now,” or “indeed.” For help on all these issues, see esp. Sakae Kubo, “1 Corinthians VII.16: Optimistic or Pessimistic?” NTS 24 (1978): 539–44.
8. For a detailed elaboration of the perspective adopted in this and the next two paragraphs, see Craig L. Blomberg, “Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, and Celibacy: An Exegesis of Matthew 19:3–12,” TrinJ 11 n.s. (1990): 161–96; on 1 Corinthians 7:10–16 in particular, see pp. 186–94.
9. Roy A. Harrisville, 1 Corinthians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1987), 110.
10. Particularly helpful on both the exegesis and application of verse 14 is Paul K. Jewett, Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 122–37.
11. Barclay, Corinthians, 63–64.
12. For a historical and sociological survey of Christian singles in America, see Carolyn A. Koons and Michael J. Anthony, Single Adult Passages: Uncharted Territories (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991). For practical suggestions on balanced Christian living as singles, see Rhena Taylor, Single and Whole (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1984).
13. Cf., e.g., Herbert J. Miles, Sexual Understanding Before Marriage (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), 72.
14. Most notably in the works of Richard J. Foster, of which the most recent is particularly valuable—Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992).
15. Andrew Cornes, Divorce and Remarriage: Biblical Principles and Pastoral Practice (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 7–48, provides an up-to-date survey.
16. See esp. H. Wayne House, ed., Divorce and Remarriage: Four Christian Views (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1990).
17. See esp. Craig S. Keener, … And Marries Another (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991), whose exegetical and pastoral skills make this volume the single best book-length work on the topic of divorce and remarriage.
18. Cornes, Divorce and Remarriage, 313–49, gives excellent pastoral applications of these themes, though his interpretation of Paul differs in places from ours.
19. These situations can, of course, be redeemed. For excellent guidelines, see, e.g., Beth E. Brown, When You’re Mom #2 (Ann Arbor: Servant, 1991).
1. For a description of the motivation for and nature of this procedure, see Robert G. Hall, “Epispasm: Circumcision in Reverse,” BibRev 8.4 (1992): 52–57. Roman gymnasia were centers of athletic competition, and Roman baths (much like “hot tubs” in our recreational centers) were regularly used for discussing business and politics. Men remained nude in both settings, and Jews would be immediately recognizable. The operation of epispasm involved pulling the loose skin of the shaft of the penis up over the tip and suturing the wounds so that it would attach itself as a kind of substitute foreskin.
2. For a survey of Christian perspectives on the role of the Old Testament law in the New Testament age, see Wayne G. Strickland, ed., The Law, the Gospel, and the Modern Christian (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993). Of the five views presented, the most convincing is Douglas J. Moo, “The Law of Christ as the Fulfillment of Moses: A Modified Lutheran View,” 319–76. Cf. William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 279–83.
3. The Greek could actually be translated, “Even if you can become free, use [your current condition of slavery] instead.” But S. Scott Bartchy, ΜΑΛΛΟΝ ΧΡΗΣΑΙ: First-Century Slavery and 1 Corinthians 7:21 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1973) has decisively demonstrated on both grammatical and historical grounds that this view is highly improbable. Slaves could not refuse manumission if an owner was determined to grant it, and ei kai is much more naturally translated “if indeed,” than “even if.”
4. A balanced, brief description of slavery in New Testament times appears in Carolyn Osiek, “Slavery in the Second Testament World,” BTB 22 (1992): 174–79. For a detailed discussion with primary sources, see Thomas Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1981).
5. Cf. further Stephen Westerholm, “ ‘Letter’ and ‘Spirit’: The Foundation of Pauline Ethics,” NTS 30 (1984): 229–48.
6. See esp. Willard M. Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1983), 31–64, on the Bible and slavery in the debate over abolition.
7. Cf. esp. F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 401, on the impact of the letter to Philemon on slavery: “What this letter does is to bring us into an atmosphere in which the institution could only wilt and die.”
8. For a full history, see David B. Davis, Slavery and Human Progress (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).
9. Fee, First Corinthians, 322.
10. Snyder, First Corinthians, 109.
11. For a biblically balanced liberationist study, see Orlando E. Costas, Liberating News: A Theology of Contextual Evangelization (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989). Generally helpful, too, is Thomas D. Hanks, God So Loved the Third World (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984).
12. Cf. the generally helpful reflections of Andrew Kirk, The Good News of the Kingdom Coming (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983); and John M. Perkins, Beyond Charity: The Call to Christian Community Development (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993).
1. See esp. Bruce W. Winter, “Secular and Christian Responses to Corinthian Famines,” TynB 40 (1989): 86–106. It is hard to determine how significant some lingering effects of earlier famines were, and the fit with verses 29–31 makes it unlikely that we should look for some other referent for verse 26 here.
2. C. E. B. Cranfield, “The Parable of the Unjust Judge and the Eschatology of Luke-Acts,” SJT 16 (1963): 300–301. On the eschatology of 1 Corinthians 7 in particular, cf. Jeremy Moiser, “A Reassessment of Paul’s View of Marriage with Reference to 1 Cor. 7,” JSNT 18 (1983): 103–22; Guy Greenfield, “Paul and the Eschatological Remarriage,” SWJT 26 (1983): 32–48.
3. Vincent L. Wimbush, Paul: The Worldly Ascetic (Macon, Ga.: Mercer, 1987).
4. The footnote reads, “If anyone thinks he is not treating his daughter properly, and if she is getting along in years, and he feels she ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. He should let her get married. But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind to keep the virgin unmarried—this man also does the right thing. So then, he who gives his virgin in marriage does right, but he who does not give her in marriage does even better.”
5. The most thoroughgoing defense of this view is Werner G. Kümmel, “Verlobung und Heirat bei Paulus (1. Cor 7, 36–38),” in Neutestamentliche Studien für Rudolf Bultmann, ed. Walther Eltester (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1954), 275–95. No comparable English language treatment of any substantial length exists.
6. Wimbush, Paul, 97.
7. Green, Corinth, 116.
8. See esp. Diane Payette-Bucci, “Voluntary Childlessness,” Direction 17.2 (1988): 26–41.
9. See esp. C. H. Dodd, “New Testament Translation Problems II.,” BT 28 (1977): 112–16.
10. On which, see esp. James R. Beck, Dorothy Carey (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992).
11. For all kinds of practical suggestions for implementing these principles, see Ronald J. Sider, ed., Living More Simply (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1980).
12. For an introduction to the process, see, e.g., H. Norman Wright, Premarital Counseling (Chicago: Moody, 1981).
13. Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Wise (Wheaton: Victor, 1983), 85.
1. The most detailed and helpful background information and exegetical discussion appears in Wendell L. Willis, Idol Meat in Corinth (Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1985).
2. H. Probst (Paulus und der Brief [Tübingen: Mohr, 1991]) observes that 8:1–11:1 form an integral unity, almost an epistle in miniature, by following the standard sequence of Greco-Roman epistolary rhetoric: 8:1–13 forms the introduction; 9:1–18, the narrative discussion; 9:19–10:17, the argumentation; and 10:18–11:1, the consequent commands.
3. The reconstruction of events adopted here closely follows Bruce N. Fisk, “Eating Meat Offered to Idols: Corinthian Behavior And Pauline Response in 1 Corinthians 8–10,” TrinJ 10 n.s. (1989): 49–70. Traditionally, commentators have often limited chapter 8 to the contexts of the marketplace and eating in private homes, without adequately accounting for verse 10. Gordon D. Fee, “Εἰδωλόθυτα Once Again: An Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8–10,” Bib 61 (1980): 172–97, argues that illicit temple activity is exclusively in view right from the beginning. Both perspectives seem inappropriately truncated. Talbert, Corinthians, 56, sees an ABBA structure in 8:1–13; 10:14–11:1 (A = marketplace meat [8:1, 4; 10:23–11:1]; B = temple activity [8:10; 10:14–22]), which lends support to our approach. Ben Witherington, “Not So Idle Thought About Eidolothuton,” TynB 44 (1993): 237–54, has recently marshalled additional support for Fee’s view but without interacting with Fisk. Supporting Fisk, see Kistemaker, First Corinthians, 269–74.
4. Ellingworth and Hatton, First Corinthians, 160.
5. See esp. Paul W. Gooch, “ ‘Conscience’ in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10,” NTS 33 (1987): 244–54.
6. Part or all of verse 8 has often been seen as another slogan of the Corinthian “stronger brothers,” but presumably they did think that eating commended themselves to God. It is possible, though not demonstrable, that they claimed that “we are worse off if we do not eat and better off if we do,” and that Paul alludes to their saying but negates both clauses (Willis, Idol Meat, 98).
7. Judith M. Gundry Volf, Paul and Perseverance: Staying in and Falling Away (Louisville: Westminster/Knox, 1990), 97.
8. Cf. Barclay, Corinthians, 76.
9. Cf. esp. Victor P. Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968); idem, The Love Command in the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972).
10. For a detailed elaboration, in view of the religious scene in first-century Corinth, see Bruce W. Winter, “Theological and Ethical Responses to Religious Pluralism—1 Corinthians 8–10,” TynB 41 (1990): 209–26.
11. The term is used by Joseph C. Aldrich, Life-Style Evangelism (Portland: Multnomah, 1981), in an excellent discussion of the application of the principles of 1 Corinthians 8 (pp. 39–76).
12. Jack Kuhatschek, Taking the Guesswork out of Applying the Bible (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 68–70. Kuhatschek notes, e.g., that those who object to Christians wearing beards never consider wearing ones themselves, so that the third element on this list is lacking and the “weaker brother” principle does not apply.
13. See the particularly helpful book-length discussion of this theme in Robert Jewett, Christian Tolerance: Paul’s Message to the Modern Church (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982).
14. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Freedom or the Ghetto (1 Cor., VII, 1–13; X, 23–XI,1),” RB 85 (1978): 573–74.
15. Aldrich, Evangelism, 63.
16. Contrast, e.g., Forrest D. Haggard, The Clergy and the Craft (N.p.: Missouri Lodge of Research, 1970); with John Ankerberg and John Weldon, The Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge (Chicago: Moody, 1989).
17. For guidance as to the dangers of this and other fantasy role-paying games, see John Weldon and James Bjornstad, Playing with Fire (Chicago: Moody, 1984).
18. Garry Friesen with J. Robin Maxson, Decision-Making and the Will of God (Portland: Multnomah, 1980), 382–83, gives a long and sadly humorous list of such activities he has personally experienced in twentieth-century American contexts.
19. Cf. Craig L. Blomberg, “The Sabbath as Fulfilled in Christ,” in The Sabbath in Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. Tamara Eskenazi, Daniel Harrington, and William Shea (Denver: Denver University Center for Judaic Studies, 1991), 196–206.
20. Vines, God Speaks Today, 133.
21. Cf. further Donald E. Sloat, The Dangers of Growing Up in a Christian Home (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986).
22. Millard J. Erickson, The Evangelical Mind and Heart (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 48.
23. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989).
24. A trend ironically inspired by Frank Peretti’s works, which were by design intended to be fictional not doctrinal! For a balanced perspective on the topic, see Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992).
25. N. T. Wright, “One God, One Lord, One People: Incarnational Christology for a Church in a Pagan Environment,” Ex Auditu 7 (1991): 45–56.
26. Aldrich, Evangelism, 43.
27. E.g., Norman L. Geisler, “A Christian Perspective on Wine-Drinking,” BSac 139 (1982): 46–56.
1. See Ronald F. Hock, The Social Context of Paul’s Ministry (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). On 1 Corinthians 9:1–19 in particular, see pp. 59–62.
2. For a detailed reconstruction of the charges against Paul, see Marshall, Enmity, 282–340.
3. So Snyder, First Corinthians, 132.
4. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 153.
5. Harry P. Nasuti, “The Woes of the Prophets and the Rights of the Apostles: The Internal Dynamics of 1 Corinthians 9,” CBQ 50 (1968): 251–54. In other words, the analogies of verses 7–11 are purely secular; those of verses 13–14 are sacred.
6. Ellingworth and Hatton, First Corinthians, 180.
7. Fee, First Corinthians, 421.
8. D. A. Carson, When Jesus Confronts the World (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 125.
9. Cf. further Dean S. Gilliland, Pauline Theology and Mission Practice (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 246–56. The one principle that is ruled out is that of a church-plant forever remaining financially dependent on those who planted it.
10. See esp. D. Instone Brewer, “1 Corinthians 9:9–11: A Literal Interpretation of ‘Do Not Muzzle the Ox,’ ” NTS 38 (1992): 554–65.
11. Paul’s words in verses 15–18 cannot mean that those who are paid for ministry can get no spiritual reward, since verses 13–14 have just insisted that material remuneration is appropriate in certain circumstances. One’s motive and the response of others are the keys (cf. Matt. 6:1).
12. An excellent resource for these and related issues is James E. Means, Effective Pastors for a New Century: Helping Leaders Strategize for Success (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993).
13. Important suggestions for implementation appear in Don Hamilton, Tentmakers Speak: Practical Advice from Over 400 Missionary Tentmakers (Ventura: Regal, 1987). Cf. the alarming statistics of the cost of traditional missionary work and the questions of stewardship raised by Roger S. Greenway, Discipling the City (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 216–18.
14. On which, see esp. Paul Bowers, “Church and Mission in Paul,” JSNT 44 (1991): 89–111.
15. For the biblical foundations for many of the thoughts of pp. 179–82, see Jouette M. Bassler, God and Mammon: Asking for Money in the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991), esp. 65–69. For contemporary insights into “how God liberates us from the false promises of wealth,” see David Neff, ed., The Midas Trap (Wheaton: Victor, 1990).
1. See esp. Kenneth V. Neller, “1 Corinthians 9:19–23: A Model for Those Who Seek to Win Souls,” RestQ 29 (1987): 129–142.
2. Paul’s theology of the Law is a highly controversial topic. Probably the most exegetically valid study, which also surveys most of the recent discussion, is Thomas R. Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology of Law (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993).
3. For elaboration of the details of this paragraph, see Victor C. Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 82–98.
4. Cf. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 164; Morris, 1 Corinthians, 138; Judith M. GundryVolf, Paul and Perseverance: Staying in and Falling Away (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991), 233–47.
5. One of the most balanced and helpful studies of this process is David J. Hesselgrave and Edward Rommen, Contextualization: Meanings, Methods, and Models (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989). Cf. also John R. W. Stott and Robert Coote, eds. Down to Earth: Studies in Christianity and Culture (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1981).
6. On the contrast between 1 Corinthians 9 and Galatians 2, see esp. David [sic] Carson, “Pauline Inconsistency: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 and Galatians 2:11–14,” Churchman 100 (1986):6–45.
7. For an excellent example of this approach with respect to the arts, an area often most neglected by evangelicals, see Leland Ryken, Culture in Christian Perspective: A Door to Understanding and Enjoying the Arts (Portland: Multnomah, 1986).
8. Aldrich, Evangelism, is again helpful throughout on this model.
9. For evangelical contextualization in Muslim lands, see esp. Phil Parshall, New Paths in Muslin Evangelism (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1980).
10. Cf. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 162: “Paul’s versatility in seeking to win men of all backgrounds to Christ challenges us to cross the culture-gap between the Christian sub-culture of cozy meetings and holy talk and the pagan culture of our local community. The task of identification with and incarnation into our contemporary paganism, of all kinds, is one of the biggest tasks confronting the church.”
11. Green, Corinth, 96.
1. Because God provided water from the rock both near the beginning and near the end of the Israelites’ wanderings, Jewish traditions developed that streams of water or a well of water actually followed God’s people during their travels. It is a short jump from this belief to the concept of a traveling rock that can provide streams of water (E. Earle Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic [Tübingen: Mohr, 1978], 209–12). But more likely, Paul is contrasting these legends with his belief “that Christ accompanied his people as a spiritual source of refreshment throughout this period” (Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 91).
2. Numbers 25:9 refers to 24,000 dying; Paul to 23,000. Morris, 1 Corinthians, 141, explains: “Both are obviously round numbers, and in addition Paul may be making some allowance for those slain by the judges (Nu. 25:5).”
3. Significant early manuscripts read, “We should not test Christ, as some of them did.” If this reading is accepted as the original (so, e.g., NRSV), then we have another example like verse 4 of Paul seeing Christ as present in God’s activity in Old Testament times.
4. For a discussion of the possibility that all of the illustrations in verses 6–10 refer to the role of idolatry in the Israelites’ rebellion, corresponding to the danger of Corinthian participation in idol feasts, see Wayne A. Meeks, “ ‘And Rose Up to Play’: Midrash and Paraenesis in 1 Corinthians 10:1–22,” JSNT 16 (1982): 64–78.
5. A helpful philosophical study of the implications of this verse for the Calvinist-Arminian dispute is David M. Ciocchi, “Understanding Our Ability to Endure Temptation: A Theological Watershed,” JETS 35 (1992): 463–79. He also gives a clear summary of the verse’s meaning: “The faithfulness of God guarantees that no superhuman temptation will enter the life of any believer and that each believer’s temptations will be commensurate with his own ability to endure them” (p. 471).
6. On the meaning of verses 16–18 in this context, see esp. W. A. Sebothoma, “Κοινωνία in 1 Corinthians 10:16,” Neot 24 (1990): 63–69.
7. Brian S. Rosner, “ ‘Stronger than He?’ The Strength of 1 Corinthians 10:22b,” TynB 43 (1992): 171–79, notes that both Numbers 14:13–19 and Deuteronomy 32:36–38 allude to God’s and Israel’s respective strengths. And given that these texts lie behind Paul’s earlier examples, his final rhetorical question in verse 22 follows naturally. Do we think we are stronger than God, and can try his patience with impunity? Surely not!
8. See esp. William B. Badke, “Baptised into Moses—Baptised into Christ: A Study in Doctrinal Development,” EvQ 60 (1988): 23–29.
9. Hence, traditional Roman Catholic inferences about the need to pray a blessing over the physical cup of wine or about the Eucharist as an ongoing sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood entirely invert the direction of Paul’s reasoning (and flounder exegetically on other grounds).
10. Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Epistles of Paul (New Haven: Yale, 1989), 91.
11. Robertson and Plummer, First Corinthians, 208.
12. Particularly helpful in this respect are the numerous works of Leland Ryken, not least of which is one of his earliest: The Literature of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 45–78, 95–106.
13. For an overview of New Testament uses of the Old Testament, with evaluative remarks and suggestions for how believers today can or cannot treat the Old Testament similarly, see William W. Klein, Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., and Craig L. Blomberg, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 120–32.
14. One of the most bizarre practices, reflecting a serious misunderstanding of the ritual, is the baptism of dead bodies in funeral homes as a way of placating the anxieties of relatives. At best, this leaves those requesting the procedure thoroughly misled about the meaning of baptism; at worst, it gives them false hopes that they or others can go to heaven without having trusted in Christ.
15. One thinks esp. of the experiences first discussed in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan, 1969), a work that in turn spawned an entire discipline of pseudo-scientific literature of a similar genre.
16. James Patterson and Peter Kim, The Day America Told the Truth (New York: Prentice Hall, 1991), 53.
17. See esp. David Bridge and David Phypers, Communion: The Meal That Unites? (Wheaton: Harold Shaw, 1983).
18. The classic contemporary exposition of this perspective is John Hick and Paul Knitter, eds., The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1987).
19. A responsible evangelical discussion of this problem appears in Terry Muck, Alien Gods on American Turf (Wheaton: Victor, 1990), esp. pp. 89–114.
1. Kistemaker, First Corinthians, 355, protests: “But would a Christian first inquire about the food and then stay for dinner? Of course not.” Unfortunately, it is not at all that clear cut. It is quite conceivable that such a Christian might well stay for dinner but simply refrain from eating the offending item on the menu.
2. For this interpretation of the interrelatedness of the three main parts of verses 25–30 (vv. 25–27, 28–29a, 29b–30), see Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 99–100. For a survey of approaches to the structure of this paragraph, see Duane F. Watson, “1 Corinthians 10:23–11:1 in the Light of Greco-Roman Rhetoric: The Role of Rhetorical Questions,” JBL 108 (1989): 301–18. Probably the most common solution, which Watson defends with a new twist, is that verses 29–30 reflect another Corinthian slogan to which verses 31–33 then indirectly respond. But the connections are meager at best. Watson rejects the parenthetical view I favor because he thinks Paul’s concern for the “weak” seems stronger in 8:13; 9:19–23 and 10:24. But, as I argue below, Paul is in fact here tipping the scales in favor of freedom over restraint, precisely because of its evangelistic potential in mixed companies of believers and unbelievers.
3. On this theme in Paul’s writings more generally, see esp. Peter Richardson, Paul’s Ethic of Freedom (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979).
4. What is more, Paul’s principle here must not be confused with his denial in Gal. 1:10 of trying to please people. There “pleasing men” is evil because “it is done with a view to currying favour with them, or so as to avoid persecution;” here it is good because “it is done so as to lead them to the faith” (Barrett, First Corinthians, 245).
5. A generally balanced perspective on Christian ecological responsibilities may be found in Richard D. Land and Louis Moore, eds., The Earth is the Lord’s: Christians and the Environment (Nashville: Broadman, 1992).
6. Fee, First Corinthians, 491.
7. See Frank R. Tillapaugh, The Church Unleashed (Ventura: Regal, 1982).
8. For an excellent, popular exposition of the exuberance of Christian freedom, with suggestions for implementing the ideas suggested here, see Charles R. Swindoll, The Grace Awakening (Dallas: Word, 1990).
9. Cf. further Paul D. Stanley and J. Robert Clinton, Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You Need to Succeed in Life (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1992); Ron C. Davis with James D. Denney, Mentoring: The Strategy of the Master (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991).
1. Cf. Gail P. Corrington, “The ‘Headless Woman’: Paul and the Language of the Body in 1 Cor 11:2–16,” PRS 18 (1991): 225.
2. The most detailed reconstruction of events in Corinth, generally persuasive in its broad contours though often speculative in its particulars, is Antoinette Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990).
3. Good brief presentations of the data appear in Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Another Look at ΚΕΦΑΛΗ in 1 Corinthians 11:3,” NTS 35 (1989): 503–11; and idem, “Kephale in 1 Corinthians 11:3,” Int 47 (1993): 52–59. Those interested in pursuing the debate at greater length may consult Wayne Grudem, “The Meaning of Kephale (‘Head’): A Response to Recent Studies,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton: Crossway, 1991), 425–68, and the literature there reviewed.
4. The most widely cited article in support of κεφαλή as “source” (Stephen Bedale, “The Meaning of κεφαλή in the Pauline Epistles,” JTS n.s. 5 [1984]: 211–15) makes this point explicit (“That is to say, the male is κεφαλή in the sense of ἀρχή [beginning] relative to the female; and, in St. Paul’s view, the female in consequence is ‘subordinate’ [cf. Eph. 5:23],” 214), but Bedale’s view is consistently misrepresented by feminist writers who omit his conclusions. Cf. also Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 229, who explains Paul’s perspective as “a descending hierarchy, God—Christ—Man—Woman, in which each preceding member as ‘head’ or ‘source,’ stands above the other ‘in the sense that he established the other’s being.’ ”
5. “Every man who prays or prophesies with long hair dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with no covering of hair on her head dishonors her head—she is just like one of the ‘shorn women.’ If a woman has no covering, let her be for now with short hair, but since it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair shorn or shaved, she should grow it again. A man ought not to have long hair.”
6. See esp. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Sex and Logic in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16,” CBQ 42 (1980): 482–500.
7. See esp. Richard E. Oster, “When Men Wore Veils to Worship: The Historical Context of 1 Corinthians 11:4,” NTS 34 (1988): 481–505.
8. See Stanley K. Stowers, “Social Status, Public Speaking and Private Teaching: The Circumstances of Paul’s Preaching Activity,” NovT 26 (1984): 75.
9. For the possible Jewish backgrounds in each of these cases, see esp. James B. Hurley, Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective (Leicester: InterVarsity Press; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 162–84, 254–71; for Greco-Roman backgrounds, cf. Fee, First Corinthians, 508–12; with Dennis R. MacDonald, “Corinthian Veils and Gnostic Androgynes,” in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, ed. Karen L. King (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 276–92.
10. On which, see esp. L. Ann Jervis, “ ‘But I Want You to Know….’: Paul’s Midrashic Intertextual Response to the Corinthian Worshipers (1 Cor 11:2–16),” JBL 112 (1993): 231–46.
11. Beginning esp. with Morna D. Hooker, “Authority on Her Head: An Examination of 1 Cor. xi.10,” NTS 10 (1966): 410–16.
12. See esp. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “1 Corinthians 11:2–16 Once Again,” CBQ 50 (1988): 271.
13. See esp. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “A Feature of Qumran Angelology and the Angels of 1 Cor. xi.10,” NTS 4 (1957): 48–58.
14. Verse 16 literally reads, “We have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.” Some have therefore argued that Paul is claiming that first-century Christians have no established pattern of behavior regarding hairstyles, exactly the opposite of the meaning suggested by the NIV’s “we have no other practice …” But this translation makes no sense in light of verses 13–15, in which Paul is arguing for a particular practice. “The practice of certain Corinthian women who refuse to wear head coverings is what Paul refers to when he says ‘we have no such practice.’ ”—Thomas R. Schreiner, “Head Coverings, Prophecies and the Trinity: 1 Corinthians 11:2–16,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 138.
15. John T. Bristow, What Paul Really Said About Women (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988), 84.
16. Murphy-O’Connor, “Sex and Logic,” 499.
17. A selective overview of interpretation from Calvin to the late 1970s appears in Linda Mercadante, From Hierarchy to Equality (Vancouver: G-M-H, 1978). Wire briefly updates the survey in “Women’s Head Covering,” in Prophets, 220–23. A helpful list of the key issues, with representatives of all of the major exegetical options for each, is provided by Sanford D. Hull, “Exegetical Difficulties in the ‘Hard Passages,’ ” in Gretchen G. Hull, Equal to Serve (Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1989), 252–57.
18. See, respectively, William O. Walker, Jr., “The Vocabulary of 1 Corinthians 11:3–16: Pauline or Non-Pauline,” JSNT 35 (1989): 75–88; and Thomas P. Shoemaker, “Unveiling of Equality: 1 Corinthians 11:2–16,” BTB 17 (1987): 60–63.
19. Cf. esp. Talbert, Corinthians, 70.
20. Barrett, First Corinthians, 249.
21. J. Ramsey Michaels, 1 Peter (Waco: Word, 1988), 154–58, on 1 Peter 3:1.
22. Cf. further Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, forthcoming) on 5:21–33. One of the most balanced books within the flood of recent literature on Christian marriage, which essentially articulates the position advocated here, is Ronald and Beverly Allen, Liberated Traditionalism: Men and Women in Balance (Portland: Multnomah, 1985). Also generally helpful, though at times inconsistent in application, are the articles in the section entitled “Applications and Implications,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 345–99.
23. Cf. further R. Ward Wilson and Craig L. Blomberg, “The Image of God in Humanity: A Biblical-Psychological Perspective,” Themelios 18 (1993): 8–15.
24. For both of the above, cf. esp. Ben Witherington III, “Rite and Rights for Women—Galatians 3:28,” NTS 27 (1981): 593–604.
25. Mare, “1 Corinthians,” 255–56, and the literature there cited.
26. Charles Kraft, Christianity in Culture (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979), 138.
27. Snyder, First Corinthians, 162.
28. See esp. Craig S. Keener, Paul, Women and Wives (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1992), 19–69. Keener’s work is currently by far the most persuasive of the various evangelical feminist treatments of Paul, even if the present writer in places remains “almost persuaded.”
29. And consistently in his writings. See esp. Clark H. Pinnock, “Biblical Authority and the Issues in Question,” in Women, Authority and the Bible, ed. Alvera Mickelsen (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 55, on Col. 3:18: “The radical feminists and the traditionalists both argue that such texts are not feminist in content, and I suspect that their view, agreeing as it does with the ‘plain sense’ reading so widely held, will prevail and not be successfully refuted by biblical feminists.”
30. Ellis, Pauline Theology, 57.
31. An extreme, but unfortunately very popular, example is the teaching of Bill Gothard in his numerous seminars and in his unpublished notes distributed at those seminars. Less extreme, but sometimes equally stereotypic are some of the viewpoints emanating from the so-called “men’s movement.” An excellent resource that does reflect biblical values is Bill McCartney, et al., What Makes a Man? (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1992).
32. A theme that also pervades the writings (and even the titles) of some evangelical or biblical feminists—e.g., Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty, All We’re Meant to Be: A Biblical Approach to Women’s Liberation (Waco: Word, 1970); Patricia Gundry, Woman Be Free! (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977). Many more recent biblical feminist authors, however, are more humble in tone (and in titles). Two notable examples are Hull, Equal to Serve; and Mary S. van Leuween, Gender and Grace (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1990).
33. Allen and Allen, Liberated Traditionalism, 146.
34. Again, see Ellis, Pauline Theology, 71–77.
35. John Stott, Involvement: Social and Sexual Relationships in the Modern World, vol. 2 (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming Revell, 1985), 248–56.
36. Again, this confuses gift with office (cf. Eph. 4:11 with 1 Cor. 12:11). Pastoring is a gift that the Spirit gives to whomever he wills.
37. See esp. E. Margaret Howe, Women and Church Leadership (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982).
38. See the helpful exposé in Willard Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1983), 198–202.
39. As with the Evangelical Woman’s Caucus, which very fact in part led to the withdrawal of the more conservative participants and the founding of the Christians for Biblical Equality.
1. For the details, cf. further Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 145–74.
2. See esp. Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 77–80.
3. Watson, First Corinthians, 118.
4. Hence, several ancient manuscripts actually read, “This is my body, which is broken for you,” a reading well-known from the KJV. But there is not enough textual evidence to make it likely that this reading is the original one.
5. Cf. Morris, First Corinthians, 158, who notes three additional reasons for this interpretation: (1) “this” is neuter, whereas “bread” is masculine, so the former cannot modify the latter, rather it must refer to the entire action of blessing, breaking, and distributing the bread; (2) “Is” in 10:4 clearly means something like “represents” (and in the Aramaic Jesus originally spoke, it would have been entirely absent from the sentence); (3) the “cup” is equated with the new covenant, not with the blood directly.
6. Fritz Chenderlin, “Do This As My Memorial” (Rome: BIP, 1982).
7. I. Howard Marshall, Last Supper and Lord’s Supper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 116. Marshall’s book in general contains the best overview of the historical background of the Lord’s Supper, exegesis of the biblical texts which refer to it, and suggestions for contemporary application.
8. Significant early manuscripts omit “of the Lord.” These words may be a later copyist’s addition to clarify the meaning of “the body.”
9. Cf. Talbert, Corinthians, 79: “Failure to discern the body can mean only inability to perceive the Christian unity rooted in the sacrifice of Christ and actualized in the sacred meal (1 Cor 10:16–17; cf. Didache 14.2, ‘Let none who has a quarrel with his fellow join in your meeting until they are reconciled, lest your sacrifice be defiled.’).”
10. For good, brief histories of the varying strands of thought on the Lord’s Supper in Christian tradition, see Donald Bridge and David Phypers, Communion: The Meal That Unites? (Wheaton: Harold Shaw, 1983); and Gary Macy, The Banquet’s Wisdom: A Short History of the Theologies of the Lord’s Supper (New York: Paulist, 1992).
11. Cf. the similar discussion in Eugene E. Uzukwu, “Food and Drink in Africa, and the Christian Eucharist,” African Ecclesial Review 22 (1980): 370–85, who proposes millet and palm-wine as the elements for one particular African subculture.
12. See esp. J. Timothy Coyle, “The Agape/Eucharist Relationship in 1 Corinthians 11,” GTJ 6 (1985): 411–24.
13. See esp. Beverly R. Gaventa, “ ‘You Proclaim the Lord’s Death’: 1 Corinthians 11:26 and Paul’s Understanding of Worship,” RevExp 80 (1983): 377–87.
14. Green, Corinth, 46–49.
15. Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper #111 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982), 10–17.
16. Cf. already Robertson and Plummer, First Corinthians, 245: “Happily, no theory of the manner of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist is necessary for the fruitful reception of it.”
17. Cf. esp. Marshall, Supper, 152, who notes that Christ is always present among his people but present in a special way at Communion, much like a parent who always loves his or her children but at times picks them up and gives them special hugs.
18. Bridge and Phypers, Meal, 181.
19. For modest suggestions regarding variety and creativity in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, see Roger Lovette, Come to Worship (Nashville: Broadman, 1990), 128–41.
20. Cf. Otfried Hofius, “The Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Supper Tradition: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:23b–25,” in One Loaf, One Cup: Ecumenical Studies of 1 Corinthians 11 and Other Eucharistic Texts, ed. Ben F. Meyer (Macon, Ga.: Mercer, 1993), 113–14: “Inconsiderateness, indifference, and lovelessness towards the ‘brother for whom Christ died’ are consequently nothing short of a denial of the ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν [on behalf of you] … whoever acts in this way makes it plain that he does not know or grasp what these acts mean.”
21. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 190.
22. Xavier León-Dufour, Sharing the Eucharistic Bread: The Witness of the New Testament (New York: Paulist, 1987), 301.
23. Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, p. 14.
1. Ellingworth and Hatton, First Corinthians, 252.
2. Terence Paige, “1 Corinthians 12:2: A Pagan Pompe?” JSNT 44 (1991): 57–65, thinks that vocal participation in religious parades is particularly in view and translates “Whenever you were led [in the processions] you were [really] being carried away captive.”
3. Barrett, First Corinthians, 284: Verse 7 “sums up the argument so far,” which is that “each member of the church has a gift; none is excluded.” “Manifestation,” therefore, should be seen as just another synonym for “gift.”
4. Cf. Ellis, Pauline Theology, 36. Allos and heteros do not always differ from each other in the New Testament, but here and in 15:39–41 the distinction seems to hold up well.
5. See esp. David E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), whose study is also by far the most thorough of this phenomenon in antiquity.
6. David Hill, New Testament Prophecy (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1979), 213.
7. See esp. Wayne A. Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982); cf. idem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway, 1988).
8. A well-balanced treatment of the phenomenon appears in Watson E. Mills, A Theological/Exegetical Approach to Glossolalia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986). A guide to additional research is found in idem, ed., Speaking in Tongues (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985).
9. Anthony C. Thiselton, “The ‘Interpretation’ of Tongues: A New Suggestion in the Light of Greek Usage in Philo and Josephus,” JTS 30 (1979): 15–36.
10. Cf. Thomas A. Jackson, “Concerning Spiritual Gifts: A Study of 1 Corinthians 12,” Faith and Mission 7 (1989): 61–69.
11. On the “body of Christ” in Paul’s thought more generally, cf. Andrew Perriman, “ ‘His body, which is the church …’: Coming to Terms with Metaphor,” EvQ 62 (1988): 123–42.
12. Cf. Talbert, Corinthians, 85; Watson, First Corinthians, 137.
13. So, rightly, Enrique Nardoni, “The Concept of Charism in Paul,” CBQ 55 (1993): 68–80.
14. Cf. Ralph P. Martin, The Spirit and the Congregation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 37: “Any condition of life may become a person’s charisma from God ‘only when I recognize that the Lord has given it to me and that I am to accept this gift as his calling and command to me.’ ” Again, “no ‘gift’ is inherently charismatic, but it has the possibility of becoming so if it is claimed and utilized under the domain of Christ. Thus the natural order is ‘sacralized’ by being owned for Christ.”
15. Carolyn Osiek, “Christian Prophecy: Once Upon a Time?” CTM 17 (1990): 296–97.
16. Cf. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 198: “It would seem wrong either, on the one hand, to confine the gifts of the spirit to natural abilities harnessed and released by God or, on the other hand, to assert that the real gifts of the Spirit are only those which are manifestly supra-natural.”
17. On the overlap and distinction between gifts and offices, see esp. Ronald Y. K. Fung, “Ministry, Community and Spiritual Gifts,” EvQ 56 (1984): 3–20.
18. Cf., e.g., Eddie Gibbs, I Believe in Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 452–53, for a simple one-page questionnaire. Clyde B. McDowell, How to Discover Your Spiritual Gifts (Littleton, Col.: Lay Action Ministry Program, 1988; Elgin, Ill: David C. Cook, 1988), gives a brief cluster of statements to respond to for each of the various gifts. Don and Katie Fortune, Discover Your God-Given Gifts (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming Revell, 1987) have elaborate inventories for seven major categories of gifts in three different forms, tailor-made for adults, teens, and children. See also the Network materials (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), written by Bruce Bugbee, Bill Hybels, and Don Cousins.
19. For numerous practical suggestions on implementing the ideas of this paragraph, see Paul Stevens, “Equipping for Spiritual Gifts,” in George Mallone, ed., Those Controversial Gifts (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983), 121–43.
20. J. W. MacGorman, “Glossolalic Error and Its Correction: 1 Corinthians 12–14,” RevExp 53 (1983): 394.
21. On this theme in both Acts and Paul, see esp. J. D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 38–172. For a Pentecostal response to Dunn, see Howard M. Ervin, Conversion-Initiation and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1984). Ervin points out certain weaknesses in Dunn’s exegesis but in general fails to overturn the main points of his book.
22. Cf. Hans Conzelmann, First Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 215.
23. On the principles associated with spiritual gifts in these chapters, see further esp. Kenneth Hemphill, Spiritual Gifts: Empowering the New Testament Church (Nashville: Broadman, 1988); and Siegfried Schatzmann, A Pauline Theology of Charismata (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1987).
24. See esp. Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980); Christian Smith, Going to the Root: 9 Proposals for Radical Church Renewal (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1992).
25. See esp. the trends discussed in Robert Bellah, et al., Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California, 1985), esp. 219–49.
26. For a relatively balanced discussion, see Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 67 and throughout.
27. Cf. esp. the pastoral reflections in D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 183–88. Overall, Carson’s book is probably the best semi-popular exposition and application of 1 Corinthians 12–14 available.
28. A recent, powerful exposition of this theme appears in Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice, More Than Equals (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993). Cf. also Raleigh Washington and Glen Kehrien, Breaking Down Walls (Chicago: Moody, 1993).
29. Barclay, Corinthians, 109.
30. Frank R. Tillapaugh, Unleashing the Church (Ventura: Regal, 1982).
31. See esp. John Bradley and Jay Carty, Unlocking Your Sixth Suitcase: How to Love What You Do and Do What You Love (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1991).
32. See esp. the helpful models suggested in John Ronsvalle and Sylvia Ronsvalle, The Poor Have Faces: Loving Your Neighbor in the 21st Century (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992).
1. For a good display of this structure, see Watson, First Corinthians, 140–41. On the overall genre of the chapter as an encomium (rhetorical praise), see James D. Sigountos, “The Genre of 1 Corinthians 13,” NTS 40 (1994): 246–60.
2. William W. Klein, “Noisy Gong or Acoustic Vase? A Note on 1 Corinthians 13:1,” NTS 32 (1986): 286–89.
3. See esp. J. H. Petzer, “Contextual Evidence in Favour of καυχήσωμαι in 1 Corinthians 13:3,” NTS 35 (1989): 229–53.
4. Louw and Nida, Lexicon, 759.
5. Martin, Spirit, 56. Cf. Chafin, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 161: Christian love “means that caring, forgiving, spontaneous, redeeming love which is the essence of God’s nature.”
6. Against those who think otherwise, Fee, First Corinthians, 645, n. 23, observes, “It is perhaps an indictment of Western Christianity that we should consider ‘mature’ our rather totally cerebral and domesticated—but bland—brand of faith, with the concomitant absence of the Spirit in terms of his supernatural gifts! The Spirit, not Western rationalism, marks the turning point of the ages, after all.”
7. Wolfgang Weiss, “Glaube—Liebe—Hoffnung: Zu der Trias bei Paulus,” ZNW 84 (1993): 196–217.
8. Cf. further D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 30, 51–54.
9. Lewis B. Smedes, Love Within Limits (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 6.
10. Ibid., 18.
11. Ibid., 37.
12. Ibid., 61–65.
13. A good history of glossolalia appears in Morton Kelsey, Tongue Speaking: The History and Meaning of Charismatic Experience (New York: Crossroad, 1981). A good study of prophecy in an influential part of the third-century church is Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., Prophecy in Carthage: Perpetua, Tertullian, Cyprian (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1992). More briefly but more generally, cf. the catalogues of references to the ongoing presence of the more supernatural gifts in the early centuries of the church’s history in Talbert, Corinthians, 82–83, 88–90.
14. Cf. further Josh McDowell, The Secret of Loving (San Bernardino: Here’s Life, 1985).
15. Cf. esp. Margaret J. Rinck, Can Christians Love Too Much? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989).
16. Smedes, Love, 74–79.
17. John Wimber with Kevin Springer, Power Healing (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989), 158, believes that “the most fundamental reason—why people are not healed when prayed for today” is that “we do not seek God as wholeheartedly as we should.” The Risen Lord gave Paul a diametrically opposite reason in 2 Corinthians 12:8–9.
18. For a good application of these principles to contemporary Hong Kong as it awaits reunification with China in 1997, see Emily Wong, “1 Corinthians 13:7 and Christian Hope,” LouvStud 17 (1992): 232–42.
1. Hemphill, Spiritual Gifts, 97.
2. Cf. F. W. Grosheide, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1953), 326–27.
3. Louw and Nida, Lexicon, 325.
4. A few, of course, would have regarded tongues as they did comparable phenomena in paganism. But the closest parallels to Christian glossolalia come mostly from a later date than that of this letter; see Christopher Forbes, “Early Christian Inspired Speech and Hellenistic Popular Religion,” NovT 28 (1986): 257–70.
5. On verses 21–25 and the line of interpretation adopted here, see further David E. Lanier, “With Stammering Lips and Another Tongue: 1 Cor 14:20–22 and Isa 28:11–12,” CTR 5 (1991): 259–85. The view that verse 22 is the position of Paul’s opponents in Corinth, which verses 23–25 reject (B. C. Johanson, “Tongues, A Sign for Unbelievers,” NTS 25 [1979]: 180–203) fails to account adequately for the connection (“so,” or “thus”) between verses 22 and 23. This is no “Yes, but” logic here, but rather “A and therefore B.”
6. Cf. Barclay, Corinthians, 129–30: “No man can speak to others unless God has first spoken to him,” and “We never give to men or to scholars truth which we have produced, or even discovered; we transmit truth which has been given to us.” Cf. John R. W. Stott, I Believe in Preaching (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1982), 220–24.
7. The most natural translation is that of the NIV, in which the interpreter is the same person as the speaker. But it is just possible to take the clause as the NRSV does: “unless someone interprets …”
8. On prophecy, see Terrence Callan, “Prophecy and Ecstasy in Greco-Roman Religion and 1 Corinthians,” NovT 27 (1985): 125–40. On tongues, cf. H. Wayne House, “Tongues and the Mystery Religions of Corinth,” BSac 140 (1983): 134–50.
9. But the Romans passage cannot be limited to this type of experience. See esp. Emmanuel A. Obeng, “The Origins of the Spirit Intercession Motif in Romans 8:26,” NTS 32 (1986): 621–32.
10. Carson, Spirit, 106.
11. For a balanced perspective from within one influential wing of the modern charismatic movement, see Wayne Grudem, Power and Truth (Anaheim, Calif.: The Association of Vineyard Churches, 1993).
12. See esp. Bruce Shelley and Marshall Shelley, Consumer Church (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992).
13. On televangelism and modern culture, see esp. Quentin J. Schultze, Televangelism and American Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991).
1. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 249–50. This view, along with an analysis of the early Christian house-church movement more generally, is elucidated in detail in Vincent Branick, The House Church in the Writings of Paul (Wilmington: Glazier, 1989).
2. Carson, Spirit, 120: “If Paul had wanted to say ‘the rest (of the prophets),’ the Greek more plausibly should have been οἱ λοιποι (hoi loipoi) rather than οἱ ἄλλοι (hoi alloi).”
3. Cf. further Grudem, Prophecy, 58–67.
4. See, e.g., Winsome Munro, “Women, Text and the Canon: The Strange Case of 1 Corinthians 14:33–35,” BTB 18 (1988): 26–31. Few evangelicals have lingered long in considering this view, though remarkably Fee, an excellent textual critic, actually adopts it and argues for it at some length (First Corinthians, 699–708).
5. Two important early explications of this approach were Neal M. Flanagan and Edwina H. Snyder, “Did Paul Put Down Women in 1 Cor 14:34–36?” BTB 11 (1981): 10–12; and David W. Odell-Scott, “Let the Women Speak in Church: An Egalitarian Interpretation of 1 Cor 14:33b–36,” BTB 13 (1983): 90–93. Cf. in more detail Robert W. Allison, “Let Women Be Silent in the Churches (1 Cor. 14.33b–36),” JSNT 32 (1988): 27–60.
6. For a thorough sampling of attitudes toward and customs concerning women, reflected in the primary documents of the ancient Greco-Roman world, see Mary R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1982).
7. This view is ably defended in what is probably the best egalitarian treatment of Paul on women which has thus far appeared (Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives, 70–100).
8. D. A. Carson puts it more strongly when he calls the interpretations surveyed in this paragraph “unbearably sexist” (“ ‘Silent in the Churches’: On the Role of Women in 1 Corinthians 14:33b–36,” in John Piper and Wayne Grudem, eds., Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood [Wheaton: Crossway, 1991], 147).
9. Cf. further Grudem, Prophecy, 239–55; Hurley, Man and Woman, 185–94; Kistemaker, First Corinthians, 511–15.
10. Morris, First Corinthians, 196.
11. Cf. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 135.
12. Cf. E. Earle Ellis, “The Silenced Wives of Corinth (1 Cor. 14:34–5),” in New Testament Textual Criticism, ed. Eldon J. Epp and Gordon D. Fee (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), 213–20.
13. 1 Timothy 2:14 is no exception, despite common interpretations to the contrary. See Craig L. Blomberg, “Not Beyond What Is Written: A Review of Aída Spencer’s Beyond the Curse: Women Called to Ministry,” CTR 2 (1988): 413–14.
14. Cf. Gibbs, Church Growth, 234–74.
15. Christopher Catherwood, Five Evangelical Leaders (Wheaton: Harold Shaw, 1985), 201–2.
16. For a good discussion of the compatibility of authority structures with the spontaneous exercise of the charismata in the Pauline churches, see Ellis, Pauline Theology, 87–121.
17. Cf. further Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy, 234–38.
18. Harrisville, 1 Corinthians, 242.
19. On this example, see esp. Murray J. Harris, “Appendix: Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament,” in NIDNTT, vol. 3, 1183.
20. Green, Corinth, 77–78.
21. See Blomberg, “Not Beyond,” 411–13.
22. Cf. Craig L. Blomberg, “The Globalization of Biblical Understanding,” in The Globalization of Theological Education, ed. Robert A. Evans, Alice F. Evans and David Roozen (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993), 219.
23. Cf. Stephen Clark, Man and Woman in Christ (Ann Arbor: Servant, 1980), 183–89.
24. William Richardson, “Liturgical Order and Glossolalia in 1 Corinthians 14.26c–33a,” NTS 32 (1986): 150: “Paul says little that would inhibit the enthusiastic element; his directives have only to do with the manner of sharing that experience with the group.”
25. Fee, First Corinthians, 667.
26. Chafin, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 173.
27. The latter are increasingly called “cell-churches;” the former, “metachurches.” For more on cell-churches, see now the journal Cell Church Magazine, begun in 1992. For a detailed description of the metachurch, see Carl F. George, Prepare Your Church for the Future (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming Revell, 1991).
28. Cf. Carson, Spirit, 87. One wonders, however, if “faking” a tongue is any less objectionable than “faking” an interpretation!
29. For a good beginning, see Ronald Allen and Gordon Borror, Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel (Portland: Multnomah, 1982).
30. Cf., e.g., Roger E. van Harn, Pew Rights (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 149–59.
31. One thinks especially of the widely recognized doctrinal statements of the National Association of Evangelicals, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, and the various documents of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.
32. Fee, First Corinthians, 713.
1. For more details on this background, see esp. Richard A. Horsley, “ ‘How Can Some of You Say That There Is No Resurrection of the Dead?’: Spiritual Elitism in Corinth,” NovT 20 (1978): 203–11.
2. Robertson and Plummer, First Corinthians, 332.
3. On a harmonization of Galatians 1 and 1 Corinthians 15, see esp. Ronald Y. K. Fung, “Revelation and Tradition: The Origin of Paul’s Gospel,” EvQ 57 (1985): 23–41. Considerable scholarly discussion has surrounded the question of how much of verses 3–7 reflect what Paul received from tradition, with little consensus. For a survey, see John Kloppenborg, “An Analysis of the Pre-Pauline Formula in 1 Cor 15:3b–5 in Light of Some Recent Literature,” CBQ 40 (1978): 351–67.
4. B. de Margerie, “Le troisième jour, selon les Ecritures, il est ressuscité,” RSR 60 (1986): 158–88, who also demonstrates how the ancient rabbis linked such texts together in an early midrash on Genesis 22:4.
5. See, respectively, George W. E. Nickelsburg, “An Ἔκτρωμα, though Appointed from the Womb: Paul’s Apostolic Self-Description in 1 Corinthians 15 and Galatians 1,” HTR 79 (1986): 198–205; Barrett, First Corinthians, 344.
6. The Greek word “only” in verse 19 either modifies the whole sentence (as in the NIV) or the verb “we have hope.” In the latter instance, the contrast in verse 19 would be “between having faith [i.e., hope] only and having faith supported by the reality of Christ’s present risen life.”—Nigel Turner, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1965), 113.
7. For a thorough study of this theme, see Martinus C. de Boer, The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1988).
8. Martin, Spirit, 107.
9. On this theme in the history of theology, which goes beyond Paul’s explicit discussion here, see John F. Jensen, “1 Cor. 15:24–28 and the Future of Jesus Christ,” SJT 40 (1987): 543–70.
10. An ad hominem argument appeals to a person’s emotions and does not necessarily use strict, logical reasoning. An ad hoc argument is one composed only for a specific occasion and not generalizable to all situations.
11. In technical terms, this would then be the use of the possessive pronoun as a substitute for an objective genitive. Cf. further Donald S. Deer, “Whose Pride (Rejoicing/Glorying) in 1 Corinthians 15:31?” BT 38 (1987): 126–28.
12. On which, see esp. Gary Habermas, The Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980).
13. E.g., Peter J. Kearney (“He Appeared to 500 Brothers [1 Cor. xv 6],” NovT 22 [1980]: 264–84) reconstructs a core confession which he traces to Hellenistic Jewish tradition in Jerusalem prior to Stephen’s martyrdom. This would probably put us within two years of the very events that the confession recounts.
14. A standard introductory survey to the NT writers’ use of the OT, growing out of their Jewish context, is Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975).
15. Cf. further Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., The Uses of the Old Testament in the New (Chicago: Moody, 1985), 25–41.
16. On the apologetic value of this clause more generally, see esp. William L. Craig, “The Empty Tomb of Jesus,” in Gospel Perspectives, vol. 2, ed. R. T. France and David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT, 1981), 173–200.
17. For more details and for the best overall treatment of the reality and meaning of the resurrection, see George E. Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975).
18. See esp. John Wenham, Easter Enigma: Do the Resurrection Stories Contradict One Another? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984).
19. A particularly well-balanced treatment of the resurrection as involving both immortality and bodily transformation is Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985).
20. See esp. Joseph Osei-Bonsu, “The Intermediate State in the New Testament,” SJT 44 (1991): 169–94.
21. See the helpful surveys in Robert G. Clouse, ed., The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1977); and Stanley J. Grenz, The Millennial Maze (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992).
22. For a brief survey, see Fee, First Corinthians, 763–67.
23. Cf. Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew (Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 112, 345.
24. Snyder, First Corinthians, 211.
25. Cf. the helpful discussion in Eugene H. Peterson, Reversed Thunder (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988), 168–85.
26. See esp. Peter Carnley, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987).
27. Doubtless the most famous and influential example from the second half of the twentieth century has been Hugh J. Schonfield, Passover Plot (New York: Bantam, 1965).
28. For a more detailed presentation and examination, see Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987), 100–110, and the literature there cited.
29. Cf. further Norman Anderson, Christianity and World Religions (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1984).
30. As in the famous modern case of the German rabbi Pinchas Lapide (The Resurrection of Jesus [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983]), who points out that Jesus still has not fulfilled all of the prophecies associated with being Messiah.
31. As, e.g., on the scholarly level in William L. Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1989); or on the popular level in Josh McDowell, The Resurrection Factor (San Bernardino: Here’s Life, 1981).
32. The lasting power of this approach is probably due more to Rudolf Bultmann (see, e.g., his “New Testament and Mythology,” in Kerygma and Myth, ed. H.-W. Bartsch [London: SPCK, 1953], 4, 7) than to any other single twentieth-century scholar or theologian.
33. One thinks, for example, of the so-called power of positive (or possibility) thinking associated with the ministries of Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller.
34. Cf. Kôshi Usami, “ ‘How Are the Dead Raised?’ (1 Cor 15, 35–58),” Bib 57 (1976): 493: “Modern industrialized society may be in danger of imprisoning our body in an artificial cage of promised fulfillment and accomplishment of all bodily desires. Our ‘body’ will rebel. Our whole being will rebel against the excessive dominance of cold reason. In 1 Cor 15, 35–58 Paul explains faith in bodily resurrection by means of experiences that are not foreign to religious experience in many parts of the world.”
35. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan, 1969).
36. In short, we need an “evangelical liberation theology.” Cf. further Craig L. Blomberg, “ ‘Your Faith Has Made You Whole’: The Evangelical Liberation Theology of Jesus,” in Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ, ed. Joel B. Green and Max Turner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 75–93.
37. Cf. the divergent perspectives reflected in William V. Crockett, ed., Four Views on Hell (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992).
38. See the thorough survey in John Sanders, No Other Name (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992).
39. See esp. Norman Anderson, The World’s Religions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 234–35.
1. Here is a good illustration of the preservation of the classic Greek distinction between allos (“another of the same kind”) and heteros (“another of a different kind”). Paul uses the former throughout verses 39 and 41 to distinguish earthly bodies from each other and heavenly bodies from each other. But he uses the latter in verse 40 to distinguish heavenly bodies from earthly bodies.
2. William L. Craig, “The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus,” in Gospel Perspectives, vol. 1, ed. R. T. France and David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT, 1980), 58–59.
3. On the admittedly intricate logic of verses 44b–49, see esp. James D. G. Dunn, “1 Corinthians 15:45—Last Adam, Life-Giving Spirit,” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, ed. Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 127–41.
4. On the logic of verse 56 in this context, see esp. H. W. Hollander and J. Holleman, “The Relationship of Death, Sin, and Law in 1 Cor 15:56,” NovT 35 (1993): 270–91.
5. Cf. Morris, First Corinthians, 220: “It is important that what dies is nothing like what appears;” and Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 151: “Personal identity does not require such material reconstitution…. All that is necessary for the analogy is the combination of identity with difference.”
6. For a valiant attempt to wrestle with these continuities and discontinuities, see Robert Sloan, “Resurrection in 1 Corinthians,” SWJT 26 (1983): 69–91.
7. Cf. further Richard Reiter, Paul D. Feinberg, Gleason L. Archer, and Douglas J. Moo, The Rapture: Pre-, Mid-, or Post-Tribulational? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984).
8. See Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Biblical Interpretation, 365–66, and the literature there cited.
9. See F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 191.
10. Barclay, Corinthians, 146–48.
11. Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 53. This view in turn spawned a serious overreaction, replete with accusations of heresy and cult-like teaching, esp. in Norman L. Geisler, The Battle for the Resurrection (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1989), and in the more informal literature of several counter-cult ministries. Harris has more than adequately answered these charges (see idem, From Grave to Glory [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990]).
12. John J. Davis (What About Cremation: A Christian Perspective [Winona Lake, Ind.: BMH, 1989]) is more sanguine than some but still finds burial preferrable wherever possible.
13. Cf. further R. Ward Wilson and Craig L. Blomberg, “The Image of God in Humanity: A Biblical-Psychological Perspective,” Themelios 18 (1993): 8–15.
14. Cf. J. Davis McCaughey, “The Death of Death (1 Corinthians 15:26),” in Reconciliation and Hope, ed. Robert Banks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 257.
15. Friedrich Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil, tr. R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Penguin, 1973), 109; quoted and reapplied in a Christian context by Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1980).
1. Verlyn D. Verbrugge, Paul’s Style of Church Leadership Illustrated by His Instructions to the Corinthians on the Collection (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992), 25–94, likens verses 1–2 to a “commanding letter,” in which an author uses at least one second person imperative form, with no attempt to justify his requests or motivate the recipients beyond an appeal to his own authority.
2. The two most important and detailed studies on Paul’s collection are Dieter Georgi, Remembering the Poor: The History of Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992); and Keith F. Nickle, The Collection (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1966).
3. Barrett, First Corinthians, 387.
4. Cf. Robertson and Plummer, First Corinthians, 387: “He could not abandon other work in order to present a paltry sum; and an Apostle could not take the lead in so unworthy a mission. It would look like approving niggardliness.”
5. See the classic work by Abraham Kuyper, The Problem of Poverty (Grand Rapids: Baker, repr. 1991), esp. pp. 59–79.
6. On this point, see esp. Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in An Age of Hunger (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1984), 163–77, though without necessarily subscribing to his specific percentages.
7. Cf. Barclay, Corinthians, 162: “In the Greek world there were associations called eranoi. If a person fell on evil days or was in sudden need, his friends would club together to raise an interest-free loan to help him. The synagogue had officials whose duty it was to collect from those who had and to share out to those who had not…. Paul did not want the Christian Church to be behind the Jewish and the heathen world in generosity.” For detailed descriptions of this and other models, see Verbrugge, Church Leadership, 145–83.
8. See, for example, John A. Bernbaum, ed., Economic Justice and the State: A Debate Between Ronald H. Nash and Eric H. Beversluis (Grand Rapids: Baker; Washington, D.C.: Christian College Coalition, 1986).
9. See the sobering statistics presented in John Ronsvalle and Sylvia Ronsvalle, The Poor Have Faces: Loving Your Neighbor in the 21st Century (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 45–54.
10. I have listed here only ideas that my family has at one time or another implemented. Numerous practical suggestions appear in works like Doris J. Longacre, Living More with Less (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1980); and Ronald J. Sider, ed., Living More Simply: Biblical Principles and Practical Models (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1980). Neither of these works is significantly out of date; if anything the suggestions they contain are more relevant today than fifteen years ago!
11. Tom Sine, Wild Hope (Dallas: Word, 1991), 274–76.
12. For these and other practical applications, see pp. 84–89 of my article, “On Wealth and Worry: Matt 6:19–34—Meaning and Significance,” CTR 6 (1992): 73–89.
13. For an incisive assessment of demographic trends, see Sine, Wild Hope, 136–70.
14. On financial integrity in churches, cf. Robert R. Thompson and Gerald R. Thompson, Organizing for Accountability (Wheaton, Ill.: Harold Shaw, 1991). For numerous biblically based, practical suggestions on personal finance, see Malcolm MacGregor with Stanley G. Baldwin, Your Money Matters (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1977); and Howard L. Dayton, Jr., Your Money: Frustration or Freedom (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1979).
1. This may or may not have been the same man as the incestuous offender of 1 Corinthians 5; a good case can be made, however, that it is. For a full reconstruction of events in between the two letters, see esp. Colin Kruse, The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1987), 19–24. On Paul’s opposition more specifically, see pp. 41–45.
2. Watson, First Corinthians, 184.
3. So Talbert, Corinthians, 106.
4. Excellent and timely suggestions for practicing discipleship appear in Billie Hanks, Jr., and William A. Shell, eds., Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993); and Alice Fryling, ed., Disciple Makers’ Handbook (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1989).
5. As, e.g., with Kenneth Hagin, cited by Bruce Barron, The Health and Wealth Gospel (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987), 103.
6. As is done, e.g., by Michael Horton, ed., The Agony of Deceit (Chicago: Moody, 1990), though occasionally with a little “overkill.”
1. For this series of options, see Morris, First Corinthians, 239.
2. Fee, First Corinthians, 829, n. 19.
3. See, e.g., George W. Knight III, “Husbands and Wives as Analogues of Christ and the Church,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1991), esp. pp. 166–75. For a balancing perspective, cf. Keener, Paul, Women and Wives, 164–72.
4. It is possible, though uncertain, that men and women may have at times kissed each other as well. For more on the practice, see William Klassen, “The Sacred Kiss in the New Testament: An Example of Social Boundary Lines,” NTS 39 (1993): 122–35.
5. Many scholars have seen the entire sequence of components in Paul’s closing as liturgical (e.g., Talbert, Corinthians, 106–7, and the references there cited); while possible, this goes beyond anything that can be actually demonstrated.
6. Fee, First Corinthians, 825.
7. Cf. Andrew D. Clarke, Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 132. It is clear that there was leadership in the Corinthian church; indeed, one of Paul’s biggest concerns had to do with the way in which it wielded power.
8. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 161.
9. For a particularly balanced study, see Ben Witherington III, Women in the Earliest Churches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 24–127.
10. See the references cited in Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 50–52.
11. Robertson and Plummer, First Corinthians, 400.
12. Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Wise (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1983), 172.
13. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 279.
14. Cf. the sane discussion and precautions spelled out in Bob and Gretchen Passantino, Witch Hunt (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990).