Inter-Varsity Press

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. The logic and arrangement of 1 Corinthians Brian S. Rosner

2. ‘Of God’: Karl Barth and the coherence of 1 Corinthians Keith Condie

3. ‘The church of God in Corinth’: holiness in1 Corinthians Bill Salier

4. ‘The word of the cross’: the language of the cross in 1 Corinthians Philip H. Kern

5. ‘Flee sexual immorality’: sex and the city of Corinth Roy E. Ciampa

6. ‘Enriched in every way’: gifts and ministries in1 Corinthians David G. Peterson

7. ‘Steadfast, immovable, always abounding’: the connecting of ethics, evangelism and eschatology Bruce W. Winter

8. ‘In my judgment’: Christian ethics in 1 Corinthians Michael P. Jensen

9. ‘That God may be all in all’: the glory of God in 1 Corinthians Matthew R. Malcolm

10. ‘The wisdom of the cross’: preaching 1 Corinthians Brian S. Rosner

INTRODUCTION

1 Corinthians is often regarded as Paul’s makeshift response to random problems in a messy church. This book argues for and undertakes a more coherent reading of the letter. The result, we hope, is a more compelling and theologically rich interpretation and a clearer apprehension of its relevance to the church today. In chapter 1 Brian Rosner puts the case for a more holistic approach to studying the theology and ethics of the letter. The other nine chapters cover the classic treatments of 1 Corinthians of Karl Barth and John Chrysostom, which both underscore the letter’s coherence, Paul’s pastoral practice, preaching 1 Corinthians, and the major topics of holiness, the cross, sexual ethics, spiritual gifts, eschatology and the glory of God.

The chapters of this book were first delivered as lectures at the 2010 Moore Theological College School of Theology. The majority of the contributors are members of the faculty of the college, who were joined by several distinguished guests with expertise in the study of 1 Corinthians. The content reflects our common interest in doing biblical theology and theological interpretation that acknowledges the text as the Word of God and seeks to serve the interests of the contemporary church.

By way of preview, in chapter 2 Keith Condie examines Karl Barth’s argument for the coherence of 1 Corinthians in his 1924 monograph The Resurrection of the Dead. It considers the historical context that led to Barth’s publishing this work and the need to read this exegetical study in the light of Barth’s conviction that he as an interpreter or Scripture must elucidate the meaning of the text so that the contemporary reader is confronted by the word of God. Barth sees 1 Corinthians 15 as the climactic chapter of the book and the key that integrates the whole letter. The chapter compares Barth’s approach to the unity of the letter with that of Ciampa and Rosner’s recent work, and considers how Barth’s perspective speaks to contemporary concerns.

In chapter 3 Bill Salier examines the theme of holiness in 1 Corinthians and demonstrates that this is a far more prominent theme than has been explicitly acknowledged in previous investigations of the letter. This is supported by an examination of the letter’s opening, key vocabulary and other thematic material. It is suggested that in 1 Corinthians Paul exhorts his readers to holiness and that he does this aware of his own position in salvation history.

The main thrust of his explicit teaching is that holiness is a status gifted by the Father, in Christ, through the Spirit. Throughout the letter Paul exhorts the Corinthians to live out this position in their individual lives as well as their common life together. One of the main ways he does this is by applying the image of the temple to the Corinthians both individually and as a community. The chapter concludes with a number of reflections upon the implications of both the content of Paul’s teaching on holiness and his approach for contemporary ministry.

In chapter 4 Philip Kern notes the scarcity of Paul’s language of the cross and argues that ‘cross language’ has nuances that are often obscured by treating the cross as synonymous with the death of Jesus. A survey of every Pauline use of ‘cross’ and ‘crucify’ reveals that Paul’s letters seldom speak of the historical event of the crucifixion in terms of the cross, instead referring by means of the cross and crucifixion to the death of the cosmos. If in Galatians the cross speaks of the death of the religious world, in 1 Corinthians the cross speaks of the death of the secular world and the value/power systems that led to Jesus’ crucifixion.

In chapter 5 Roy Ciampa argues that understanding the sexual issues and temptations of the Corinthian church helps us to appreciate Paul’s counsel, its wisdom and its relevance better. Paul’s teaching reflects a sexual ethic focused on glorifying God as a pure and holy temple composed of those who have been created and recreated by God and who belong to him and to each other.

Paul’s understanding of sexual ethics reflects the other-centred wisdom of the cross and the place of love and edification in promoting God’s renewed humanity in all of life. His understanding of marriage is remarkably egalitarian and realistic in its recognition of the power of sexual needs and longings. Paul provides wise and sound counsel and a model for leaders today who need to address the particular challenges of their people and contexts with similar clarity and wisdom.

In chapter 6 David Peterson notes how Paul’s introductory thanksgiving acknowledges God’s enrichment of the Corinthians ‘with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge’ and links this to the confirming of the testimony about Christ among them. According to Peterson this suggests that the truth of the gospel was verified for them by the Holy Spirit’s gifting and enabling. Viewed in this light, the early chapters of the letter provide an important framework for understanding Paul’s lengthy treatment of gifts and ministries later in the letter, especially his teaching about prophesying. Within this broader framework his teaching about the prophetic activity of women requires particular attention and thoughtful application to contemporary church contexts.

In chapter 7 Bruce Winter says that while 1 Corinthians 15 is seen as Paul’s longest discussion on the resurrection of the body, the second-century Christian writers Irenaeus and Tertullian believed this section was about the intertwining and integration of resurrection with ethics. This chapter argues that it is also about their interconnectedness with evangelism. Paul rebukes the self-indulgent lifestyle that shamefully deprives others of ‘the knowledge of God’; that is, ‘the gospel’ (15:34). The ethical injunctions prescribe what must be abandoned (15:33–34) in order for all Christians to be stable, immovable and eschatologically motivated to be abounding in the work of the Lord (15:58) including evangelism (10:33).

In chapter 8 Michael Jensen argues that Paul’s apocalyptic vision in 1 Corinthians describes not the worthlessness of the present order of things compared to the priceless treasure of the world to come but rather (following J. Louis Martyn) the revelation of the true nature and destiny of the present world by that world in the cross and resurrection of Christ. The ethics that derives from this apocalyptic theology of the cross is not then an avoidance or a disparagement of the sphere of present human living, though it does offer a strong critique of the absolutization of the present. If this account of the good is to persuade, it must do so in the light of the suspicion that it could not be so. The Corinthians are to act with wisdom and discretion in the midst of their ‘present crisis’, doing what is good according to the conditions precisely because the end has invaded the present and because all of reality – even that which constitutes the good itself – is now different.

In chapter 9 Matthew Malcolm considers John Chrysostom’s contribution to our understanding of 1 Corinthians and its relevance to the theme of the glory of God. Chrysostom interprets the struggle for human status evident throughout the letter to be a direct challenge to the honour of God. The church is called to pursue the glory of God by entrusting its desires for wealth, wisdom, power and glory to the one who is presently known in the shame of the cross. Christian believers thus glorify God by depending on what God has done in the cross of Jesus Christ, and allowing the cross to shape their behaviour in personal and communal life, as they look ahead to sharing Christ’s resurrection.

In chapter 10 Brian Rosner ponders the question of how to preach the letter. He contends that the text of 1 Corinthians gives us a better sense of what its author is up to than most books of the Bible. Paul uses four expressions in the opening chapters that supply clues as to how to characterize his instruction in the letter, all of which relate to the cross of Christ and the wisdom of God it enshrines. It follows that authentic preaching of 1 Corinthians consists of proclaiming the wisdom of the cross.