CHAPTER 1
Paul gives some quick greets and thanks – and then gets down
to business. Apparently, the Christian
community in Corinth is a real mess.
People are divided amongst each other, full of rivalries. Some say they
belong to Paul, others to Apollos, other to Cephas. Paul, to his credit, doesn’t get caught up in all of this
mess. Rather than rally his side, he
tells everyone to focus on the bigger picture here – Christ. You’re not of Paul or of Cephas – but of
Christ. “Was Paul crucified for you?” asks
Paul rhetorically.
Facing a badly divided community, Paul hits the ground
running here with a clear call for unity under Christ. This, by the way, will give him plenty of
stature with all the groups, because they all believe in Christ, regardless of
what they think of the interpretations of Cephas or Apollos or Paul. Remember – there is a reason this letter
came down to us. That is because it was
saved and copied, and had copies of those copies made. If this letter didn’t hit its mark in
Corinth, it wouldn’t have survived long enough to make the Bible.
CHAPTER 2
Paul pleads humility here.
He claims not to have much wisdom or special insight. He has no sublime way with words. “For I
resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him
crucified.” He just had his one message
and he went at it. Paul confesses to
feeling fear and weak and trembling when he came to Corinth. This is an interesting confession. He’s trying not to big time anyone. He wants them to come around to what he
believes, but he isn’t trying to force anyone to do so, because he can’t. He’s trying to bring these people along,
willingly.
Again, his main point is to focus on God. In him there is wisdom, not in us. If you think about it, this is a smart
approach to take. Paul needs to get
these people to get past their dysfunction and disunity – and appealing to God
is the best way of doing it. Appealing
to himself as an authority would just widen any/all breaches already there in
the community.
CHAPTER 3
Paul starts moving away from the rally cry for unity, and
starts to look into the problems the community is having. He begins by calling the Corinthians “fleshy
people.” As a general rule of thumb,
“flesh” is a bad thing in the Bible.
Here, Paul is contrasting being “fleshy people” with being people in the
spirit of Christ. Guys, you were
supposed to have been baptized and reborn as members of the Christian
community! Act like it! Be one with Christ already! But instead of focusing on God and the holy,
they are caught up in mundane, earthly matters. Fleshy doesn’t just mean sex, but the day-to-day stuff that Paul
thinks Christians should get past already.
Paul still makes his calls for unity. He still wants everyone to get along, and he
tries to bring them all along. Paul is
walking a delicate tightrope here. On
the one hand, he wants to bring people to his way of thinking, but then again
he can’t force anyone to do so, and they’re already divided internally. So far, Paul is doing a good job
prioritizing things here. He’s mostly
focused on unity and Christ – the big picture – and then uses his beliefs as a
way to the big picture. That’s a smart
strategy.
CHAPTER 4
I didn’t quite get this one. I found myself more reading over this chapter than reading
it. Mostly, it sounds like Paul is
holding up the apostles and missionaries as example for the people of Corinth
on how to live. He says we are fools,
but wise in Christ.
Paul says he’s sending his pal Timothy down to help guide
them. OK, that’s helpful. It won’t be just words, but an actual person
there to put Paul’s ideas into action.
Oh, one last thing to not.
Paul tells them, “I am writing you this not to shame you, but to
admonish you.” Keep that in mind when
Chapter 6 rolls around.
CHAPTER 5
OK, now we get into some fun stuff. As long as Paul is
discussing their problems, he may as well discuss the juicy stuff. People are sinning all over the play in
Corinth. Why, one man is even living
with his father’s wife. (Isn’t that a
Jerry Spring episode or something?) And
the community hasn’t disciplined the offenders at all.
Well, Paul isn’t very happy with this, not at all. Instead, Paul blasts them for boasting. Paul wants them to start judging more. This is a bit different from his message to
the Romans. There, Paul emphasized trying to tolerate others and getting
along. Yeah, but not all cases are the
same. With Rome, Paul was emphasizing
being reasonable. And here in Corinth,
he is also calling for reasonableness – but it means something different in a
community so full of sin as this. Quit
associating with so many sinners, gang.
Can I point one thing out?
So far – through a third of this book and all of Romans – Paul never
actually appeals to anything Christ said.
Paul appeals to the prophets of the Old Testament, but never the words
of Jesus. This is the best sign that
the gospels haven’t been written yet – Paul is in the dark on them. More interestingly, it doesn’t sound like he
even knows the story orally. There is
no golden rule stated here, for instance.
For Paul, what matters is how Christ died, not how he lived. Please note that this will be the case
throughout the letters of Paul – a virtually complete absence of the teachings
of Christ.
CHAPTER 6
Paul continues to lay into the Corinthians for their evil
ways. Apparently, they are bringing lawsuits against each other because their
internal differences are so bad. Man, the image we have of the early Christian
Church is typically a utopian image where everyone got along and believed in
Christ easily and equally. We got a bit
of a vision of that in Acts of the Apostles with the Christian communist
community led by Peter in Jerusalem.
But, of course, no community is ever pure, and we get that sense here in
Corinthians I.
Paul reminds them that as fellows of Christ they’ll all take
part in the final judgment on Judgment Day, so why are they suing each
other? How does this make them
qualified for the big day. I’ll just
point out that this indicates Paul expects Judgment Day to be imminent. He is, after all, telling still
living/breathing people that they’ll be judges on that day. His comments later on in this letter also
indicates he feels that the Kingdom of Heaven truly is at hand.
Oh, and he says this nugget in 6:5: “I say this to shame
you.” Contrast that with 4:14: “I am
writing this not to shame you, but to admonish you.” OK, he’s changed topics, but I got a kick out of that contrast.
Paul shifts into sex talk.
He is deeply opposed to Christian morality. Much Christian prudishness on sexual matters can be traced
directly to Paul. There is a little bit
of it in Christ’s talks in the Gospel According to Matthew, but Paul makes it
more clear.
We’re all in body with Christ, according to Paul. (For him, that transubstantiation thing
ain’t no jive). Therefore, when you
engaged in bad sexual behavior after you’ve been baptized, you not only whore
out yourself, but the entire community.
You whore out Christ himself. He
says, you make members of the community prostitute. I’m not sure if he’s calling out literal prostitution or
not. I think not – that’s just a way
for him to denounce all forms of sexual misconduct.
But people must take care.
As Paul notes near the end of the chapter, “Your body is a temple.” Huh.
So that’s’ where we get that phrase from. I never would’ve guessed.
I figured it more likely came from an exercise book or something. I never would’ve guessed that line came from
Paul, whose pursuits are overwhelmingly heavenward than earthbound. But Paul wants you to treat your body like a
temple – a religious temple – not to be defiled so you can join Christ when the
Kingdom of Heaven comes to earth.
CHAPTER 7
Time to shift gears.
Paul now starts answering questions put to him by the Christians of
Corinth. Here, he talks about sex. There is a bit of irony here: people are
asking a lifelong celibate questions about sex. He’d sure make an unlikely Dr. Ruth, wouldn’t he? Well, of course they’re not approaching Paul
as an expert on sex, but as an expert on morality, and he’ll deal with sex in
that way.
Not surprisingly, Paul comes out in favor of celibacy. He thinks that’s the best way to go. (But wait – wouldn’t that end the species if
too many did it? Well, as well see as this
book goes on, Paul doesn’t expect the world we live in to last much longer
anyway. The kingdom of heaven is always
imminent for him).
At any rate, Paul says that’s the best way to go, but not
everyone is designed that way. So for
everyone else, Paul recommends marriage.
Get married and have sex inside the bounds of matrimony. Showing his bias (and lack of experience),
Paul makes it sounds like a chore – saying both husband and wife should do
their duty to each other. Well, to be
fair, he’s responding to Corinthians who are asking if they should totally
abstain from sex within the marriage.
After all, they know Paul is a fan of celibacy. But no – Paul thinks that is a bridge too
far. If you’re married, have at
it. That’s a major justification for
marriage, after all.
He actually let’s loose this memorable line: “A wife does
not have authority over her own body, but rather her husband.” Wait – am I reading that correctly? Is Paul saying that the husband has control
over his wife’s body? So far Paul has
been fairly progressive on gender relations.
Well, the next sentence softens it up and Paul says the same thing, just
with genders reversed: “and similarly a husband does not have authority over
his own body, but rather his wife.”
Whatever he means by that exactly, Paul is saying the same for both
genders.
Oh, and Paul clearly indicates that he is in fact celibate
here. Just so we’re aware of that.
Moving on, Paul says that if you’re married to someone
outside the faith, that’s cool. You
don’t have to separate from them. He
never quite goes so far as to say to marry outside the faith – remember this is
a new Christian community and the members are converts, not born into it. Still, once you’ve allowed marriages outside
the faith, it can justify people marrying those of different religions.
That said, Paul also is fine with unbelievers separating
from a believer. If the person wants
out, let them out. Paul supports
divorce! He doesn’t want Christians
initiating divorce – and his talk of divorce only applies to those outside the
faith – but he is supporting divorce under these circumstances. That is surprising.
Paul also flatly denounces circumcision: “Circumcision means
nothing, and uncircumcision means nothing.”
He was more polite about it in Romans.
He never was this harsh about it there, just saying it’s not the main
point. Here? It’s crap.
He also advises virgins to stay virgins, and widows to stay
widows. Really, Paul looks down on sex
in general.
And his reason for that becomes clear as we near the end of
the chapter: “I tell you, brothers, that time is running out. .
. . For the world in its present form is passing away.” That’s remarkable. Not only does he predict that the world will end soon – but that
the world has already begun it end. He
isn’t just saying that the end is near, he’s saying we’re actually in the
process of ending. This actually
explains a lot of his beliefs. After
all, if the world would survive 2,000 more years and more, then it really helps
to allow for sex. (I mean, he does
allow for sex – but he puts conditions on it and says you’re better off
avoiding it). Oh, I like this line: “So
then, the one who marries his virgin does well; the one who does not marry her
will do better.” That’s just a
well-stated expression of Paul’s beliefs.
CHAPTER 8
This is a quick chapter dealing with more questions the Corinthians have. This deals with eating meat sacrificed to idols. Paul doesn’t denounce it nearly as strongly as I was expecting. (I’m not entirely sure he actually denounced it at all – I had trouble paying attention to this chapter). He does say, “Now food will not bring us closer to God. We are now worse off if we do not eat, nor are we better off if we do.” Nitpicking: at a certain point in time, you’re actually clearly better off eating. No reason to starve. (Yeah, I know Paul isn’t calling for starvation, but that’s all I got for this chapter).Click here for the second half of Corinthians I.
No comments:
Post a Comment