1 and 2 Corinthians – The New Testament In Its World – Wright and Bird

Chapter 21

INTRODUCTION

If there was one church that caused Paul to pull his hair out and made him age before his time, it was probably the ‘church of God in Corinth’. Paul spent an initial eighteen months with the believers there, establishing their community. He made at least two further visits to Corinth, the first of which did not go well. He wrote, it seems, four letters to the Corinthians, two of which we have in our New Testament, all of them dealing with problems in the church.

The problems were numerous: deep divisions, sexual immoralities, suspicions about Paul and his motives, and the visits of people Paul calls ‘super-apostles’, touting their own credentials and belittling Paul. This church experienced social, spiritual, and sexual problems, pitting members against one another and the congregation against Paul. And yet we see here the heart of Paul. Paul saw himself as a kind of father to the Corinthians through the gospel. He constantly affirmed his love for them, even when correction and discipline was necessary. These letters reveal the real Paul, not simply as ‘apostle’ or ‘theologian’, but as pastor, caring for his converts with a deep and resilient love.

CORINTH

Corinth was a greco-roman hybrid. The earlier hellenistic city was now thoroughly romanized, with a Roman administration and architecture. The Roman colonists ruled the roost; native Achaians or immigrants were barred from public office. Until the reign of Hadrian, most inscriptions in Corinth were in Latin rather than Greek (though most graffiti was in Greek, reflecting the culture of the underclass). Various immigrant groups, including Jews, settled in Corinth, as Luke reports and as Philo confirms. Corinth, as a busy port-city, had a transient population with everyone from vagabonds to philosophers (sometimes the same person), merchants and artisans, frequently passing through. Its economy was largely dependent on services offered to travellers. In the words of Ciampa and Rosner, Corinth was ‘prosperous, cosmopolitan, and religiously pluralistic, accustomed to visits by impressive, traveling public speakers and obsessed with status, self-promotion, and personal rights’.

Paul arrived in Corinth in around AD 50–1, and spent eighteen months there. During this time he met Aquila, a Jew from Pontus, and his wife Priscilla. They, tent-makers like Paul, had recently come from Rome, after the Jews were seen as riotous and were expelled by Claudius in AD 49.6 Paul spent some weeks speaking in the synagogue, but eventually was forced to leave, taking with him a mixture of Jews, God-fearers, and a significant number of pagans, and forming a network of house-churches.

After this time, the synagogue leaders tried to bring charges against Paul, hauling him before Gallio, the governor of Achaia. A famous inscription identifies Gallio and helps us to date this incident, placing him in Corinth in AD 51. The bēma or ‘judgment seat’ where Paul was brought is still there today. The Jews complained that Paul was inducing other Jews to practise an unlawful form of worship (perhaps reflecting the way in which, as we see in 1 Corinthians 8.6, Paul was adapting Jewish prayers to include Jesus within them). Gallio was indifferent to the matter, seeing it as a squabble within the Jewish community, and he refused to render a verdict. He showed no concern even when Sosthenes, the synagogue leader and one of Paul’s converts, was beaten in broad daylight. The significance of all this was clear: unlike the situation in Galatia, where tensions continued because the local Jesus-followers were claiming the Jewish exemption from public cult, in Greece a Roman pronouncement had certified that the messianic movement was to be seen as part of the Jewish world.

After Paul left Corinth, the Corinthians were visited by Apollos, a Greek-speaking Jewish Christian and associate of Aquila and Priscilla, and maybe even Peter, passing through Corinth on his way to Rome. These visits, though good for the church in general, seem to have divided the loyalties of the congregation, and generated the beginnings of a personality cult. These problems were compounded by new moral challenges. Paul learned about all this when he arrived back in Ephesus from Syria.  He subsequently wrote a letter to Corinth, urging the church members not to associate with believers who engaged in blatant sexual immorality.  He then wrote the much longer letter we call 1 Corinthians, from Ephesus in around AD 53, and sent it through one of the house-church leaders who had visited him.

He wrote in response to two things. First, he wanted to answer several written questions from the Corinthians about marriage and celibacy, food sacrificed to idols, spiritual gifts, the Collection, and the prospect of Apollos’s return.  Second, he also wrote in response to disconcerting news from Apollos and several church leaders about factions, incest, lawsuits, women inappropriately dressed, disorder in worship, and particularly (and for Paul crucially) denials of the resurrection.

Things then got worse. Timothy brought news that his instructions had not been heeded. Paul therefore made a second visit to Corinth, probably sailing straight across from Ephesus; he refers to this later as a ‘painful visit’, since he was clearly rebuffed.  He returned to Ephesus, where, as we have seen, the situation deteriorated and ended up with him not only in prison but in seriously bad shape personally and physically. He then may have written what he calls a ‘letter of tears’ which had a powerful effect on the Corinthian church. After his release from prison, Paul travelled back to Corinth the long way, by land, around northern Greece, anxious through the first half of the journey about what reception he might expect.

The Corinthian problem
What was the root of the Corinthian problems? A generation ago, some scholars suggested that the Corinthians had embraced an early form of Gnosticism, but that view is rightly rejected today. More likely, many of the problems were coloured, if not directly caused, by the intense factionalism within the small Corinthian church, reflecting the competitive culture of rivalry and personality politics that was nasty but normal in Corinth. That is why Paul’s primary appeal is for unity. Paul then proceeds to attribute slogans to these various parties: ‘I follow Paul’, ‘I follow Apollos’, ‘I follow Cephas [that is, Peter]’, and ‘I follow Christ’. These may not have represented precise parties; they may simply indicate a culture of personal loyalties and tensions, generating bickering. Paul’s response is to replace the Corinthian obsession with pagan-style ‘wisdom’ and power with a theology of the cross, exposing human pretensions to greatness and knowledge as mere folly.

Richard Hays has argued persuasively that the problem in Corinth was not too much eschatology, but too little. The Corinthians did not think they had arrived in the kingdom. They were not thinking Jewishly at all, let alone in terms of the Jewish ‘two ages’ (the present age and the age to come). Rather, they were still mentally living within the pagan world by whose standards they had attained a degree of wisdom superior to—and independent of—Paul himself. This produced a ‘boasting’ which ignored the judgment that was still to come. In their boasting they were heedless of God’s future judgment. Their ‘puffed-up’ posturing came from putting together their beliefs about themselves as Christians with ideas from pagan philosophy, not least the kind of popular-level Stoicism which taught that all who truly understood the world and themselves were kings. The words ‘rich’ and ‘reigning’ had been catchwords of Stoic philosophy since the time of the philosopher Diogenes, who settled in Corinth, and who popularized the aphorism, ‘I alone am rich, I alone reign as king.’ Jennifer Houston McNeel exposes the sad irony of the situation: ‘The Corinthians’ problem is not just that they are immature in faith, but that they have misunderstood their own level of maturity.’ Against this, Paul urgently wanted to teach them to think of themselves, corporately, individually, and cosmically, in a more thoroughly Jewish fashion, in terms of the great Jewish stories of God, Israel, and the world, all now coming into new focus around the Messiah and the spirit, and all pointing ahead to the future judgment and future resurrection in the light of which—and in this light alone—all present life would make sense.

Who were the ‘super-apostles’?
The identity of Paul’s opponents in 2 Corinthians, the so-called ‘super-apostles’, is much debated. Proposals have included Jewish proselytizers, Gnostics, pneumatics (whatever that might be taken to mean), sophists, or a combination thereof. Can we get any clearer? Paul does not engage in the same kind of combative polemics as he did in Galatians and Philippians where, clearly, he was concerned about Jewish-Christian interlopers trying to compel gentile Christians to follow the Torah and, in the case of males, to be circumcised. He does not argue about ‘works of the law’, or ‘circumcision’, or deploy arguments from Genesis 15.6 and Habakkuk 2.4 about the sufficiency of faith for justification and membership in Abraham’s covenant family. The most likely scenario is that some Jewish Christians have arrived in Corinth, boasting of their privileged status as Jews. They claimed to be apostles, servants of Christ, and ministers of righteousness; they carried letters of recommendation; they boasted of their accomplishments in comparison to others; they alleged that Paul was an impostor who was transgressing their apostolic turf; and their criticism of Paul met with misgivings among the Corinthians that Paul lacked eloquence and personal authority. They either claimed to be, or were heralded as, ‘super-apostles’ who were more than equal to Paul. Most likely, they are not Jewish-Christian proselytizers, but more sophistic and sapiential in their manner of persuasion, that is, they appear to be Greek-speaking Jewish Christians reared in hellenistic rhetoric and wisdom. They began disparaging Paul for his inferiority, for his manual labour, his refusal to accept payment, while boasting of their own superiority.

In any case, after all, the Corinthians themselves were Paul’s real ‘letter of recommendation’, the living proof that God’s power worked through his gospel proclamation. What’s more, the interlopers were trying to poison the Corinthians against Paul, and the Corinthians had been lured into putting up with this, being in effect (from Paul’s point of view) enslaved, preyed upon, exploited, flattered, and abused. Paul claims that what sets him apart from these interlopers are his apostolic sufferings. His human weakness is the paradoxical location of the apostolic signs of divine power.

THE ARGUMENT OF FIRST CORINTHIANS:

1. Introduction, grace, and thanksgiving (1.1–9)
   After the opening greetings, Paul thanks God that the Corinthian church has received so many spiritual gifts (1.4–7). These are both the source of problems and the sign of God’s continuing work.
2. Corinthian factions and the folly of the cross (1.10—3.23)
   Paul appeals for unity in the face of factionalism. Jesus the crucified Messiah is the only focus of the church’s identity. All human standards, and the rhetoric that accompanies them, are brought to nothing by the message of the cross, which carries a different kind of power. The cross, after all, was a scandal to Jews (whoever heard of a crucified Messiah?) and folly to pagans (whoever imagined that an executed Jew might be the lord of the world?). But Paul’s message does its own work. To those interested in mysteries, Paul offers the cross. To those who like eloquent speech, Paul offers the gospel. For those who want power, Paul invokes the spirit. Christians do possess wisdom, but it is from a different source and of a different nature. The Corinthians, failing to grasp this, remain ‘unspiritual’ in their factional quarrels (3.1–4).

When it comes to unspiritual behaviour, Paul uses the example of the rivalry between his own apparent devotees and those of Apollos. Both he and Apollos are mere servants, doing their own part in cultivating the kingdom, but it is God who makes things grow (3.5–9). Like a builder, Paul has laid a foundation, namely Jesus the Messiah himself. Anyone who builds on that will be building a new Temple, a place for God to dwell by the spirit, and God’s final judgment will test what kind of work has gone into the building—and whether people have been trying to destroy it (3.10–17). So the Corinthians must be careful, not boastful. They should rejoice that a new world belongs to them, because they belong to the Messiah, and the Messiah belongs to God (3.18–23).

3. Paul: servant of the Messiah, father in the gospel (4.1–21)
   Paul urges the Corinthians to think of him as a servant of Christ and a steward of God’s mysteries. He is therefore accountable to God alone, not to humans (4.1–7). His apostolic vocation is to model the sufferings of the Messiah. It is by doing that that he has become their ‘father’, even though he may look a bedraggled wreck (4.8–13). He is not trying to shame them, but to reprimand them for destructive behaviour. If he is their father, they should imitate him; and they should be ready to come into line when he arrives for his forthcoming visit (4.14–21).
4. Sexual perversity has no place (5.1–13)
   Paul now addresses an immediate problem within the church: a woman has been co-habiting with her stepson. Paul calls for him to be disciplined, removed from the church, from the sphere in which the Messiah saves, and sent back into the sphere in which the satan’s writ runs (5.1–5). The Corinthians seem to think this is something to boast about: look how free we have become, living on a new plane! No, says Paul: being a Christian does not set you apart from previous moral laws (see ‘Portals and parallels: Suetonius on divorce’), but rather reinforces an ethic of true creation, which carries and contextualizes the celebratory reaffirmation of marriage. Compromise will lead to ruin (5.9–13).

5. Lawsuits among believers (6.1–11)
   Paul then faces a second issue: Christians bringing lawsuits against one another. This almost certainly meant the wealthier members dragging the poorer before a magistrate; it was the rich who could afford lawyers and if necessary bribe the judge. Paul’s response is again Jewish-style eschatology: there is a coming judgment, and God’s people (‘the saints’) will be assisting in doing the judging, so that if there are disputes between Christians they ought to be settled internally (6.1–8). God’s kingdom, launched in Jesus’ resurrection (15.20–28), will finally be complete, but it will not contain those who have given themselves to certain styles of behaviour that tie them to the old world. The Corinthians need to remember that they have been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of God (6.9–11).
6. The body as temple of the holy spirit (6.12–20)
   Paul then addresses sexual morality more directly. Against the Corinthian slogans (‘I have the right to do anything’ and ‘Food for the stomach and the stomach for food’), Paul responds that what we do with our bodies is not morally indifferent. The body belongs to the lord and will be raised, so what we do with it matters. Particularly this applies to sex, where intercourse (chemically as well as psychologically, as we now know) binds people together. The Christian’s body is itself a temple of the holy spirit, purchased by the Messiah, and must be treated as such (6.19–20).
7. Marriage, divorce, and singleness (7.1–40)
   This leads to wider questions of marriage, divorce, and singleness. Paul here offers careful pastoral wisdom in clear-cut cases (marriage is good, and for life, but singleness for men or women is good too—all of which was counter-cultural in Corinth) and sensitive guidance in ‘grey areas’, including the permission to divorce (and hence presumably remarry) if a non-Christian spouse wishes to leave a Christian. (We remind ourselves that being a Christian in pagan Corinth would mean a total change of lifestyle, including removing idols large and small from the house, and not taking part in the local cults and idolatrous festivities. An unbelieving spouse might well balk at even some of this renunciation.)

Paul was aware, writing the letter, that times were hard. He speaks of ‘the present crisis’ (7.26, 29) when he is writing; a famine was on the way (as we know historically), perhaps already making life difficult. His judgment was therefore to keep things as they were and not make life harder by big changes of status. What matters is learning to navigate the ‘freedom’ that is the Christian’s birthright and to distinguish it from the licence that is merely a return to paganism.

8. Food sacrificed to idols (8.1–13)
   The switch from the cheerful polytheism of the pagan world to the Jewish-style monotheism of the Christians meant all kinds of dilemmas, an obvious one being diet. Most of the meat in the market would first have been offered to an idol, the remains being sold after the worshipper and/or the priests had had their portions. Recent converts might want nothing to do with the whole business. Paul sees, though, that dualism (rejecting the goodness of the present creation) is almost as bad as paganism itself (worshipping elements in the natural world as if they were divine). He therefore lays down the principle to which he returns at the end of chapter 10 (the discussion takes up three chapters, with chapter 9 being a digression on ‘freedom’): there is no God but one, and everything created by God is good and to be received with thanksgiving.

Paul here quotes (8.6) the foundational prayer of monotheistic Jews: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one’. However, he modifies it, in one of his most stunning theological moves: if ‘God’ here refers to the father from whom all things come, ‘Lord’ refers to Jesus the Messiah through whom all things come. Jesus is part of the meaning of the one true God. This leads to an important ethical principle: if the one God is revealed in the crucified Jesus, then one’s freedom to eat anything is strictly limited by the conscience of another believer ‘for whom the Messiah died’ (8.11).

9. The apostle Paul’s rights and struggle (9.1–27)
   Paul then explains how Christian ‘freedom’ works in practice, through his own example. He is ‘free’, yet is called to singleness (9.1–5). He is free to be paid for his apostolic work, yet has chosen not to make use of the right (9.6–18). He is free from obligations, yet tailors his lifestyle to avoid putting stumbling-blocks in the way of his work with different groups (9.19–23). Freedom does not mean licence, but rather the freedom of an athlete in training, eager to win the prize (9.24–27).
10. Living as the people of the new exodus, avoiding idolatry (10.1—11.1)
    This brings Paul back to his concerns about idolatry. His overall point is that one may eat whatever one wishes, provided it is in the right attitude and does not cause offence to fellow-believers—and provided one does not enter an idol-temple itself. Ancient temples were not like contemporary churches; they were more like restaurants, pagan altars, brothels, and rentable business-suites, all rolled into one.

In his warning against such places Paul draws (as often) on the exodus story: Israel, though redeemed from Egypt, committed idolatry and incurred judgment. Paul, hinting that baptism and eucharist are a kind of Christian equivalent of the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea and wilderness feedings, warns that these great blessings did not render them immune to this fate. That is why he insists that one cannot eat and drink from the lord’s table and from the table of demons (10.14–22). Though the old gods of ancient paganism are a sham (8.1–6), there are shadowy, sneaky beings he loosely calls ‘demons’ (the word had much wider application in his world than in ours) who are out to twist and destroy human life. This brings the whole discussion together: the Corinthians must not use their freedom as a licence to indulge themselves, but must avoid the haunt of demons and seek the good of others. Paul, having explained his own approach to ‘freedom’, asks them to imitate him as he seeks to imitate the example of Christ (10.23—11.1). This is the same point that he makes in building Philippians 3.2–11 on Philippians 2.6–11.

11. Abuses in worship (11.2–34)
    Paul’s praise for the Corinthians in holding to the traditions that he passed on to them is short-lived. He proceeds to chastise them over the matters of head coverings (11.2–6) and practices of the Lord’s Supper (11.17–34).

In Paul’s day, gender was marked by hair and clothing styles. Paul, having stressed in Galatians 3.28 that there is ‘no “male and female” . . . in the Messiah’ (NTE/KNT), is anxious that some will take this the wrong way, wrongly imagining that equality before the foot of the cross means androgyny, either gender hybridity or else erasing the differences between men and women. In worship it is important for both men and women to be their truly created selves, to honour God by being male and female and not pretending to be something else.

On the Lord’s Supper, Paul is appalled to hear of divisions between rich and poor at a meal supposed to be a visible sign of unity and koinōnia. This showed contempt for God’s assembled people, treating them as a mere convenience. Paul rehearses Jesus’ words of institution, reminding them that the meal invokes and commemorates the Jesus who died, was raised, and will return. Dishonouring the Messiah’s body, whether in the form of the meal or the form of the church, is courting disaster.

12. GIFTS, LOVE, AND WORSHIP – 12.1 – 14.40

Paul now responds to questions about worship, beginning with spiritual gifts. He stresses that these are indeed the work of the spirit, given not to divide the church but to build it up in unity: it is the same spirit, the same lord, the same God at work in all. Various Greek and Roman writers had already spoken of communities in terms of a human body, working for the common good; Paul adapts this picture in his belief that if Israel was God’s true humanity, the Messiah has taken on that role (see 15.21–22), and those in the Messiah therefore constitute the genuine human race, for which a human body is thus an appropriate metaphor. Diverse gifts and offices are therefore necessary, as diverse limbs and organs are necessary, and any spiritual snobbery is out of place (12.12–31).

Paul then adds one of the most remarkable lyrics in western civilization, rivalling Homer or Shakespeare in its poignant description of love. The point is not simply a reminder about how to behave. It is a link between chapter 12 (many gifts, one body) and chapter 14 (how to avoid chaotic worship): love is the key to both. It is also a reminder, pointing forwards to chapter 15, that what matters is the future world, the ‘age to come’, which has already begun in Jesus and the spirit and will be completed in the end. Love matters because it is the central characteristic of the new world, and we get to practise it in advance (13.1–13).

This then leads to the question of order and intelligibility in worship. Speaking in tongues is fine, but does not have the same edifying power as the prophesying that can strengthen, encourage, and comfort other worshippers. A healthy diet of worship needs far more than ecstatic utterances; it requires didactic content, through prophesying, revelation, a word of knowledge, or a word of instruction (that is, spiritually animated teaching). Paul, not wishing to stifle spiritual vitality, is concerned that worship should be less ecstatic and more didactic. Spiritual gifts should be used in a balanced and orderly fashion.

Still on the subject of order, Paul adds some remarks against women speaking in church. The passage is not found in the same place in all manuscripts, leading some to regard it as an interpolation. Given that Paul expects both men and women to prophesy in church (see 1 Cor. 11.5), he can hardly be barring women from teaching, praying, or prophesying. More likely, he has in mind women who were perhaps annoyingly interruptive, wanting to discuss matters with their husbands across the small room while various activities like singing and tongues were in progress (14.34–35). However lively worship becomes, it must also have a proper order.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY – 1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-58

Paul comes at last to the question lying underneath so much of the letter. The Christian way of life depends at every point on the belief that with Jesus’ resurrection God’s new world really was born, and that those who belong to the Messiah must live in the present in the light of their own assured future. Denial of the resurrection—an obvious common-sense point, then as now—undermines this entirely: if there is no future life, why bother? Paul’s argument builds up slowly, overturning the normal assumptions of cultures ancient and modern by explaining the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection and the nature of our own. What God did for Jesus by raising him from the dead is both the model and the means of what he will do for all Jesus’ people.

Paul begins with an important (and apparently official) early formulation of the gospel: that the Messiah died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day, all according to the scriptures. He was then seen, by Cephas, the Twelve, five hundred brothers and sisters, James, all the apostles, and last of all Paul. That is the basis of everything else (15.1–11).

If, then, some are denying the resurrection of the dead, they are denying Jesus’ resurrection, cutting off the branch on which, as Christians, they are supposed to be sitting (15.12–19). If the dead are not raised, then the Messiah was not raised, so the old world is still going on uninterrupted and you are still in your sins (15.17).

The point is (15.20–28) that with the Messiah’s resurrection God’s new world has been launched, with Jesus as its lord, the defeat of death itself as its ultimate purpose, and a newborn human race as its means. This chapter ranks with Romans 8 as a major statement of Paul’s cosmic vision: God, the creator, has rescued his creation from corruption and decay in raising Jesus, and when the gospel work is complete, God will be ‘all in all’.

Paul then drops in a short, jerky paragraph (15.29–34): without resurrection, nothing makes sense. No point in being baptized on behalf of the dead; no point in facing persecution; no point in moral life.

This brings Paul to the central question: what will the resurrection body actually be? (15.35–49). His answer, building on the foundation of Genesis 1—2, is that believers will bear the image of the man who is from heaven, that is, the ‘final Adam’, the Messiah. There are different types of bodies, and in particular Paul distinguishes the present body, animated by the ordinary human nature (sōma psychikon) and the future body, animated by God’s spirit (sōma pneumatikon) (15.44). This does not mean that the future body will be ‘spiritual’ in the sense of ‘immaterial’. The adjectives explain not what the body is made of but what is making it alive.

This means that when the dead are raised, any of the Messiah’s people still alive will need to be transformed, since the present corruptible body (‘flesh and blood’) cannot exist as they stand as part of God’s new incorruptible world (15.50–58). Death will be defeated; and spirit-led work in the present will be part of God’s new world (15.58).

14. Instructions about the Collection, final exhortations, and letter closing (16.1–24)
    Paul now gives practical instructions for organizing the collection for Jerusalem (16.1–4). He outlines his plans for a future visit (16.5–9). He has asked Apollos to visit the church, and, despite some reservations, Apollos will do so when the opportunity arises (16.10–12). Paul adds some exhortation towards steadfastness, courage, and love (16.12–14) before commending Stephanas and his household to the Corinthians (16.15–18). After final greetings, Paul closes the letter with the famous Aramaic Maranatha (‘Come, our lord!’) and wishes of grace and love (16.19–24).

THE ARGUMENT OF SECOND CORINTHIANS:

1. Letter opening (1.1–11)
   After initial greetings from Paul and Timothy (1.1–2), Paul launches into reflections on sufferings in service and consolation from God (1.3–7). Perhaps explaining his earlier remark about having fought ‘wild beasts in Ephesus’,59 Paul details the intense troubles and near-death travails that he experienced in Asia, from which God delivered him (1.8–11).
2. Paul’s defence of his ministry (1.12—2.13)
   Paul’s primary concern is continued criticism of himself by the Corinthians. They are still measuring him according to ‘worldly’ or ‘fleshly’ wisdom. Paul reaffirms his personal integrity in his dealings with them, and hopes that he and the Corinthians will resume their mutual affection and celebration (1.12–14). Having been criticized about making and then changing plans, Paul retorts that he has not vacillated between ‘yes’ and ‘no’; like the gospel itself, his answer is always ‘yes’. Paul displays within his ministry the anointing of the spirit, which calls for an ‘Amen’, not sneering accusations (1.15–22).

Complaints aside, his reluctance to visit was in order to spare his readers further grief. The former letter he wrote, the ‘letter of tears’, was meant to elicit repentance while reaffirming his love (1.23—2.4). The leader of the anti-Pauline movement has not so much grieved Paul as grieved the Corinthians themselves; the discipline applied is sufficient, and the Corinthians should now forgive him (2.5–11).

Paul returns to the topic of his travel plans, explaining how he came to Macedonia via Troas in search of Titus (2.12–13).

3. Paul and the ministry of the new covenant (2.14—4.6)
   Paul now turns to a broader defence of his ministry (2.14—7.16). His first argument (2.14—4.6) contrasts his work, as a ‘new-covenant minister’, with that of Moses; Moses’ hearers were hard-hearted, but by the spirit’s work of covenant renewal the Corinthians’ hearts have been transformed. Paul therefore does not need ‘letters of recommendation’, as some had suggested, since the Corinthians themselves are that letter, the living proof that God has authorized his ministry (3.1–5). Paul contrasts the work of Moses with his own, insisting that his new-covenant apostleship produces the ‘freedom’ which he uses in speaking to them, and which some find offensive in its rhetorical style. Unlike Moses, he has no need to veil the divine glory. Echoing Genesis 1, Paul insists that he does not lose heart, because the God who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ has shone in the hearts of believers, revealing his glory in the face of the crucified and risen Messiah (4.1–6).
4. Paul’s ministry as a paradox of power in weakness (4.7—6.10)
   The second phase of Paul’s defence of his ministry (4.7—6.10) explains the way in which—against the cultural expectations of the Corinthians—his apostleship is modelled on the suffering of the Messiah, because that is how reconciliation happens. He has undergone so much (4.7–18) in the knowledge that a new ‘tent’ (that is, body) has already been prepared for him, with the spirit as its present guarantee (5.1–5). That final hope, including taking responsibility for his work in the last judgment (5.10), is what drives him on: the Messiah’s love leaves him no choice (5.14), since what God did in heaping sin on Jesus’ innocent head has generated the new world in which the apostolic vocation, echoing the ‘servant’ promise in Isaiah 49.6, is to be a living embodiment of God’s covenant faithfulness (5.11—6.2), bringing about not only covenant renewal but the new creation, of which believers are now part (5.17). He then returns, in a wonderful rhetorical flourish, to his own life and work: suffering everything yet always rejoicing (6.3–10). Apostleship is built on the foundation of the Messiah himself.
5. Paul seeks reciprocal affections and corporate holiness (6.11—7.16)
   The third phase of Paul’s defence of his apostolic ministry (6.11—7.4) consists of deeply personal pleas, linked with an exhortation to purity. The central section (6.14—7.1) is not, as some have supposed, an interpolation, but a rehearsal of previous themes of disassociating from a corrupt world (6.14—7.1).60 Paul’s multiple scriptural echoes here insist that, in the Messiah, God has fulfilled his many promises, particularly his promises that he would bring his people back from exile. It is now time for God’s people to come home, walking in holiness before him. Paul then resumes his personal pleas by pleading his innocence and pursuing a reciprocation of his affection for the Corinthians, speaking frankly to them, but remaining joyous about them (7.2–4).

6. Paul’s call to complete the Collection (8.1—9.15)
   Paul’s ‘Collection’ for Jerusalem began with his meeting with the pillar apostles in Jerusalem, where they asked him to ‘remember the poor’.61 He now urges the Corinthians to make good on their promise to contribute (2 Cor. 8—9).62 The Macedonian churches are ready; he hopes the Corinthians will be as well. The model, after all, is that of the self-giving of Jesus himself (8.8–9). When those with plenty share with those in need, there is equality among churches (8.10–15). Paul commends Titus and an unnamed co-worker whom he sends to receive the Collection (8.16–24).

Paul has, after all, been telling the Macedonian churches that the Corinthians have been ready, and he wants them to live up to his boast (9.1–5). Generosity produces its own harvest; God will supply their needs, enriching them so that they can be more generous again (9.6–11). The Collection is a form of thanksgiving to God, leading to praise of God, and evidencing the surpassing grace they have received (9.12–15).

7. Paul versus the super-apostles (10.1—13.10)
   Paul now changes his tone again, to answer the charges that the ‘super-apostles’ have placed against him. He knows that the only boasting that counts, the only commendations that count, are those in the lord (10.12–18). Faced with the charge of being rhetorically feeble, Paul then produces one of his rhetorical masterpieces, precisely in order to say ‘I am not a rhetorician’. He pleads with the Corinthians to indulge him in ‘foolishness’, and proceeds to ‘boast’ of all the wrong things. After preliminary remarks in a bantering tone but with serious intent (11.5–15), he lists, like a senior Roman civil servant, all his civic achievements: the times he’s been beaten up, imprisoned, shipwrecked, and so forth, ending it all with his supreme achievement, running away from Damascus when the going got tough (11.16–33). He has prepared the way for this extraordinary piece of rhetoric with his earlier descriptions of suffering (4.7–15; 6.3–10), indicating perhaps that despite the change of tone, the letter has an underlying thematic unity.

This then spills over into Paul’s account of his own ‘spiritual experiences’—which turns out to be a vague allusion to something that happened a long time ago about which not much can be said except that it left Paul with a ‘thorn in the flesh’ (12.1–10). The point he learns from it all is that apostolic status does not come from heroic achievements or celestial experiences, but from sharing the weakness of the gospel itself: ‘when I am weak, then I am strong’ (12.10). That is the spirit in which he is now coming back to see the Corinthians once more, hoping that he will be able to celebrate their life rather than have to deal once more with persistent sin (12.14–21). His desire, after all, is not to tear them down but to build them up (13.1–10).

8. Letter closing (13.11–14)
   The letter ends with a plea for maturity, encouragement, unity, and peace—a fitting way to close a letter responding to the travails of a troubled and troublesome congregation.63 Paul’s final words comprise a beautiful Trinitarian benediction, now used worldwide as a standard liturgical formula: ‘May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all’ (13.11–14).

1 AND 2 CORINTHIANS AND THE BIG PICTURE
Two short reflections on Paul’s correspondence with Corinth. First, the biggest lesson may be the importance of creating a Christ-culture in our churches. Christians often simply reflect the values and behaviours in their surrounding culture. As any experienced missionary will confirm, when a tribe or ethnic group becomes Christian, the people rarely get the whole package at once. More often than not, Christianity simply becomes an add-on to their existing worldview. This can result in a confused semi-Christian worldview, or, in the worst cases, syncretism. It can take years or even a generation for their faith to transform what they believe about gender, outcasts, the spirit-world, or how to relate to old tribal enemies. Nor is this a problem for the Global South only; the western world is even worse, often assuming that its culture is in some sense ‘Christian’ and hence needing no critique, when many aspects of western culture are every bit as ‘pagan’ as that of Corinth. The Corinthian believers offer a case-study of a church struggling, and frequently failing, to be like Christ rather than like pagan Corinth; hence Paul’s repeated theme of imitation.64 His theological and pastoral exhortations are aimed at creating a different culture, one characterized by the cross, grace, love, and reconciliation. That is our task too.

Second, these letters show that Christian service takes place in a series of strange paradoxes: power in weakness, triumph in tragedy, strength in vulnerability, and death blossoming into life. Paul’s most profound summary of Christian ministry is these words:

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.65

A pastor or servant of Christ’s body is called to be a personified Passion-story, a walking and talking parable of Jesus’ death and resurrection. That is the living proof that God uses death, vulnerability, and weakness to bring about life, hope, and triumph. Christian ministry is about being outwardly battered and bruised but inwardly renewed; this is why we can rejoice with thanksgiving even amid hardship. To the world, such a life smells of death and defeat, but actually it is spreading an aroma that brings life. To the cultural elites, such people often look pathetic and defeated, but in reality they are champions of God’s kingdom. To sophistic professors, their message sounds foolish and dishonourable, but in God’s eyes they embody his wisdom and righteousness. To the political powers, they are the scum of the earth, but in God’s design they are the ones upon whom the end of ages has come, jars of clay concealing the all-surpassing power of God. How can this be, Paul himself asks. Well, he answers: ‘All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.’66

All Material within this post is quoted from “The New Testament In Its World,” by Wright and Bird, published by SPCK and Zondervan Academic Press.

The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians; By: N.T. Wright, Michael F. Bird; Zondervan / 2019