REKONSTRUCTION

1 Corinthians Workbook Semester 2 2001

Shaping Self and COMMUNITY in Christ

week 2 - Background to 1 Corinthians

week 3 - Introduction: Paul’s agenda

week 4 - The call for unity in the community

week 5 - The call for community discipline

week 6 - Sex and Marriage; hermeneutics and politics (7:1-40)

week 7 - Idol Hands and Idle Meet (8:1-11:1)

week 8 - Orderly Worship: the kephale passage (11:2-16)

week 9 - Instruction on the Lord’s Supper (11:17-34)

week 10 &11 - Spiritual Manifestations in Worship (12:1-14:40)

week 12&13 - The Resurrection

a. (1:1-9) Introduction - Paul greets the Corinthians and lays out the framework of his thought - Christianity is orientated to Christ’s reappearance; God’s grace is so important; and God calls us to live unified in a community.

b. (1:10-4:21) Unity in the Community - Paul outlines how essential unity is to the church and then explains how God’s wisdom - the Crucified Christ - is so alien to the world’s way of doing things. This means, ultimately, there shouldn’t be pride and divisions.

c. (7:1-14:40) Answers to questions - in the body of the letter, Paul answers the church at Corinth’s questions about three issues:

(i) (7:1-40) Sexuality, marriage and celibacy - Paul corrects various misunderstandings.

(ii) (8:1-11:1) Idol Meat - here Paul tackles the big question of how the church interacts with secular customs and what happens to old habits and old ways of doing things.

(iii) (11:2-14:40) Proper worship - Paul corrects a whole heap of things which are corrupting the way the Corinthians worship - shameful behaviour that doesn’t respect the society’s standards; the way the agape feast/ communion is conducted; and the misuse and misunderstanding of the gifts of the spirit.

d. (15:1-58) The heart of the gospel - the resurrection. Everything else the Corinthians are doing wrong goes back to this: their misunderstanding and/or rejection of the resurrection. Paul powerfully asserts how things really are with the resurrection.

e. (16:1-24) Conclusion - Paul sends concluding greetings and urges the Corinthians to give generously to the save-the-Jerusalem-church fund, which would give a chance for the Gentile Corinthian church to prove their worth to the Jewish church which had claim to primacy.

(a) Discuss Hays’ comments above.

(b) Any things you think we should keep in mind as we study 1 Corinthians?

- ‘you’ throughout the passage (and the letter) is plural (Gk: humas)

v1 - Sosthenes probably helped set up the Corinthian church; he’s mentioned in Acts 18:17.

Discussion:

1. The grace of God - ‘I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way - in all your speaking and in all your knowledge - because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you.’ (vv4-6 NIV)

(a) In Greek, grace is charis; [spirtual] gifts are charismata. They are obviously connected - spiritual gifts are the result of grace? How does grace come across in this section? Is Paul perhaps trying to stop people taking pride in what they have been given? (Ie: it’s not through their own ability that they have these things?)

2. The eschatological framework of Christian existence - ‘Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you wait eagerly for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (vv7-8 NIV)

(a) What is the ‘revealing’ of Christ? Does it have a different emphasis to the way most Christians today speak of the ‘second coming’?

(b) To what extent is your life orientated toward the revealing of Lord Jesus Christ?

(c) What will it mean to change your life toward being orientated to this?

3. God’s call to community ‘God, who has called you [PLURAL!] into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.’ (v9 - NIV)

(a) Fellowship [koinonia] can refer both to a spiritual relationship with Christ and with the community of people who are called together into that relationship. What is the connection?

(b) Can you think of an example where the two have worked together for you?

(c) To what extent are you obeying God’s call to fellowship?

HOMEWORK: read 1 Cor 1:10-4:21 so that you have an understanding of the whole section when we focus in on 1:18-25 next week.

The fundamental theme of the letter: ‘Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.’ (1 Cor 1:10)

1:10-17 Factions in the Community - Christians are gathering around individual leaders, around people that talk best, rather than being centred on the Lord Jesus Christ.

1:18-2:5 The Cross’s foolishness excludes boasting - God’s wisdom doesn’t make sense by the standards of the world’s wisdom. Victory comes in the form of a cross.

2:6-3:4 Wisdom for the mature - the Spirit reveals the hidden wisdom of the cross. We have to have our whole worldview, our plausibility structure, changed in order to understand the cross.

3:5-23 The Community and its leaders belong to God

4:1-21 Direct Confrontation with Corinthian Boasters

1. v18 talks not about those who are ‘saved’ but those who are ‘being saved’. The Greek verb has a continuing sense. Comments?

2 Vv 19-20 speak of ‘the world’s wisdom’ as ‘foolishness’. For us in a university context, this raises big questions! It could be used to justify the anti-intellectualism of fundamentalism. Let’s discuss what Paul means here and how we are to apply it by considering:

(a) Can you think of an example in your church experience that fits in with what Paul is talking about - that an individual’s sin has had a big effect on the whole community?

(b) This section is not only applicable to sexual misconduct - note verse 11. If we take the vice of greed, how would we recognise it in our church, and what would be the right disciplinary response?

Hays insists that we recognise that Paul is responding to the slogans of the Corinthians:

(a) How can we glorify God with our bodies?

[‘now concerning those matters about which you wrote...’ 7:1-15:58]

Hays (111-2) makes the following points to correct common misunderstandings about this chapter:

1. v 10 - ‘...I have a command which is not my own but the Lord’s...’

(a) Assuming we hold Scripture to hold [some sort of] authority, how are we take the advice Paul gives? Particularly, do we read this section differently from when the canonical writer claims to speak from God?

2. v 29 ‘there is not much time left’

(a) Does this verse suggest Paul thought the last day was soon?

(b) If so, was he quite simply wrong? What are the possibilities? God changing his mind?

3. v 20 ‘Everyone should remain as he was when he accepted God’s call.’

(a) Does this verse suggest that Christianity should be essentially politically and socially conservative? Consider Yoder’s alternative - a politics of ‘radical subordination’. So that Paul will claim that ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female for all are one in Christ’ (Gal 3:28) while telling slaves to remain slaves. We say what we believe are the fair and just way of doing things but we refuse to resort to the tools of the fallen world - violence and pushing yourself forward - because ‘God’s wisdom’ is the ‘foolishness of the cross’ - victory in defeat.

(a) Can Christians fit into the social world of their surrounding culture? Or must they withdraw altogether from ‘normal’ social practices that represent participation in symbolic orders foreign to the gospel? Where are the lines to be drawn between acceptable accommodation to the realities of the culture and unacceptable compromise? (Hays 143)

(b) If we have come up with some sort of theory, we now must apply it - What external alliances do we have and are they consistent with our proclamation that Christ alone is Lord?

(a) 9:19-23 - ‘I become all things to all people’ - What does this passage mean for our ministry?

(b) How do we become ‘as a...’

(i) ‘ Muslim to the Muslims’?

(ii) ‘postmodernist to the postmoderns’?

(iii) ‘rich business-person to the rich businessperson’?

(iv) ‘gay to the homosexual’?

... and, in each case, should we?

This essay is rooted in my long struggle to understand, accept and apply 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 in the light of its apparently patriarchal vision for the church. I am going to focus on the passage ecclesiologically, with the work of Richard Hays (1989; 1996; 1997) a central tool. I will start by making a compact exegesis, offering what I see as the best reconstruction of what Paul intended the church at Corinth to understand by the passage. From this exegesis, I will develop a hermeneutic for the passage to function authoritatively in the church today. I wish to develop a hermeneutical model appropriate to this passage, rather than forcing it to fit a grand overarching theory. It is my hope that this essay will answer what we can (and cannot) learn from the passage about the relationship between and nature and roles of men and women in the church. In the process of doing this, hermeneutical considerations should emerge that clarify more general issues both of scriptural authority for the church and of the relationship between text, laity, clergy and scholars - key ecclesiological issues.

Hays (1997: 182-3) begins the passage by trying to reconstruct the Corinthian query that prompted Paul’s response. He speculates that they may have written something to the effect that they are holding onto the tradition Paul passed onto them (v2) that ‘at our baptism... in Christ there is no longer any distinction between male and female [cf Gal 3:27-28]’. As a sign of this freedom, women are removing their head coverings and loosing their hair when they pray and prophesy. Some conservative members of the church have objected to this and the church is looking to Paul for vindication of these women’s faithfulness to his teaching. Paul responds by insisting - to the Corinthians’ surprise - that proper gender distinctions be maintained when men and women pray and prophesy. It is probably a contentious point and thus his ‘labored and convoluted’ argument (183). His immediate concern is ‘for the Corinthians to avoid bringing shame on the community’ (original emphasis).

This rhetorical approach is a fruitful one for understanding the passage. It puts the passage in its correct context as ‘response’, shaping our understanding of Paul’s motivation for writing. But Paul’s ‘immediate concern’ is perhaps brought out more fully by Thiselton’s subheading (2000: 800) ‘Mutuality and Reciprocity: Self Respect, Respect for the Other, and Gender Identity in Public Worship’. The context is public worship; the concern is that consideration, respect and love for all are shown. The shame is not simply external (outsiders looking in) but also internal; Thiselton draws illuminatingly on Pomeroy to argue that women’s clothing reflected most on men and hence the language about ‘glory’ and ‘source’ (802). This understanding of Greco-Roman concepts of shame and honour is important to Paul’s argument.

Yet perhaps an important corrective can be brought to bear on this too - Prior (1985: 185) discerns a theocentricism in the passage. To him, the primary issue seems to be ensuring God is properly glorified in worship by appropriate gender distinctions:

Prior’s case is a little overstated. Although Paul’s argument shows a theocentric thought-world and concern that God’s created distinctions are maintained, his predominant concern seems earthly - the ‘honour’ of: (a) the community, that it not be brought into disrepute; (b) of the men in the congregation, that the women’s behaviour did not shame them; and (c) of the women, that they were not viewed as sex objects. If we keep sight of Prior’s understanding concurrently with Thiselton’s and Hays’ we will have a well-rounded and plausible understanding of the passage.

(a) k e j a l h

The debate over the translation of k e j a l h - ‘head’ or ‘source’ is best resolved by Gundry-Volf’s proposal. Thiselton (2000: 803) summarises her argument as:

It is naive to think of Paul’s use of k e j a l h in a simple either/or of ‘authority’ or ‘source’. The term seems to be used with deliberate semiotic richness and ambiguity. It has obvious reference to a ‘physical head’ in its initial use and then in its other uses it carries overtones of both ‘leader’ and ‘source’

In the wake of the uncertainties and possible patriachalism in the passage, it is easy to overlook the clear and startling (for first century Greco-Roman society) fact that Paul does not challenge women praying or prophesying in church - indeed he assumes it occurs and insists only that it not be done in a shameful way!

What does this ‘prophecy’ involve? Is it distinguished from teaching and leadership in the church? Thiselton (2000:826) writes:

‘Prophecy’ seems to carry overtones of both teaching and authority.

1. An uncertain Paul?

Byrne (31) writes of this passage:

Rather than applying a sweeping model like ‘inspiration’, we need to take seriously the nature of the passage itself - as the next subsection also argues. We have to respect Paul’s uncertainty and opaqueness in this passage. The struggle Paul faced in treading a dialectic between culture and gospel is perhaps a key sense in which this passage should hold authority for the church.

Furthermore, the aspects of Paul’s instruction that are disputed and unclear cannot be relied on too heavily - even if we come to a ‘working answer’ or an answer we feel satisfied with, it is best to hold it with a degree of tenuousness and not to construct any elaborate theology on top of it. Thus, for example, it would be inappropriate to state firmly from this passage that there a bindingly hierarchal relationship between all men and women, even if we believe the passage seems to be saying this. We simply are not sure on such matters and they need to be clarified by both clearer passages - while recognising that canonical tensions guard against absolutist readings on some things - and by what it means to live inside the Christian story, guided by our faith Christ’s life, death and resurrection in the past and his appearance in the future.

Hays (1996: 294) writes that ‘New Testament texts must be granted authority (or not) in the mode in which they speak.’ He identifies four possible modes of appeal to Scripture as authoritative - (1) rules (2) principles (3) paradigms (4) symbolic world. 1 Cor 11:2-16 is framed as a rule governing how the Corinthians should conduct their services. The ‘rule’ of the necessity of head coverings for women and no head coverings for men is argued with the use of ‘principles’ - claims about the way the world is in terms of relationships of ‘headship’.

Paul was aiming to correct a misunderstanding about freedom in Christ that was resulting in shameful worship which failed to respect gender distinctions. We must recognise that the principles - Paul’s arguments - are in a sense incidental to Paul’s practical purposes; he was not setting out to write an ontological treatise! I suggest that his arguments may be overstated to ensure a change in praxis and that if he wrote to the church today his argument might be more ‘politically correct’ and carry less hierarchal overtones.

To fuse the two horizons of Paul’s world and ours, a ‘creative analogy’ must be used: Paul is offering us a rule whose purpose is to (a) prevent worship that brings shame on the community; (b) ensure gender distinctions are maintained and (c) - more broadly - ensure worship glorifies God alone. If we are to hear the passages as rules to us as the church, we must find analogous rules that have the same effect on our behaviour. How is shame brought on our church? How do we fail to respect gender distinctions? Is our worship glorifying God alone?

The principles are more difficult to deal with. Hays (1996: 310) insists it is impossible to separate ‘culturally specific’ passages from ‘timeless truth’. However, we must ask whether Paul is simply (a) observing gender relations - ‘in our society man is the head of a women’ - or (b) stating how gender relations should always be - ‘God’s design and will is that man is the head of a woman’.

An eschatological perspective is helpful here - we know from Gal 3:28 that in God’s ideal there is (at least in the sense of preventing us from participating in his community) ‘no longer male nor female’ and that in the afterlife it seems likely there will not be gender as we know it (Mt 22:30) - but despite this, there seems to be a consistent affirmation of some sort of headship role for men (Eph 5:22-33; Col 3:18 - 4:1; 1Ti 2:11-15). Is our eschatological perspective (and the influence of feminism) going to override this (if it exists)? What are we going to do with these principles? If we abandon them, what principles are we going to use to support the rules of orderly worship and proper gender distinctions in our church today? These questions are too big for my study; section 4 below continues to answer the more modest question of how we are to understand ‘headship’ in this passage, which is what we must do before we can decide even the contribution of this passage to the broader questions.

With a naive optimism about the purity of their own and/or their pastor’s reading of Scripture, some conservative evangelicals perpetuate their own eisegesis through believing the ‘plain sense’ of the Bible while insisting they are upholding the ‘infallible’ Protestant principle of sola scriptura. Contemporary literary theory has exposed this for the fiction it is. The assumptions and plausibility structures that allow us to make sense of the text in the first place inevitably differ from those of the author and the original readers - which makes the two thousand year hermeneutical gap even more daunting.

It is only with the tools of the historical-critical method (context and textual history) and literary criticism (genre and rhetoric) that we are able to begin to reconstruct what the original readers understood by Paul’s epistles. These are not tools the laity are able to easily wield. Possibly, two key functions of the minister are to make it easier for the laity (to the degree they are able to) wield these tools; and to wield them herself or himself in the specialised way made (hopefully) possible by a theology degree. Rather than taking Scripture away from the laity, I prefer to think of it as a rescuing of Scripture from the Enlightenment’s privatisation of faith.

The relationship between the laity, the minister and the Bible is a complex one that I am still grappling with. However, I think the beginning of a correct approach is this de-privatisation of the Bible and a placing of it in its correct context as the shaping force of the life of the church. The laity’s intuition currently used in making ‘plain sense’ of the Bible is perhaps best redirected to the making of the leaps of analogy required to make the thought-world of the Bible our thought-world. Perhaps one of the best ways to ground this is in an emphasis on living and understanding the Christian story through worship (with some sort of creed to orient the church in its narrative?) and discussion groups.

Thus, in understanding 1 Cor 11:2-16, the laity should be encouraged to think and share about the ways in which they believe their church may be failing to observe gender distinctions; honour each other; and glorify God alone in our worship. Today, the abuse of freedom in Christ is a problem in liberal churches; the problem for conservatives is the opposite one - one of failing to adequately grasp the concept of freedom in Christ and equating Christian ethics with the perpetuation of a belligerent conservatism. Perhaps in this latter case the laity is best (and most difficultly) served by the minister helping them to understand Paul’s dialectic between gospel and culture in the passage and to ask them to consider how this dialectic can be brought to bear on their attitude to women in ministry and ‘shameful conduct’.

We have already seen convincing arguments limiting the application of ‘headship’ of men over women. There are more. An important part of the Christian confession of faith is the doctrine of the Trinity. Paul’s trinitarian understanding is beyond the scope of this essay save for the comment that v4 shows a possibly subordinate trinity, especially if we take k e j a l h in an authoritative sense. Christ subjected himself to his Father’s will and he glorified God in his life, death and resurrection; perhaps this is something of the analogy we are to take to the relationship between men and women. But our doctrine of the Trinity makes it difficult to speak of ‘leadership’ of the Father over the Son. For this reason it would be wrong to speak in that way of men over women on the basis of the passage. Perhaps we can make an analogy between (a) the temporary state of Christ’s human incarnation in which he subjected himself to the Father and it was appropriate to speak of the Father as his head, and the ultimate, fulfilled state of Christ’s lordship over the universe (subordinate to no-one!); and (b) the temporary cultural state of men exercising ‘headship’ over women in Paul’s time and the fulfilled, ultimate state of men and women in the new creation in which there is equality.

Secondly, we need to approach any notion of ‘authority’ with the radical revision Christ brings to it -

Our Lord’s forceful and radical words here shape any discussion of ‘authority’ and indeed render it a highly problematic term.

Paul’s assumption that women pray and prophesy is a word to our church that women should be encouraged in ministry. To begin with, we need to endorse what Paul endorsed in his more patriarchal culture - prayer and prophecy. Prophecy seems to clearly have the overtone of sustained teaching (see exegesis); thus it seems appropriate that women should be permitted to give sermons where they have gifts of teaching. Of course, we also need to consider other passages through the epistles which indicate Paul may have found it inappropriate in some situations for women to teach men. The broader issue of whether women should be pastors will need to build on these findings. Since the New Testament churches did not have ‘pastors’ as we in the free church have them, the problem is even more complex. In doing this, we should not place more on 1 Cor 11:2-16 than it is meant to carry.

A recent film is called Say It Isn’t So. I fear that my hermeneutic makes exactly that plea to the passage - or worse, exactly that demand of the passage. I can pretend no objectivity (or the possibility of it). In developing my hermeneutic I have no doubt that I was (at least unconsciously) mustering every anti-patriarchal strategy possible against the passage. I believe I have done this in a scholarly way and with integrity; I just fear I have failed to fully allow the text speak to me and re-orient my thought-world, rather than re-orientating the text to meet the thought-world of feminism. I fear I am in some way captive to feminism - I want the Christian faith and the Bible to be feminist-friendly. I confess that if God’s message to me through the Bible was clearly that women are supposed to be subordinate to men and are not permitted to hold leadership in the church, I would still possibly reject it. Thankfully, God’s message is not clearly this. Indeed, my examination of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 has shown that this passage supports women teaching in the church. The patriarchal overtones of the passage are ambiguous and counterbalanced by their incidentality, Paul’s uncertainty, and his vision of transformation in the Lord (vv11-12). I also believe that an ecclesiocentric, specialised hermeneutic such as I have developed here is a significant step in resolving the issue of scriptural authority.

Discussion:

(1) What are the problems and possibilities the hermeneutical method described raises?

(2) Does Paul intend a timeless order in the passage and if so, is it binding?

(3) On the basis of this passage, what can we learn and change for the way we live and worship?

What are our experiences of the Lord’s Supper? What does it mean to each of us? Has anyone been particularly touched through communion or reached some insight?

2. A dining room of a villa in which the Lord’s Supper would have been held would only have room for nine people; other guests would have to stand or sit in the atrium. The higher status believers were probably invited to the table and served better food than the people in the atrium.

3. v34 ‘if you are hungry’ (NRSV/NIV) - Gk - ei tis peina - ‘If anyone hungers...’ perhaps best rendered ‘If anyone is greedy...’ (Because it would seem that Paul is telling the rich Corinthians that they must start feeding the hungry people in the church at the Lord’s Supper - not that those that are hungry should go and starve at home!)

2. What does it mean to ‘proclaim the Lord’s death’ (verse 26) through the Lord’s Supper? ie (a) why his ‘death’? (Hays: it ‘acknowledges the absence of the Lord’)

(b) how does the Lord’s Supper ‘proclaim’? (Hays: ‘an enacted parable’)

3. vv27-28 - examining yourself/ drinking worthily - Does this mean that only righteous believers can partake in the Lord’s Supper? Or is it related to the context of the wealthy leaving out the poor?

4. ‘Pastors and teachers should work patiently to enable their congregations to understand the Eucharist not just as a private act of piety focused on receiving individual forgiveness but as a coming together of the Lord’s people at a common meal.’ (Hays 204). Hays believes that as ‘the Lord’s table must first of all express the community’s unity as the new covenant people of God’ the Lord’s Supper should be challenging the affluent in North America, Europe [and Australia] to share their bread with those in need. How is the Lord’s Supper be celebrated in our various denominations and how should it be celebrated?

1. Framing the issue of spiritual manifestations - unity and complementarity in the body of Christ (12:1-31a)

(a) the Spirit empowers all Christian confession (vv1-3)

(b) Manifestations of the spirit: common aim, common source (vv4-11)

(c) Analogy of the body: diversity and interdependence (vv12-26)

(d) Application: gifts and offices in the church (vv27-31a)

2. The norm governing all spiritual manifestations - agape (12:31b-13:13)

3. Specific directions about ecstatic utterances (prophecy and tongues) (14:1-40)

In the Community of the King (1977: 80-81), Howard Snyder writes:

(a) What gift do you believe God has given you? Where does it fit into this understanding of church interaction?

(b) How, practically, should the ‘equippers’ equip in the worship service, cell groups, pastoral visits and the rest of the life of the church?

Two common misunderstandings of the chapter must be set aside in the beginning. First, Paul does not write about love in order to debunk tongues and other spiritual gifts. His point is not that love should supersede spiritual gifts but that it should govern their use in the church - as chapter 14 will clearly demonstrate. Love is not a higher and better gift; rather, it is a ‘way’ (12:31b), a manner of life within which all the gifts are to find their proper place. Second, love is not merely a feeling or an attitude; rather, "love" is the generic name for specific actions of patient and costly service to others. If we attend closely to what Paul actually says in this chapter, all sweetly sentimental notions of love will be dispelled and replaced by a rigorous vision of love that rejoices in the truth and bears all suffering in the name of Jesus Christ. Hays (222)

(a) Do you think Hays is right in interpreting agape like this in the passage?

(b) Compare Paul’s vision with you and your church. What could we do differently? What would it mean, practically, to live love ‘as a way of life’ in the coming week?

(a) v33a-36 - Do these verses seem to fit into the surrounding text? Do they fit in with Paul’s earlier assumption that women prophesy (11:3)? Could it be a post-Pauline patriarchal interpolation? If so, what does this mean for the canonical value/ use of them?

(b) v26 - How different is Paul’s vision of what a church meeting involves to our version? What are the benefits of his and ours?

(a) From 1 Cor 15, what is the Christian hope for after death?

(b) What effect (if any) does this hope have in the way we:

(i) treat our bodies?

(ii) treat our environment?

(c) Explain vv24-26. Particularly: has this reign of Christ begun yet? And what are these ‘authorities’ and ‘powers’?

(d) Think through the seed-crop analogy (Paul’s agriculture was somewhat mistaken - the seed does not die; but let us understand the seed as Paul understood it.) and thus offer an explanation of 35-49.

(e) Does v51 indicate that Paul expected Christ to appear again soon or is there some other meaning? Does it have any effect on our understanding of Scripture, revelation and history if Paul was wrong about this?

(f) Case study: Maureen’s husband, Charles, died of cancer in May this year at the age of 74. He was a devout follower of Christ and so is Maureen, but both of them are simple Christians with simple understandings. Maureen wants to know that Charles is ‘in heaven’ now. She has received a mix of vague and conflicting teachings from her friends at the Ballajura Church of Christ. As her grandson, what would you tell her?