The Scripture readings I am doing right now are all from the letters of Paul. I am reading his letters and trying to put them into the context of the story told by Luke in Acts. I am presently re-reading 1st Corinthians. Any commentary I make is in italics.
1 Cor. 14 - Prophecy is preferable to tongues for it edifies and “builds up” the church. It is best to have a unity of spiritual and intellectual gifts. The personal gift is not as good as the gift exercised for the community. Tongues are just a sign to those outside the faith, like miracles. Paul seems to say even for the unbeliever the gift of understanding is to be preferred, for the unbeliever will have his spiritual condition addressed and not come away thinking believers are crazy. It is good here too to read this passage in light of what Paul says about the cross in 1 Cor 1:18-25, which many use as a justification for anti-intellectualism in the Church. Paul says here, “[For] if I pray in a tongue, my spirit is at prayer but my mind is unproductive. So what is to be done? I will pray with the spirit, but I will also pray with the mind. I will sing praise with the spirit, but I will also sing praise with the mind. . I give thanks to God that I speak in tongues more than any of you, but in the church I would rather speak five words with my mind, so as to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue” (14-19).
Paul’s concern is that those who come into the Church will encounter there a testimony that can bring him to God. The kind of service Paul describes in this chapter is interesting to think about. He imagines that a person coming in would see one person reading a psalm, another giving an instruction, revelation or a speaking and interpreting of tongues, prophets speaking—two or three at a meeting. The way he describes it, it sounds more or less like a Quaker Meeting. Would that Friends really saw themselves as exercising this gift of prophesy. The admonition about women not being free to speak in the church is very hard to deal with. I think Fox clearly saw that the Church in Christ should be a place where the “redeemed” should gather without the burdens of “the fall.” I still love Paul. He is amazing in this letter.
1 Cor. 15 – Paul repeats to them the very heart of the gospel teaching, which he “received” and which he passed on the them: that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared to Kephas, then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers on once. . After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me” (3-8).
Christ’s dying must be seen in the context of the scriptures—of the scripture redemption narrative. [The NAB note refers us to the following OT texts specifically: Psalms 2:7 and 16:8-11; Is 52:13-53; Hosea 6:2 and the OT references made in Acts 2:27-31; 13:29-39)]
• Ps. 2:7 – The Lord speaking: “I myself have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain,” I will proclaim the decree of the Lord who said to me, “you are my son; today I am your father. Only ask it of me, and I will make your inheritance the nations, your possession the ends of the earth. With an iron rod you shall shepherd them, like a clay pot you will shatter them”.
• Ps. 16:10 - For you will not abandon me to Sheol, nor let your faithful servant see the pit. You will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever.
• Is. 52:13 – See, my servant shall prosper, he shall be raised high and greatly exalted. Even as many were amazed at him—so marred was his look beyond that of man, and appearance beyond that of mortals. . .He grow up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. . .Yet is was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured. . .”
• Hosea 6:2 - He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence. Let us know, let us strive to know the Lord; as certain as the dawn is his coming, and his judgment shines forth like the light of day! He will come to us like the rain like spring rain that waters the earth.”
• [Acts] Ps. 27:13 – “I believe I shall enjoy the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living.”
The disputed points of this gospel Paul addresses are 1) resurrection of the dead, which Paul argues must be general and applicable to all if it is to be applied to Christ (13-16). If there is no resurrection, then Paul says their “faith. . .is empty” (14); they are still in their sins (17). This seems to put a lid on an exclusively “realized” eschatology. But Christ has been raised. Paul gives an archetypal argument, comparing Christ to Adam: “For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life. Paul’s vision of the end times is that Christ will come (23), the end will come and reign “until he has put all his enemies under his feet,” destroying every sovereignty and power death included. Then Christ will hand over his kingdom to His father.
Paul goes into a great deal of detail, trying to make sense to his readers of the thing called “resurrection of the dead.” Having assured them of its centrality, he now tries to find a way of making it sound reasonable: he argues that death is always necessary for birth. Things must be sown in the ground before they can come forth in new life. He argues that there are different kinds of flesh, and the kind we will have may be very different from the kind we now have (39). The seed of this new life is the corruptible flesh we now inhabit, but it can be changed from being “natural” to being “spiritual.” His belief that the end will come very soon, even before the end of his own generation, comes out here (51), and death will be “swallowed up in victory” (54-55). It is only faith that gives us the “knowledge” that the work we do now for the gospel will not be “in vain” (58).
I can relate to the idea that the bodies we live in now might be a kind of seed for the springing forth of some kind of existence that we cannot imagine, an existence that will even be bodily—just as any seed thrown into the ground may issue forth in a kind of new life that looks nothing like the seed from which it came; but the limitations of my own experience, the limits imposed by my senses and my imagination, make me wonder if we might have it really all wrong—that maybe our continued existence will only be real to the extent we retain a vision of our interconnected lives, our unity with all people—past, present and future. What we are and do today, in our lives, could make the human life that comes forth in the future far different and better than it could be if we live only for ourselves. But that is all so this-worldly, that sometimes I wonder if that is what Christ meant; or maybe all I am supposed to do is be obedient and not worry about what I cannot understand. It is more likely that.
1 Cor. 16 – The collections for the church in Jerusalem should go on weekly. He tells them he plans to come after he passes through Macedonia and is thinking of staying the winter with them to sort out some of the problems he has addressed He plans to stay in Ephesus until Pentecost because his work there is very productive. Timothy is traveling and might come. Apollos was asked to go to them, but cannot. He urges them to do everything they do in love.
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