Status Updates From The First Epistle to the Co...

"...what is involved here are two opposing views as to what it means to be people of the Spirit. For the Corinthians it meant 'speaking in tongues' & having wisdom & knowledge...without a commensurate concern for truly Christian behavior. For Paul it meant...to be full of the ...Holy Spirit...to behave as those 'sanctified in Christ Jesus & called to be his holy people' (1:2)...to 'walk in love'" (698).

"Tongues are fine, he will go on to affirm, provided they are interpreted. But not everyone should speak in tongues when the church assembles for worship. That makes everyone the same, which is like a body with only one part" (689).

"'If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?' This interchange of the sense organs makes it clear that Paul's point is not the 'inferiority' of one to the other. The point is the need for all members; otherwise some function of the body would be missing" (676).

"Paul saw the Spirit as the key to everything in the Christian life. It seems mandatory that such prevail again if there is to be effective Christianity in our day. But let the one who says that not force their own brand of 'spiritual unity' on the church as simply another human machination. Our desperate need is surely for a sovereign work of the Spirit to do among us what all our "programmed unity cannot" (673).

"Indeed, the truly remarkable feature of this catalogue is the attribution to 'each one' of a whole gamut of supernatural activities in the same matter-of-fact way that contemporary church leaders would list positions on an organizational chart!" (655-6).

"All of this suggests not only that we do not have here a systematic presentation of 'Spirit gifting,' but also that there is some doubt as to whether the apostle himself had precise and identifiably different manifestations ('gifts') in mind when he wrote these words" (650).

"The presence of the Spirit in power and gifts makes it easy for God's people to think of the power and gifts as the real evidence of the Spirit's presence. Not so for Paul. The ultimate criterion of the Spirit's activity is the exaltation of Jesus as Lord, which in turn expresses itself in loving concern for others. Whatever takes away from that...begins to move away from Christ..." (645).

"But Paul had a different view of life in the Spirit. For him it did not so much remove one from present existence as enable one to live in the present simultaneously in weakness and power...Life in the present is to be conditioned by the life of the future that has already begun with Christ's death and resurrection...but that life has only begun, it is not yet consummated" (635-6).

"The very table that is God's reminder...of grace...where we affirm again who and whose we are, has been allowed to become a table of condemnation for the very people who most truly need the assurance of acceptance that this table affords...One does not have to 'get rid of the sin in one's life' in order to partake. Here by faith one may once again receive he assurance that 'Christ receiveth sinners'" (627).

"The Lord's Supper is not simply a memorial of the Last Supper...It is a constant, repeated reminder - & experience - of the efficacy of that death for us...Salvation through Christ's death has created a new community of people who bear his name. We ourselves rather miss the point of Paul's presentation if we think of the table only in terms of our own personal needs & not also in terms of the needs of others" (617).

"No 'church' can long endure as the people of God for the new era in which the old distinctions between bond and free (or Jew and Greek, or male and female) are allowed to persist. Especially so at the table, where Christ , who has made us all one, has ordained that we should visibly proclaim that unity" (603).

"...such an abuse of the 'body' is an abuse of Christ himself. The bread represents his crucified body, which, along with his poured-out blood, effected the death that ratified the New Covenant. By their abuse of other believers, the offenders were also abusing the One through whose death & resurrection they had been brought to life & formed into this new eschatological fellowship, Christ's body the church" (589).

"...the very fact that Paul argues in this way, and that even at the end he does not give a commandment, suggests that such a 'church custom,' although not thereby unimportant for the Corinthians, is not to be raised to canon law...in each culture there are surely those modes of dress that are appropriate and those that are not" (586).

"While it is true that woman is man's glory, having been created for his sake...Paul now affirms that that does not mean that woman exists for man's purposes, as though in some kind of subordinate position to his aims and will To the contrary, God has so arranged things that 'in the Lord' the once cannot exist without the other...that as believers man and woman are mutually dependent on each other" (578-9).

"...in either case, her action (1) must have been deliberate, (2) must be understood to bring shame on her 'head,' and (3) probably had inherent in it a breakdown in the distinction between the sexes. Thus Paul wants her to return to what is customary, and will so argue in what follows" (563).

"It is...difficult to understand Paul's answer unless their 'spiritualized' eschatology...involved some kind of breakdown in the distinction between the sexes...they were perhaps...already acting as those who would be 'like the angels,' among whom sexual distinctions do not exist...they were...disregarding some very customary distinctions between men & women, which would...have been regarded as disgraceful" (549-50).

"...'freedom' does not mean that one does whatever one wishes with no regard for others; nor do the limits on freedom suggested here mean that another's conscience dictates conduct. To the contrary, everything is for God's glory and for the sake of the gospel, that is, for the good of all, which from Paul's point of view means that others might be saved" (539).

"They were arguing for the right to attend pagan feasts & were trying to 'build up' others by having them attend as well. Paul says No. Not only is the latter action totally unloving...but the action itself is totally incompatible with life in Christ as it is celebrated at the Lord's Table. Thus he appeals, exhorts, & finally warns that such attendance is absolutely forbidden" (523).

"Through his death and resurrection Jesus Christ marks the turning of the ages; the old is on its way out, the new has begun...He has set the future irresistibly in motion; and the new people of God, whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free, male or female, who belong to God by grace alone, are the people of the End, 'on whom the culmination of the ages has come' and 'toward whom all history has had ts goal" (506-7).

"...the picture intended is probably...of their corpses being 'strewn all over the dessert'...all of them had experienced...Christian 'baptism' & 'Lord's supper,' yet the vast majority of them also experienced God's judgment...[Paul's] own point...just as God did not tolerate Israel's idolatry, so that of the Corinthians will not be tolerated. We deceive ourselves if we think God will tolerate ours" (497).