The Certainty of the Resurrection (1 Cor 15:12-34)

• ** How does what you believe about the future affect how you behave in the present (1 Cor 15:33-34; 2 Pet 2:2-3)?
• Why did Paul recite the kerygma/the gospel (1 Cor 15:3-4, 12)?
• What are the awful consequences and ramifications of denying the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:13-19)?
• What is the immediate logical consequence for Christ--if there's no resurrection (1 Cor 15:13, 16)?
• For Paul and his preaching of the gospel--if there's no resurrection (1 Cor 15:14a, 15, 19)?
• For them--if there's no resurrection (1 Cor 15:14b, 17-18)? Why does this make a Christian's faith futile (1 Cor 15:17-18)? What does Christ's resurrection have to do with your sins (1 Cor 15:17b)?
• If Christ was not raised, why would this make Christians the most pitiful of all people (1 Cor 15:19, 30-32)?

• Will those who have died as Christians perish (1 Cor 15:18, 20a, 5-8; Jn 20:14, 19-22; Lk 24:15, 31-32; Mt 28:9, 17; Mk 16:9ff)? Is the "firstfruits" (1 Cor 15:20b) a guarantee of the full harvest (1 Cor 15:23)?
• How does Paul contrast Adam and Christ (1 Cor 15:21-22)? Why do we all die in Adam and made alive in Christ (Rom 5:12, 17, 19; 6:23)?
• How would you know that you belong to Christ (1 Cor 15:23)?
• When is the end, what is the end and what happens at the end (1 Cor 15:24-26)?
• What is the kingdom Christ hands over to the Father (1 Cor 15:24a)?
• What are the dominions, authorities and powers that will be destroyed (1 Cor 15:24b)?
• How is this political and a political challenge (Mt 6:10; Lk 11:2)?
• Why is death the last enemy that must be destroyed (1 Cor 15:26; Heb 2:14-15)?
• What is a church practice of theirs that doesn't make sense if there is no resurrection (1 Cor 15:29)?
• What does the truth of the resurrection motivate Paul to do (1 Cor 15:30-32a)?
• Is a hedonistic life the logical alternative if the dead are not raised (1 Cor 15:32b; Isa 22:13)? What's so terrible about eating and drinking (Mt 24:38; Lk 17:27)?
• What/who is bad/evil company (1 Cor 15:33)? What's so bad/evil about denying the resurrection? Why do they need to sober/wake up (1 Cor 15:34a)? How might they be "ignorant of God" (1 Cor 15:34b; 1:19; 8:1; 3:1 [sophia 17x, gnosis 10x, pneumatikos 14x])? Why is their ignorance a shameful destructive bad influence (1 Cor 6:9; 10:14)?

The Resurrection of the Dead is Certain (15:12-20). The Defeat of Death (15:21-28, 29-34)--the last enemy to be destroyed. By appealing to logic, Paul explains the logical consequences, and the illogical nature of their position (1 Cor 15:12).

• Denial of the resurrection negates the gospel (15:12-19). What if Christ has NOT been raised? The consequences of no resurrection from the dead. The absurdity of their position.
• But Christ HAS been raised; so all who belong to him will be raised (15:20-28). The centrality of the resurrection in God's program. The splendor of Paul's position.
• Otherwise, hope, suffering and faithfulness are pointless (15:29-34). Ad hominem arguments for resurrection. Christian life is made purposeful because of the resurrection. The absurdity of both his and their position.

Consider what you believe about the future and how you behave in the present. Those who put their hope in Christ live in the world as people whose confidence in the final vindication of Christ through our own resurrection determines how they live day to day (1 Cor 7:29-31). If you slip at this key point, it relaxes your attitude toward Christian ethics.

• What do people see when they look at you?
• Do they see in you a confidence of your guaranteed glorious future in Christ in a life where sin and death have no place at all? That Christ has freed and delivered you from the bodage of sin and death?

Denial of resurrection of the dead negates the gospel (15:12–19). Why did Paul recitate the kerygma (1 Cor 15:3-5)? "Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?" (1 Cor 15:12) "Proclaimed" is the same word used to sum up the content of the gospel that had been preached to them: "so we proclaim and so you have come to believe" (1 Cor 15:11). Thus, 1 Cor 15:12 proclaims the content of the preached gospel, focusing on Christ's resurrection, and then indignantly/bluntly confronts them with their illogical disbelief.

"There's no resurrection of the dead," say some. Who were they, and why were they doing so? There's not much info about the deniers. What inferences can we make? Nowhere in this ch. does Paul suggest that they think the resurrection has already occurred. Rather, Paul aims at affirming a resurrection of the body against those who find this unpalatable. This was an ongoing controversy in the early church. Justin Martyr, the great 2nd-century apologist in his debate with Trypho the Jew, is fiercely polemical and acknowledges that there're "some who are called Christians who say that there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven." Against such "godless, impious heretics," Justin states: "Do not imagine that they are Christians." These 2nd-century Christians against whom Justin railed were repeating what Paul combated a century earlier. [The position rejected by Paul and Justin as heretical has become popular among most churchgoers.] Justin continues, "I and others, who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead [sarkos anastasin, literally, resurrection of the flesh]."

The most skeptical about anastasis nekron ("the rising of corpses") were those with greater culture and knowledge of enough philosophy to distance themselves from Paul's apocalyptic/eschatological worldview, whom they view as an unsophisticated, literalist Jewish preacher. Like many thinkers in the ancient Mediterranean world, they may desire escape of the rational soul from the body--a dark and corrupt tomb from which the enlightened seeks release. Plutarch insists that only the soul can attain to the realm of the gods, through freeing itself from the senses and becoming "pure, fleshless, and undefiled" (Romulus 28.6). With such refined philosophical thought--the "wise"--say something like: "The resurrection of Jesus is a wonderful metaphor for the spiritual change that God works in the lives of those with knowledge of the truth. 'Resurrection' symbolizes the power of the Spirit that we experience in our wisdom and our spiritual gifts. But the image of resuscitated corpses (anastasis nekron) is only for childish fundamentalists. Those of us who are spiritual find it repugnant."

Outrage and astonishment is Paul's response to their refined skepticism, for it denies in principle the heart of the gospel: "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised" (1 Cor 15:13). Jesus' resurrection is not an illustrative fable, but a real event, a bodily resurrection. "Christ" is not a symbol of abstract theological truths. Those who deny that God has the power to raise the dead contradict the gospel, and it's illogical to continue speaking in the name of Christ.

Disastrous consequences follow (15:14-18) "if Christ has not been raised" (1 Cor 15:14), for the whole foundation of Christian faith has been removed. Paul builds a rhetorically devastating cumulative picture of the logical entailments of denying the resurrection (15:14-18). The major points "If Christ has not been raised":

• Our proclamation (kerygma) is in vain (1 Cor 15:14)
• Result: We are false witnesses about God (1 Cor 15:15)
• Your faith is in vain (1 Cor 15:14) and futile (1 Cor 15:17)
• Result: You are still in your sins (1 Cor 15:17)
• Those who have died in Christ are lost (1 Cor 15:18)

Repeating the vanity and futility of Christian talk apart from the reality of the resurrection is striking (1 Cor 15:2, 10, 32b, 58). Christian discourse is airy nonsense if it's not anchored in the truth of the resurrection of Jesus. Christian preaching is a system of delusions, offering nothing but lies and empty gestures. The gospel has no power to save us if Christ is not raised, and therefore they're still lost in their sins, their hope of reconciliation with God based on futile human fantasy.

God is still real and still judges human sin. They—precisely as Gentiles alienated from Israel's God—are left with no hope, standing under the threat of God's final verdict. Only the resurrection of Jesus offers a real possibility of their transformation into a new life with God in which their sin is forgiven and overcome. Thus, this paragraph is a glimpse into the plight of Gentiles apart from the death and resurrection of Jesus: they are aptly summarized as, "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph 2:12). If we run the film backward and edit out the resurrection of Jesus, that hopeless situation still prevails.

To the believers who've already died (literally "fallen asleep"): If Christ has not been raised, then they are "utterly lost" (NEB, 1 Cor 15:18). They're destroyed by death and consigned to eternal oblivion. Paul addresses this pastoral problem in 1 Th 4:13–18 by assuring the Thessalonians that those who are left alive until the coming of the Lord will not be separated from those who have "fallen asleep," for the dead will be raised first and the dead and living together will meet the Lord at his return. Here in 1 Cor, Paul's pastoral objective is different: he's not trying to reassure believers who have anxiety over the ultimate fate of their loved ones, but inducing some anxiety among them about this point! Consider the full consequences of denying the resurrection of the dead: those who have gone to their graves hoping in Christ are simply gone!

The horrifying chilling conclusion: "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Cor 15:19). The translation of this sentence is difficult because of the position of the word "only" in Gk. A literal translation reads, "If in this life in Christ we have only hoped…." Most interpreters agree that "only" should modify "this life" (as in NRSV, NIV, NEB, JB) rather than the verb "hoped." Or, the meaning could be, "If, during this life in Christ, we have only hoped [but hoped in vain, since there is no resurrection], we are of all people most to be pitied." Either way, the sense is much the same.

On the surface, the thought expressed is similar to a prayer in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (a Jewish text from the late 1st or early 2nd century (C.E.) laments the necessity of decay and death: "For if only this life exists, which everyone possesses here, nothing could be more bitter than this." The point is different from Paul's. Baruch says that death casts a pall over everything in life, because of the transience of all human strength and beauty. [His prayer is answered by a subsequent divine revelation that death is a necessary part of God's plan for the world and promising an ultimate divine salvation for the righteous.) Paul isn't speaking about human mortality, but says that Christians in particular should be most pitied if there's no resurrection. Why? If Christ is not raised, does that not simply put us back in the same condition with everyone else in the world? 2 good answers to this question.

1. If Christ hasn't been raised, we Christians mock ourselves with falsehood. We preach an illusion. We offer for the world's ills a pious lie that veils from ourselves the terrifying truth that we are powerless and alone. 
2. Christians are called to a life of "embracing death," suffering through selfless service of others (1 Cor 10:33–11:1), not seeking our own advantage or pleasure. If there's no resurrection, such self-denying life makes no sense; those following Jesus' and Paul's example are missing out on life's rewards (1 Cor 15:32b).

Is Christian faith only a promise of "pie in the sky" with no value for the present life? Of course not! Paul and NT writers, believe that life in Christ is one of great joy and peace and consolation in the present (Rom 5:1–5; 8:1–11; Gal 5:22–23; Phil 4:4–7)—though he says little about this in 1 Cor. His point here is that the complex and fulfilling life of the Christian community has integrity only if it is premised on the truth and ordered towards the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises. If the telos (goal) of our life together in Christ is not true, then we're living in an unhealthy self-deception—as Christianity's critics, ancient and modern, have charged. There's no authentic Christian faith without fervent eschatological hope, and there's no authentic eschatological hope without the resurrection of the dead.

Because Christ has been raised, all who belong to him will be raised (15:20–28). In fact, all the "if" clauses (15:12–19) are not true, as Paul moves from illusion to reality: "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead" (1 Cor 15:20a)--a triumphant declaration resuming the glad story in 15:3–8 and sweeps away all the gloomy hypothetical consequences that follow from denying the resurrection.

The risen Christ is "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor 15:20b) is an aspect of Christ's resurrection not explicit in the traditional kerygmatic formula (15:3b-5). Jesus' resurrection is not just a wondrous event, but the beginning of a much greater harvest. This is the crucial point that some fail to understand: they didn't see a direct connection between Christ's resurrection and their own future fate. Could the early Christian movement possibly not understand this? 1 Cor 15 and 1 Th 4:13–18 shows that Paul had to explain it repeatedly to his Gentile churches. Paul's epistles in general shows that a major task of ministry is to teach the basics of the faith again and again! Is it any different today? Didn't he articulate this fully enough while he was with them, because it was so obvious to him?

Just 1 man raised? For 1 man alone to be raised is a great surprise in the Jewish apocalyptic framework. In the Judaism of Paul's day there's no thought that the Messiah would be killed and rise from the dead. Instead, it was expected that a great general resurrection would accompany God's judgment of the world; the resurrection of the dead can't just happen to 1 person only. But early Christians, Paul among them [in Jewish apocalyptic categories], took the resurrection of Jesus as a sign that the end of the age was breaking in. If Christ is raised, then the resurrection of others must follow in due course. The metaphor of "first fruits" anticipates that the great harvest of the general resurrection is at hand.

Paul turns from metaphor to typology to make the same point (1 Cor 15:21-22). The consequences of Christ's rising correspond (antithetically) to the consequences of Adam's sin, which brought death upon all humanity (1 Cor 15:21a). The impact of Jesus' death and resurrection is equally sweeping: "for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ" (1 Cor 15:22, 45–49; Rom 5:12–21). A powerful chorus in Handel's Messiah based on this passage (1 Cor 15:20-22, 51-57) compactly narrates the great reversal of the gospel, that our ultimate destiny is transformed from death to life through Christ's resurrection. This 1st reference to Adam in 1 Cor shows that Paul expects them to know Gen 1–3, which he likely taught them during his time in Corinth. This illustrates Israel's Scripture defining the symbolic world within which Paul thinks (1 Cor 5:6–8; 10:1–22). Paul's point: the resurrection of Christ breaks the power of death prevailing over all human beings since Adam (Rom 5:12).

Does this mean universal salvation of all human beings through Christ's resurrection, as "all will be made alive" (1 Cor 15:22b) might suggest? Many of Paul's other statements make it difficult to suppose that he held such a view (1 Cor 1:18; 2:6; 3:17; 4:5; 6:9–10). Indeed, the unqualified "all" (1 Cor 15:22) is specified in the sentence immediately following: it is "those who belong to Christ" who will be raised at the time of his coming (1 Cor 15:23). Paul believes firmly in election—another characteristic doctrine of Jewish apocalyptic—and he is concerned in the present passage only about the way in which Christ's resurrection prefigures the fate of hoi tou Christou, "those who are Christ's people." He says nothing one way or the other in this passage about the resurrection and judgment of unbelievers.

The resurrection of our bodies is an eschatological hope. "But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming [parousia] those who belong to Christ" (1 Cor 15:23). Paul so carefully delineates the sequence of these events in time. This is the 1 sentence in the ch. that supports the view that some of them were prematurely claiming to be enjoying the life of the resurrection. Paul situates the church's present life in the interval between Christ's resurrection and parousia and insists that our resurrection must await his coming. They could have "overrealized eschatology." But Paul is concerned to tell the story rightly and to correct a possible misreading of what he'd just said (1 Cor 15:20–22). The resurrection of the dead will occur at the time of Christ's parousia, not sooner. 

God assaults and defeats Death this way: Christ comes 1st, then, 2nd, those who belong to him. The term tagma ("order, rank" (1 Cor 15:23)—usually used of a unit of soldiers) is a military metaphor dominating 15:23–28. Death is an "enemy" to be subdued by Christ (1 Cor 15:26) as he destroys all the enemies of God and takes control of everything in creation. The final defeat of Death at the general resurrection will constitute the collapse of all resistance to Christ's power and bring us to "the end [to telos], when he hands over the kingdom of God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power" (1 Cor 15:24). Christ's triumph over the powers of this world [verb katargein--"destroyed" (1 Cor 15:24, 26) appears in a similar eschatological sense (1 Cor 15:1:28 and 2:6)], but here Paul spells out the story in full.

"Rule" [arch], "authority" [exousia], "power" [dynamis] (1 Cor 15:24) are cosmic forces opposing God (Rom 8:38; Col 1:16, 2:10–15; Eph 1:21; 3:10; 6:12), but they have political implications. Christ is Lord, the kingdom ultimately belonging to God the Father is a frontal challenge to imperial Rome (Witherington). In Corinth, a Roman colony, people see statues and temples dedicated to Roman rulers. So Paul summons them to a conversion of the imagination, seeing the world as standing ultimately under the authority of another who will overturn the arrangements of power that now exist. Resurrection of the dead is a subversive belief, because it declares that God alone is sovereign over the created world.

The ultimate victory of Christ over death is confirmed by Scripture (1 Cor 15:25, 27; Ps 110:1; 8:7), that all things will be put under the feet of Christ. Paul uses these OT texts allusively—with no explanation or justification given for relating them to Christ. Thus, the Christian conviction is that Psalms are to be read christologically (Mk 12:35–37 and parallels; Heb 1:13; 2:5–9). This is probably what Paul means when he says that the resurrection of Jesus is "in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Cor 15:4). For some reason, most English translations treat the reference to Ps 8 (1 Cor 15:27) as a quotation, but not the reference to Ps 110 (1 Cor 15:25). [...except JB, which correctly treats both as quotations.]

Christ reigns until he subdues every adversary is a divinely decreed necessity (dei, 1 Cor 15:25), which Scripture bears witness to. "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Cor 15:26) is Paul's interpretation of Ps 110:1, explaining that death is included among the enemies. Death personified (1 Cor 15:54–55) characterizes Paul's understanding of salvation as a great narrative drama in which the protagonist Christ delivers God's people from bondage to Sin and Death through his obedience in going to death on a cross (Rom 5:12–21; Phil 2:5–11). Interpreting Death as one defeated eschatological enemy is justified by appeal to Ps 8:6, that God has put all things (including death) under Christ's feet. Thus, these Psalm texts prove that Christ finally overcomes death.

"All things" of course doesn't include God [a fascinating tangential remark], for Christ will at the end "be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all" (1 Cor 15:27–28). Is Paul operating with what would later be called a subordinationist christology? The doctrine of the Trinity was not formulated in Paul's day, and his reasoning is based solely on the scriptural texts themselves, read in light of his Jewish monotheistic convictions and his conviction that Jesus is proclaimed as "Lord" by virtue of his resurrection (Rom 1:4).

Death and resurrection in eschatological perspective, declaring Christ's victory over death as assured and that this necessarily entails the future resurrection of all who belong to him (15:20-28). These affirmations are a powerful reply to those who say there is no resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:12).

Hope, suffering and faithfulness are pointless (15:29–34) if the dead are not raised. Paul returns to the argumentative strategy of 15:12–19 to show that denying the resurrection of the dead undermines the meaningfulness and integrity of the church's life. In 15:12–19 the dire consequences of denying the resurrection were in general terms. In 15:29–34, Paul notes specific practices that make no sense in a resurrectionless world (15:29–32a) and concludes by warning them that their abandonment of belief in the resurrection has led the community into sin (15:32b-34).

The specific examples with rhetorical questions that allude to matters well known to them but opaque to us. Don't get bogged down in speculation to explain these obscure references. Instead, use analogous contemporary examples our churches that make no sense if the dead are not raised. For eg., "If the dead are not raised, why do we sacrifice our time and resources in running a soup kitchen for the homeless?" Paul's examples are baptism on behalf of the dead (1 Cor 15:29) and the danger and suffering of his own apostolic labors (1 Cor 15:30–32a).

Vicarious baptism for the dead is not otherwise known in 1st-century Christianity. This seems superstitious and objectionable that it's hard to believe that Paul didn't object to it. Some performed baptisms on behalf of others who died (family members?). Is this their high view of baptism, akin to Paul's cautionary words about its limitations (1 Cor 1:14–17; 10:1–13)? Paul certainly doesn't have a "magical" view of baptism. Yet he apparently sanctions this by pointing out that it's unintelligible unless there's a resurrection. This serves as another evidence that Pauline soteriology is far less individualistic than Christians after the Reformation have supposed. Also, he believes that the community can act on behalf of those who are not able to act on their own behalf. Cf. the actions of Judas Maccabeus to atone for the sins of his slain soldiers: "He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of 2,000 drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin." [2 Macc 12:43–45].

This shows that some Jews of Paul's era held beliefs that might have made baptism for the dead an intelligible practice. But Paul neither cites this nor commends vicarious baptism in 1 Cor 15:29; he merely points out that it's contradictory for the church to practice it while at the same time denying the resurrection.

Paul repeatedly puts his own life and health at risk to proclaim the gospel (1 Cor 15:30-32; 4:11–13; 2 Cor 4:8–12; 6:3–10; 11:23–33). But if there's no resurrection, why bother (1 Cor 15:14–15, 19)? Fighting wild animals at Ephesus (1 Cor 15:32) is a metaphor for contending with opposition. That Paul encounters "many adversaries" to his missionary work in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8–9) is a more literal statement about the same events (2 Cor 1:8–11; Ac 19:2341). The metaphor of fighting wild beasts is found also in Ignatius of Antioch, almost certainly echoing Paul: "From Syria to Rome I am fighting with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and day, bound to ten 'leopards'—that is, a company of soldiers" (Ignatius, To the Romans 5:1). [The word "company" of soldiers tagma is the same in 1 Cor. 15:23; nicely illustrating its normal use in a military context.]

Paul's apostolic labor is how one should live in light of the promise of resurrection, so their behavior is the opposite (1 Cor 15:32b). Their skepticism led them to act like the frenzied inhabitants of Jerusalem who faced siege and annihilation at the hands of the Assyrians (Isa 22:12–14). Instead of repenting and weeping, they "partied like there was no tomorrow." "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (Isa 22:13) well characterizes these resurrection-denying "Christians," whose misbehavior has much to do with eating and drinking (1 Cor 10:21–22; 11:20–22). They didn't justify or connect eating idol meat and gorging themselves at the Lord's Supper with their denial of resurrection, but Paul suggests a hidden inner connection.

Evil companions/conversations corrupt (1 Cor 15:33-34). Why does Paul suddenly quote a Greek proverbial saying taken from a lost play of Menander: "Bad company ruins good morals"? The link with 1 Cor 15:33–34 is at first sight obscure. "The abrupt interjection of the saying in Paul's argument may indicate that he believes the Corinthians' skepticism to be due to influences from other sources—in fact to persons who have only 'ignorance of God'—a designation often used by Jews to refer to Gentiles. All this suggests that Paul attributes the Corinthians' doubts to Greek philosophy, especially, perhaps, the skepticism of Epicureanism" (Dale Martin, Corinthian Body). The concluding reproach, "I say this to your shame" (1 Cor 15:34b) repeats almost verbatim an earlier scolding (1 Cor 6:5) for their taking legal disputes before pagan judges. Rather than correcting the "ignorance of God" of their pagan neighbors, the "knowing" Christians are tailoring their faith to the intellectual standards of pagan philosophy, with the result that they are surrendering the heart of the gospel and being drawn into idolatrous and immoral behavior. This is the fate of those who "demythologize" the gospel, from Paul's day to ours. To those who want to demythologize the resurrection, Paul has only a stern word of admonition: "Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more" (1 Cor 15:34a). To proclaim Christ's resurrection is to enter a world made new by God and therefore to lead a transformed life, even in the present age.

Reference:

1. Richard B. Hays. First Corinthians. Interpretation. A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. 1997.
2. Gordon D. Fee. First Corinthians. The New International Commentary on the NT. 1987, 2014.
   
3. Richard B. Hays. The Moral Vision of the N.T. A Contemporary Introduction to N.T. Ethics. 1996.

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The Gospel is of First Importance (1 Cor 15:1-5)

1. The gospel is of first importance (15:1-5).
2. The risen Jesus appeared to many (15:6-11).

The gospel--which is of first importance--must be kept as of first importance--i.e. the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection (1 Cor 15:3-4). We Christians "know" that the gospel is important. But what moves us emotionally? Is it something else--a good thing associated with or in corollary with the gospel, such as good works or charitable acts of service. UBF's emphasis is "live a life of mission through [1:1] Bible study" extrapolated from many many different verses (Gen 1:28; Isa 6:8; Mt 28:19; Lk 9:23; Jn 21:15; Ac 1:8; 1 Cor 15:58, 2 Tim 2:15; 4:2; Rev 2:4, 10b; etc). "Feeding sheep 1:1" was my mission, my mantra and my motivation for the first 3 decades of my Christian life and formation since 1980. But living a life of mission--which is very good--is NOT the gospel; it's a wonderful directive for our Christian life, but it cannot save anyone--not myself or others--for only the gospel of Christ's death and resurrection saves--that which is of first importance!

• Christ's resurrection is the ultimate eschatological event; it is central to everything.
• There's an element of mystery to the concept of a "spiritual body" (1 Cor 15:44).
• By raising Christ from the dead God set in motion the final overthrow of death itself (1 Cor 15:26).
• Hence the inevitable fact (15:12-28) and nature (15:35-49) of our own [bodily] resurrection.
• 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the great theological treasures of the Christian church.

Denying bodily resurrection (1 Cor 15:12) is the main issue: "Given that you believed in the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor 15:1,2,11), how is it that some are denying the future bodily resurrection of believers (1 Cor 15:12)?" The issue, as before, is between Paul and them [some--who've influenced the many]. Paul responds in 3 parts:

1. Christ was raised from the dead (15:1-11) to reestablish commonly held ground by emphasizing objective reality of both Christ's death and bodily resurrection. He repeats 2 recent themes (1 Cor 14:33, 36-38) that
1. this is the common ground of all who believe in and preach Christ (1 Cor 15:3-5), and
2. his own apostolic ministry is the source of their life in Christ (1 Cor 15:1-2, 11).
2. Their 2 absurd contradictory positions (15:12-34): belief in Christ's resurrection and denial of their own (1 Cor 15:12). 3 parts revolving around a hypothetical allowance of their position: What if the dead are not raised?
1. It'd mean that Christ was not raised (15:12-19), and if so, then everything is false. They cease to exist as Christians, as both their past and future are predicated on what they now deny.
   
2. He takes up the reverse position (15:20-28). Since Christ HAS been raised from the dead, so will believers (15:20-23). Christ's resurrection is the 1stfruits of the full harvest (1 Cor 15:23), having defeated death itself (1 Cor 15:26), a defeat that the very nature of God demands be brought to consummation.
3. He picks up their position again (1 Cor 15:29) showing how absurd his (1 Cor 15:29-32) and their present activities are if they're right (15:29). All this together argues for the inevitability of a resurrection of believers from the dead.
3. In what form the dead are raised (1 Cor 15:35), not by what power. Answer? Bodily, but in a body adapted to the new conditions of the future. There is both continuity and discontinuity. The present body is earthly, "natural," subject to decay; the raised body is heavenly, "spiritual," and incorruptible (1 Cor 15:42-44). The result is a glorious resurrection-transformation of the dead and the living where the final enemy, death, is swallowed up in victory (1 Cor 15:55-57). Based on Paul's argument (15:35-58) they objected to the raising of corpses--a horribly grotesque idea (1 Cor 15:12, 35). Their conflict with Paul is what it means to be pneumatikos (a Spirit person). Because they received the Spirit, especially the gift of tongues, they had thus already entered true "spirituality" (1 Cor 4:8) and already began an angelic existence (1 Cor 13:1), where the body was unnecessary and unwanted, and finally be discarded altogether. For them, life in the Spirit meant a final ridding oneself of the body (1 Cor 6:13), not because it was evil but because it was inferior and beneath them. So the body being raised would be anathema. They likely also saw the sacraments as the magical way of securing their new existence, which explains why some were being baptized for the dead (1 Cor 15:29)--not because they expected the dead to be raised but because they saw in it a way of offering similar spiritual existence to the departed.

The Resurrection of Believers (15:1-58). The Resurrection of the Body. Paul isn't setting out to prove the resurrection, but he's reasserting the commonly held ground from which he will argue against their assertion that there is no resurrection (1 Cor 15:12). The broad structure/outline:  

1. The Evidence for the Resurrection (15:1-11). Proclaim [kerygma] the Gospel -- the Resurrection of Christ (15:1-11).
2. The Certainty of the Resurrection (15:12-34).
• Denial of the resurrection negates the gospel (15:12-19). What if Christ has NOT been raised? The consequences of no resurrection from the dead.
• But Christ HAS been raised; so all who belong to him will be raised (15:20-28). The centrality of the resurrection in God's program.
• Otherwise, hope, suffering and faithfulness are pointless (15:29-34). Ad hominem arguments for resurrection. Christian life is made purposeful because of the resurrection.
3. The Majesty of the Resurrection Body (15:35-49). Resurrection means transformation of the body.
• What kind of body is the resurrection body? Analogies of seeds and "bodies" (15:35-44). Analogy of Adam and Christ (15:45-49)
4. The Assurance of Triumph (15:50-58). Both the dead and the living will be transformed. The miraculous change resulting in the resurrection of the dead. Therefore, our labor is not in vain (1 Cor 15:58).

The Resurrection of the Body (15:1–58) is the 4th and last contested issue that Paul addresses. It's not to correct aberrant behavior, differing from the 3 previous issues (sex in marriage, idol meat, community worship), but to correct their beliefs about the resurrection, which have behavioral consequences (1 Cor 15:32–34, 58). Their many moral failings are surface symptoms of misunderstanding the very heart of the gospel: the death and resurrection of Christ. To deny the resurrection of the dead is to abandon the most fundamental conviction of the Christian faith, and to believe "in vain" (1 Cor 15:2).

The content of the gospel. Paul saves the weightiest matter for last—like any good teacher. Coming at the end of Paul's long letter, it anchors the whole. Those who say there's no resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:12) triggers Paul's response. How could they who only recently converted from paganism by Paul's preaching of the crucified and risen Lord have turned so quickly to denying the resurrection?

Bodily resurrection. An "overrealized eschatology" is hypothesized by scholars: They weren't denying the resurrection, but claim to have already attained it, like Hymenaeus and Philetus, who "swerved from the truth by claiming that the resurrection has already taken place" (2 Tim 2:17–18). But ch. 15 doesn't support it. What they objected to was not the future aspect of the resurrection but that it'd be a bodily resurrection. So Paul counters their objections of an embodied resurrection (1 Cor 15:35-37).

They thought of themselves as hyper spiritual Christians (pneumatikoi), rich in every spiritual gift [as seen throughout the letter], and not as debunkers of the gospel. They were so spiritual that the notion of a resurrection body was gross, crass, unrefined, embarrassing. "Resurrection of the dead" means literally "rising of the corpses." For the spiritually refined, this wasn't Christian hope, but a horror story. This'd be particularly true for those with greater education and philosophical sophistication—the higher-status church members infatuated with wisdom, knowledge, and tongues. They create the problems with which Paul wrestles throughout the letter. Paul's future "resurrection of the dead bodies" sounds foolish and grotesque.

Some claim a higher gnosis, a more sophisticated theological understanding of the world, and identify salvation with escape from the physical world and hold the body in contempt. They try to transcend their sexuality by renouncing sexual relations within their marriages, and say, "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other" (1 Cor 6:13a). Paul's response is that, on the contrary, "The body is meant … for the Lord and the Lord for the body; and God raised the Lord and will raise us by his power" (1 Cor 6:13b-14). Now, Paul addresses the issue of resurrection head on.

The fundamental logic of Christianity demands belief in the resurrection of the dead; therefore, Christian hope affirms rather than rejects the body. Proclaiming the resurrection of Christ declares God's triumph over death and the meaningfulness of embodied life. Our future hope must be for a transformed body in the resurrection, not an escape from the embodied state.

Behave biblically. Both major subdivisions conclude with appeals for righteous behavior and faithfulness in doing the Lord's work (1 Cor 15:32b-34, 58). What we do with our bodies in the present time matters. The resurrection of the body is both a warning that you're accountable for what you do with your body, and it's also a promise that your bodily labor is significant (1 Cor 15:58), not meaningless. 

Paul learned that "some" of them deny the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:12) likely by informants (1 Cor 1:11; 5:1; 11:18). That some take this position, while others aren't is one more cause of division in the church. To overcome this division, Paul treats the issue with great rhetorical skill: he begins by reminding them of common tradition, expecting to gain their assent to his recapitulation of the basic kerygma, the foundation on which he constructs his argument.

The Resurrection of the Dead Is Constitutive of the Gospel (15:1–34). The kerygma proclaims the resurrection of Christ (15:1–11). Paul begins by reminding them of the gospel he originally proclaimed to them. "Passing on" and "receiving" (1 Cor 15:1,3) is employed earlier in describing the transmission of the Lord's Supper (1 Cor 11:23). The carefully balanced structure indicates that Paul is quoting an early confessional formula (1 Cor 15:3b-5). He "received" this tradition presumably from the witnesses (1 Cor 15:5–7). This suggests that the confession is probably datable to around the time of Paul's call to apostleship—within about 3 yrs after Jesus was crucified. These opening vs. thus show how the gospel was preached in the 1st generation of Christians.

"The resurrection of the dead" is a matter "of first importance" (1 Cor 15:3). It's not some speculation that can be set aside by those who claim more sophisticated knowledge. It's an integral part of the euaggelion ("good news") on which those who believe take their stand (1 Cor 15:11; Gal 1:11). The resurrection of Jesus and his appearance to many witnesses is at the heart of the gospel proclaimed in the church; without this foundational truth, there'd be no church because there'd be no gospel. Those who hold fast to this truth are saved by it—unless [foreshadowing 15:12–19], the whole thing is a sham and their faith is "in vain" (1 Cor 15:2; 10, 14, 17, 58). The confession consists of 4 clauses. The 1st and 3rd are the fundamental faith affirmations, while the 2nd and 4th fill out the story of Christ's death and resurrection and provide supporting warrants for the fundamental claims in the other two clauses. The structure is as follows. Paul handed on the tradition:

1. that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures 
2. and that he was buried,
3. and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures
4. and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Cor. 3b-5)

According to Scripture is how the 2 central events of Christ's death and resurrection occurred. This early creed specifies that the world transforming story of Jesus' passion and resurrection must be interpreted in light of Scripture: the earliest church understood the gospel as the continuation and fulfillment of God's dealings with Israel, and must be found in relation to the Law and the prophets (Rom 1:2; 3:21; Lk 24:44–47), though it doesn't stipulate which Scripture.

Christ's death "for our sins" recalls the suffering servant (Isa 53:5–6, 11–12), but it doesn't explain how the death of Christ was vicariously effective to deal with sins, or that the resurrection of Jesus was "according to the Scriptures." "The third day" suggests Hos 6:2 or Jon 1:17. More likely, "according to the Scriptures" modifies the verb "was raised" rather than the 3rd day (the similar syntax in 1 Mace 7:16). So, it's, "and that he was raised in accordance with the Scriptures, on the third day." Then the Scriptures are probably the Psalms that praise God for deliverance of the righteous sufferer (Ps 16 in Acts 2:24–32). Ps 16 prefigures "the resurrection of the Christ" (Acts 2:31): "… my flesh will live in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, Or let your Holy One experience corruption" (Ps 16:9b-10, Ac 2:26b-27). [Paul's letters suggest that the Psalms were understood very early as referring to the Messiah ( = Christ). (Ps 69:9 in Rom 15:1–3; Ps 110 and 8 in 1 Cor 15:24–28). This is the primary context in which the references to the Scriptures in 1 Cor 15:3–4 should be understood.]

Jesus remains risen. Christ's burial (1 Cor 15:4) confirms the reality and human finality of his death. The resurrection appearances (1 Cor 15:5--where the traditional confessional formula ends) confirm that he really was raised from the dead. [Not mentioning the empty tomb shows that it wasn't a part of the traditional kerygma. It certainly doesn't mean that Paul or other Christians conceived of a "resurrection from the dead" in which the body remained in the tomb.] The perfect passive verb "he was raised" [eggertai] (1 Cor 15:4) indicates that God is the one who raised him up, and the perfect tense (cf. the aorist forms "died" and "was buried") indicates that he remains risen. Thus, the confessional formula doesn't just narrate past events: It proclaims Christ as risen Lord.

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The More Excellent Way (1 Cor 13)

With its sheer beauty and power 1 Cor 13 is one of Paul's finest moments and a greatly loved NT passage. Unfortunately, the love for this love ch. has caused it to be regularly read [at weddings!] out of context. This doesn't make love less true, but it misses Paul's concern with the situation in Corinth. Then when reading in context love is set over against "the gifts of the Spirit," which it isn't, because love belongs in a different category altogether. For Paul it is not "gifts to be sure, but better yet love." Rather, love is to be the primary motivation lying behind everything they are and do--including Spirit manifestations [="gifts"] in the gathered church. An eager desire for expressions of the Spirit that will build up the church is HOW LOVE ACTS in this context. Love is the essential "ingredient," the one that seems to be missing to a large degree among those in the church.

Correctives regarding Spirit manifestations. In 3 paragraphs Paul puts their zeal for tongues-speaking within a broader ethical context that ultimately disallows uninterpreted tongues in church. The context is love for others over self-interest. In ch. 14 such love will be specified in terms of "building up" the church.

Picking at the differences between him and them--the opposing views of what it means to be people of the Spirit. They speak in tongues, which Paul doesn't question as a legitimate activity of the Spirit. But at the same time they at least tolerate, if not endorse illicit sexuality, greed, and idolatry (1 Cor 5:9-10, 1-5; 6:1-11, 12-20; 8:1-10:22). They spout "wisdom" [sophia] and knowledge [gnosis], but in the former they stand boldly against Paul and his gospel of a crucified Messiah (1:18-31), and in the latter they "build up" weaker brothers or sisters by destroying them (1 Cor 8:10-11). In short, they have a "spirituality" that has religious trappings [asceticism, knowledge, tongues-speaking] but have rather generally abandoned truly Christian ethics, with its supremacy of love--which manifests itself in terms of concern for others that they be "built up" in Christ.

To love is to act. We miss Paul's concern because of the lyrical nation and thinking of love as an abstract quality, or worse yet, as a "feeling" toward someone. Love is primary for Paul because it has already been given concrete expression in the coming of Jesus to die for the sins of the world (Rom 5:6-8; 8:30-32; Eph 5:1-2). Love is NOT an idea, NOT even a "motivating factor" for behavior. LOVE is BEHAVIOR. To love is to act. Anything short of action is not love at all.

The eschatological dimension--that our present existence, for all its blessings, is but a foretaste of the future. This present partial existence ["not yet"] will one day give way to that which is final and complete.

The preeminence of love (12:31b—13:13). Ch. 13 portrays love as the sine qua non of the Christian life and insists that love must govern the exercise of all the gifts of the Spirit. Paul's lyrical prose has caused many to take it out of context as a lovely meditation on the nature of love. But the many verbal and conceptual links between 1 Cor 13 and the rest of the letter show that this is NOT an independently composed oration on love. Within 1 Cor its clear purpose is to reform their understanding and practice of spiritual manifestations in worship.

After an introductory sentence (12:31b) that announces the beginning of an epideictic interlude (in ancient rhetoric, epideictic referred to a type of demonstrative speech in praise or blame of some person, thing, or quality), the unit breaks into 3 parts:

• 13:1–3  --   The absolute necessity of love. The futility of all religious/spiritual practices without love. It doesn't benefit the person doing them. Paul uses himself as a hypothetical negative example, urging the absolute necessity of love.
• 13:4–7  --   The character of love. Encomium [praise] to love, describing the character of love, especially adapted to the Corinthian situation and their differences with Paul.
• 13:8–13  -- The permanence of love. Contrast love with 3 selected charismata, including tongues [middle item]: Juxtaposing the eternal abiding nature of the one [love] and the relative, temporal, provisional nature of the other [spiritual gifts], placed within the context of both his and their "already/but not yet" eschatological existence. This doesn't make charismata less valuable for the present life as one awaits the consummation, but it is against their "over-realized spirituality" that these things have a relative life span [for the "already" only], while love is both now and forever. Paul urges that they eagerly desire "gifts of the Spirit" (1 Cor 14:1) for the sake of the common good (1 Cor 12:7).

Love is the love of God shown in the death of Jesus (Rom 5:8; Gal 2:20b; 1 Cor 13:13), yet there's no reference to Jesus in ch. 13. Agape is presented here as a quality or character attribute that is to be shown in the actions of church members, as in "Let all that you do be done in love" (1 Cor 16:14). Ch. 13 is ethical. By describing the qualities of love, Paul promotes the character formation of the church. John Calvin says, "I have no doubt that Paul intended it [1 Cor 13] to reprimand the Corinthians in an indirect way, by confronting them with a situation quite the reverse of their own, so that they might recognize their own faults by contrast with what they saw." The description of love (1 Cor 13:4–7) is not only a reprimand but also a positive model. It's Paul's overall appeal for the healing of divisions in the church. Love is the antidote to factionalism in the church: "Love is the principle of Christian social unity which Paul urges on the Corinthians" (Margaret Mitchell). This concern decisively shapes ch. 13, both negative and positive, of love. The argument for unity builds throughout the letter and reaches a climax in ch. 13.

2 common misunderstandings of the chapter must be set aside.

1. Love should govern the use of gifts in the church is Paul's point, not to debunk tongues or that love should supersede spiritual gifts—ch. 14. Love is NOT a [higher and better] gift, but a "way" (1 Cor 12:31b), a manner of life within which all the gifts are to find their proper place.
2. Love is the name for specific actions of patient and costly service to others, not merely a feeling or an attitude. Attending closely to what Paul says, 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.

Spiritual actions without love are meaningless (13:1–3). 3 religious practices are declared futile if love is not present:

• speaking in tongues (1 Cor 13:1),
• prophesying, receiving revealed knowledge, working miracles by faith (1 Cor 13:2), and 
• ascetic self-deprivation (1 Cor 13:3) are all worthless if not accompanied by love.

Tongues, knowledge--gifts they're fond of (1 Cor 13:1-2) and prophecy, which Paul prizes highly (14:1–25). Paul isn't polemicizing against tongues and revelatory gifts of the Spirit, but properly evaluating them. By themselves they're of no account, including even morally praiseworthy acts such as giving away one's possessions to the poor (1 Cor 13:3). 2 ways to understand Paul, with both making good sense.

1. condemning "doing the right thing for the wrong reason" and calling for love as the proper motivation.
2. condemning moral inconsistency (doing some of the right things but lacking love in other areas of one's life) and calling for love to be lived out in all aspects of existence.

"...speak with the tongues of men and of angels" (1 Cor 13:1) doesn't simply mean speaking well with great eloquence, but by the special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the language spoken by heavenly beings. A most illuminating ancient parallel is in the Testament of Job, an Egyptian Jewish text [1st century B.C.E. or C.E.]. It contains the legend of 3 daughters of Job, each of whom is given a multicolored cord as an inheritance; the cord confers upon them the power of angelic speech and song. "Thus, when the one called Hemera arose, she wrapped around her own string just as her father said. And she took on another heart—no longer minded toward earthly things—but she spoke ecstatically in the angelic dialect, sending up a hymn to God in accord with the hymnic style of the angels" (T. Job 48:l-3a). Such was the "speaking in tongues" as understood by them and by Paul also: "those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit" (1 Cor 14:2). Tongue-speaking, then, was revered as a mode of communication with the superior heavenly world. But even something as glorious as speaking with the tongues of angels is of no value without love.

Speaking in this way but lacking love is "an echoing bronze or a clanging cymbal" (1 Cor 13:1). Corinth was famous for its bronze vessels. Chalkos ("bronze") is never used elsewhere to refer to a musical instrument. So some scholars propose that it refers to bronze acoustic vases used in the theater to echo and amplify the voices of the actors. The "clanging cymbal" was associated with the wild ecstatic worship practices of the cult of Cybele. To paraphrase Paul: "Even if you can speak with the heavenly language of angels, but have no love, your high-toned speech has become like the empty echo of an actor's speech or the noise of frenzied pagan worship." This is forceful imagery. Paul is pulling no punches.

Prophecy (1 Cor 13:2;12:10; ch. 14) means speaking a word from God to the gathered congregation. Paul understood this gift from the OT prophets. Understanding "all mysteries and all knowledge [gnosis]" means having access to inside information about God's plans. To Paul "mystery" (1 Cor 15:51) is revealed knowledge about the final resurrection of the dead. Such language is from Jewish apocalyptic thought, where the heavenly mysteries from God are revealed. The prototype of the apocalyptic seer is Daniel, to whom "the mystery was revealed" of how to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream concerning "what will happen at the end of days" (Dan 2:19, 28), and who therefore praises God, saying, "Blessed be the name of God from age to age, for wisdom and power are his… . He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him" (Dan 2:20–22).

With Paul's apocalyptic emphasis on wisdom and knowledge, they fused it with Greek philosophical traditions. ["knowledge" (1 Cor 1:5; 8:1; 8:7–13; 12:8; 14:6).] But whether one gains mysterious truths through revelation or philosophical reflection, such knowledge counts for nothing without love. Paul holds himself as an eg.--describing himself as speaking "God's wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory" (1 Cor 2:7), but without love he'd be "nothing" (1 Cor 13:2).

Performing mountain-moving miracles by faith is nothing without love. ["Faith" is one of the manifestations of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:9.)] This may be from Jesus (Mk 11:22–24; Mt 17:20; also Isa 40:4). Paul's point is closer to Mt 7:21–23: those excluded from the kingdom may have prophesied and done mighty works, but they count for nothing if they have not done the will of the Father in heaven—which, in Matthew, is linked with love and mercy. So, without love they have any significance at all.

2 different forms of self-denial: giving away one's possessions (Lk 14:33) and giving up one's own body (1 Cor 13:3). The meaning of the second example is complicated by a notoriously difficult textual problem: some ancient Greek manuscripts read hina kauthsomai ("to be burned"), while others read hina kauchsmai ("so that I may boast"). One of the usual objections against "be burned" is that Christian martyrdom by fire was not yet known in Paul's time; however, this objection carries little weight, for traditions of martyrdom by fire were thoroughly familiar in Judaism, as demonstrated by the narratives of the deaths of the Maccabean martyrs (e.g., 2 Mace. 7:1–6; 4 Macc. 6:24–30). Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine why later scribes would have changed "be burned" to the rather perplexing "boast," whereas the reverse change is entirely understandable. Thus, on balance, the reading kauchsmai ("so that I may boast") is to be preferred.

What does "in order that I may boast" mean? Paul uses "boast" a few times, not always in a pejorative sense. 1 Cor 9:15–16 is pertinent--Paul declares that his boast is that he surrenders his legitimate rights for the sake of the gospel. His boasting seems linked with eschatological reward for apostolic labors (Rom 5:3; 2 Cor 1:14). If this eschatological boasting is in 1 Cor 13:3, the meaning would be, "if I hand over my body so that I might boast/glory in the eschatological reward for my self-sacrifice."

A possible further sense for "giving up the body" is provided by 1 Clement, a late-1st-century text that refers explicitly to Paul's correspondence with Corinth. Offering examples of what it means to be "filled with love" (54:1), 1 Clement says, "We know that many among ourselves have given themselves to bondage that they might ransom others. Many have delivered themselves to slavery, and provided food for others with the price they received for themselves" (55:2). This passage is particularly interesting because the two verbs translated as "delivered" and "provided food" are the same 2 verbs in 1 Cor 13:3, there rendered by the NRSV as "hand over" and "give away." It seems likely that 1 Clement is explicitly echoing 1 Cor 13:3 and interpreting the giving over of the body as a reference to voluntary slavery rather than martyrdom by fire (Fee).

There's nothing to be gained by self-sacrifice where love is absent. With this declaration, his impressive opening paragraph comes to an end, having asserted forcefully that all religious action is meaningless unless encompassed by agape.

Love as the antithesis of their behavior (13:4–7). Paul praises love by detailing what love (now poetically personified) does and does not do. The 1st 2 positive items--"Love is patient; love is kind"--attribute to love qualities that Paul ascribes to God (Rom 2:4). However, the weight falls upon the 8 negative items in the list, which correspond to their behavior as described elsewhere in the letter.

1. "...love is not envious [zlos]" is the first negative description--the same word Paul had applied to their contentious behavior: "For as long as there is jealousy [zlos] and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh?" (1 Cor 3:3) Paul immediately states that love is the opposite of the divisive rivalry that he deplores.
2. "...boastful" the 2nd item echoes Paul's repeated reprimands of their boasting (1 Cor 1:29–31; 3:21; 4:7; 5:6), though using a different Gk word, he'd just used "boast" positively (1 Cor 13:3).
3. Love "is not puffed up [physioutai]--the 3rd item where even the dullest among them would recognize that he's explicitly contrasting agape to their own behavior. [Most English translations opt for a less colorful synonym--"arrogant" or "proud."] This is precisely the word that Paul uses to castigate them (1 Cor 4:6, 18–19; 5:2). Paul also deflates their pretensions of knowledge by declaring that "Knowledge puffs up [physioi], but love builds up" (1 Cor 8:1). Thus, these items in Paul's catalogue of what love does not do functions as a cross-reference back to these earlier passages, especially 1 Cor 8:1.
4. "...rude"--the 4th item [weakly translated by NRSV, NIV, NEB, JB] —is a stronger term referring to shameful behavior. A related noun in Rom 1:27 characterizes the "shameful act" of male homosexual intercourse. In 1 Cor, it referenced an unmarried man who is "behaving shamefully" in relation to his betrothed virgin (1 Cor 7:36). Here it may be the sexual misconduct he condemned (1 Cor 5:1–2 -- link with "puffed up" in 1 Cor 5:2; 6:12–20), and the "shameful" behavior of women prophesying with heads uncovered (11:2–16) and the humiliation of the poor at the Lord's Supper (11:20–22). All these offenses constitutes "acting shamefully" that Paul sees as contrary to love.
5. Love "is not self-seeking"--the 5th item repeats the precise language in his response to the idol-meat controversy: "Do not seek your own advantage but that of the other" (1 Cor 10:24). 1 Cor 13:5 is identical to Paul's self-description: "not seeking my own advantage but that of many" (1 Cor 10:33). Paul links his own self-renunciation for the sake of others as the example of Christ (1 Cor 11:1; Phil 2:4).

6-7. They surely got the picture: Paul implies that everything about their behavior contradicts the character of love. The next 2 negative items are harder to relate to specific passages in the letter, but they can be in contrast to the rivalry and dissensions in the church: love "is not easily angered" and "keeps no record of wrongs" (NIV; these forceful formulations are much closer to the Greek than the NRSV's pallid adjectives, "not irritable or resentful").

8. Paul closes the list of negative attributes with a positive contrast: Love "does not rejoice in wrongdoing [adikia], but rejoices in the truth" (1 Cor 13:6). Adikia may better be translated as "injustice"—prominent in 6:1–11--Paul deplores their taking one another to court unjustly. Juxtaposing "wrongdoing" with "truth" has a moral sense, as in John (Jn 3:21; 1 Jn 3:18). To rejoice in the truth means, among other things, to embrace God's way of righteous living—a sharp contrast to their present conduct.

Paul uses the figure of "love" in counterpoint to their divisive and self-centered behavior. 1 Clement understood this: "Love beareth all things, is long-suffering in all things. There is nothing base, nothing haughty in love; love admits no schism, love makes no sedition, love does all things in concord" (1 Clement 49:5 with explicit references to 1 Cor in 1 Clement 47). As this very early interpretation recognizes, Paul's poetic depiction of love's character is aimed at calling the members of the church out of schism and into unity with each other.

After saying what love isn't, Paul ends with 4 strong verbs that characterize agape positively. "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Cor 13:7). Paul has used the first verb to characterize his own conduct as an apostle: he will "bear anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ" (1 Cor 9:12). So if they embody the antithesis of agape, Paul models authentic agape in his long-suffering apostolic role. Paul shows them "a more excellent way" (1 Cor 12:31b) not only through his word-picture of love but also through his eg., which he wants them to imitate (1 Cor 11:1).

The 2 verbs "believes" and "hopes" foreshadow the conclusion of the ch., in which faith and hope join love as the abiding marks of Christian character. The final verb ("endures") creates an inclusio with the 1st item: "Love is patient" (1 Cor 13:). This places love eschatologically in the present: love persists in a hostile world, awaiting the coming of the Lord. The hyperbole of the repeated "all things" (1 Cor 13:7) is not to think that love is infinitely credulous and utterly indiscriminate in its believing and hoping. Love doesn't make its adherents into foolish Pollyannas. Paul's point is accurately conveyed by the NEB: "there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance."

Spiritual gifts and love (13:8–13)--the final section moves the discussion in a different direction by contrasting the permanence of love to the transitory character of the spiritual gifts. This part most clearly shows that it deals with the specific problem of the evaluation of spiritual gifts in the church. Love is mentioned only in the beginning and end of the unit (1 Cor 13:8a, 13); all the intervening material (13:8b-12) highlights the temporary status of spiritual gifts, especially tongues, prophecy, and knowledge (1 Cor 13:8b-9). If Paul wrote a general "hymn to love," he'd hardly emphasize this contrast so strongly.

"Love never fails" (1 Cor 13:8a) is the opening affirmation in the treatment of the gifts to establish the point of contrast. ("Love never ends" [NRSV] is an interpretative paraphrase.) But prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will all be brought to nothing eschatologically. The verb Paul uses of prophecy and knowledge [katargein] (1 Cor 13:8) is a favorite word of his; it refers to God's nullification and abolition of everything that is ephemeral or—in some cases—opposed to him. For eg., God has chosen lowly and despised nonentities "to reduce to nothing [katargs] things that are" (1 Cor 1:28; 2:6; 6:13; 15:24–26; Rom 6:6). The gifts listed (1 Cor 13:8) are not allied with powers hostile to God, but they will be abolished simply because they will no longer be necessary when Jesus returns and the fullness of his kingdom is present. These gifts of revelation are suited to the time between the times, when the church must walk by faith; prophecy and gnosis are only "partial" (1 Cor 13:9), giving believers a real but imperfect glimpse of God's future truth. When that which is complete comes, however, these partial instruments of knowledge will no longer have any purpose, and so they will be discarded by God (1 Cor 13:10).

{In dispensationalist Christian groups, it is sometimes claimed that "the complete" [to teleion] (1 Cor 13:10) refers to the completion and closure of the NT canon, so that the charismatic gifts were only for the apostolic age and have now ceased to function in the church. This interpretation is simply nonsense. There is nothing in the passage about "the NT" or about a future revocation of revelatory gifts in the church. Paul had no inkling that Israel's Scripture would be supplemented by a new collection of canonical writings. 1 Cor 13:10 is simply a general maxim stating that the perfect supplants the partial. The abolition of the gifts (1 Cor 13:8) are to be understood in light of the patently eschatological language of 1 Cor 13:12: the contrast between "now" and "then" is the contrast between the present age and the age to come.}

Within the eschatologically determined symbolic world of his gospel the logic of Paul's argument is impeccable. The Corinthians lost the future temporal orientation of Paul's preaching. They moved into a frame of reference that thinks only in spatial categories of "above" and "below." They believe that their spiritual gifts give them immediate access to the divine world, and they are not thinking at all about the future event of God's judgment and transformation of the world (15:20–28). In their frame of reference, therefore, revelatory spiritual gifts have assumed ultimate significance, because they provide the open, "hot line" links to heavenly reality. Paul relativizes these gifts by situating them within the unfolding epic narrative of God's redemption of the world: they have a role to play for now, but the time of their usefulness will pass.

The analogy of 1 Cor 13:11 reinforces this point; just as the perceptions and communicative strategies of childhood are put aside when one arrives at maturity, so also the church's present spiritual gifts will be put aside in the eschaton. This ruffles the feathers of those Corinthians who consider themselves far advanced in their spirituality and who think of the gift of tongues as the pinnacle of spiritual maturity. Just as when Paul addressed them as npioi--little children not able yet to eat solid food (3:1-4), so here too Paul confronts them with a different assessment of their place in the unfolding plot of God's story.

One last analogy drives home Paul's point. The knowledge provided by the spiritual gifts is like the picture of the world reflected indirectly in a mirror (1 Cor 13:12), not false but indistinct. (Paul uses a metaphor well suited to his audience, for a noted industry of Corinth was manufacturing mirrors.) The time will come, Paul affirms audaciously, when God will speak to us face to face—as he did to Moses: "When there are prophets among you, I the LORD make myself known to them in visions; I speak to them in dreams, Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak face to face—clearly, not in riddles [LXX: di' ainigmatn; cf. 1 Cor. 13:12]; and he beholds the form of the LORD" (Num 12:6–8).

This direct encounter with God, Paul insists, belongs to the eschatological "not yet" of salvation. The contrast between "now" and "then" is critical to understanding 1 Cor 13:12. Only "then," in the consummation of God's kingdom, will we know fully—as God knows us already in the present. This last turn of phrase deftly sets those who claim "knowledge" in their proper place. God alone is the one who really "knows" (Gal 4:9).

"faith, hope, and love remain" (1 Cor 13:13a) now in the time between the times, even with our partial knowledge. In light of the eschatological imagery (1 Cor 13:8–12), the "now" of verse 13 must surely be read as a temporal adverb, not merely a logical connective. Paul is NOT saying, contrary to the opinion of some exegetes, that faith, hope, and love will all abide eternally. (This statement would be nearly nonsensical in relation to hope; after "the complete" has come [v. 10], after we have seen God face to face [v. 12], what will remain to hope for [Rom 8:22–25]?) No, faith, hope, and love are the enduring character marks of the Christian life in the present time, in this anomalous interval between the cross and the parousia.

• Faith is the trust in the God of Israel, who has kept faith with his covenant promises by putting forward Jesus for our sake and raising him to new life; 
• hope focuses our fervent desire to see a broken world restored by God to its rightful wholeness (Rom 8:18–39); and 
• love is the foretaste of our ultimate union with God, graciously given to us now and shared with our brothers and sisters. 

This triad of terms, grouped in various ways, to portray Christian life (Rom 5:1–5; Gal 5:5–6; Col 1:4–5; 1 Th 1:3; 5:8; Eph 4:2–5; Tit 2:2; Heb 6:10–12; 10:22–24; 1 Pet 1:3–8). Love is the greatest of the three because—unlike the revelatory gifts and even unlike faith and hope—it will endure eternally when the love of God is all in all (1 Cor 15:28). It is also the greatest because, even in the present time, it undergirds everything else and gives meaning to an otherwise unintelligible world (1 Cor 13:1–3). Only when love presides over our common life in the church will the spiritual gifts find their rightful place and achieve the purposes for which God has given them to us.

REFLECTIONS. The first task is to rescue the text from the mushy romantic sentimentality in its common use in weddings, that link it with flowers, kisses, romance and wedding dresses. This is not at all Paul's concern. He didn't write about agape to rhapsodize about romance and marriage. He was writing about the need for mutual concern and consideration within the church, with special reference to the use of spiritual gifts in worship. It may be legitimate to appropriate his words in another context to speak of the love that binds man and woman in marriage, but only if we're clear about the hermeneutical transfer being performed when doing so. Our thoughts about love should be challenged and sharpened when we reflect in a sustained way about 1 Cor 13 in its original historical context. The passage is originally an impassioned plea for the "more excellent way" in which members of the church should treat one another, and not just in the context of romantic love and marriage.

How does Paul's word to them on this matter speak also to us [once we understand the context]? How do our own actions and relationships in the church express—or fail to express—love for one another? This applies not only to the use of charismatic gifts in worship but also to all our actions and interactions in the life of the church. Love is the criterion by which we should assess all that we do. So, does love mean uncritical acceptance? This answer is obvious in Paul's vigorous and sustained confrontation and sarcasm on numerous issues! The love that "rejoices in the truth" often requires us to speak hard truth to those we love.

Theological implications of 1 Cor 13. 3 major observations stand out, one based on each subsection of the passage.

1. Love is the ground of meaning (1–3). Even the most apparently spiritual and meritorious activities become, without love, literally meaningless. 1 Cor 13 encourages us to step back from our most cherished projects and ask, "Why am I doing this?" If we can't honestly say, "I am doing this for love and in love," then its legitimacy comes under serious doubt. This applies to everything we do: business, academics, politics. Laudable causes by people who lost this become loveless zealots, likely like those Corinthians who were single mindedly focused on spirituality but had divided the community and despised their brothers and sisters. We are all susceptible to self-deception that we need others around us who can keep us honest and remind us, as Paul does, that love is what really counts ultimately.
2. Love requires the formation of character (4-7). Love is not just a matter of feelings; feelings come and go, while love abides. Paul's description of the attributes of love (4–7) is a picture of habitual actions and dispositions. One cannot just decide in a day's time to start doing this. They are learned patterns of behavior that must be cultivated over time in the context of a community that models and supports such behavior. We must learn patience, how NOT to keep score of wrongs. The church should be a school for the cultivation of these habits and practices. Sadly, churches tend to adopt the political habits and strategies of secular democracies, rather than character-formation. We must be deliberate about fully devoting our energies to learning how to love. Only this context of 1 Cor helps marriages—and of celibacy and friendship.
3. All our knowledge is partial (8-13). The eschatological reservation looms heavily over all that we say and do: We know only in part and act constantly on the basis of incomplete information. We have no choice about that in this time between the times. The force of 13:8–13 encourages us to have a sense of humility and a sense of humor about even our strongest convictions and activities. When the perfect comes, when God judges the secrets of human hearts (Rom 2:16), when we see this life from the other side of the resurrection, we'll discover that even the things that have seemed most glorious and exalted to us (tongues, technology, humanitarian causes) have been like child's play. Paul teaches us to sit loose in the cares and conflicts of present existence and particularly to what we think we know. Only love will not be obsolete in the end.

Less says more--a final word. This passage shows the power of vivid language. Why is this passage so memorable? Its power comes from its metaphorical richness: sounding bronze and clanging cymbal, mountains moving, memories of childhood play and speech, dim reflections in the mirror. The images carry the message with a minimum of didactic commentary. Learn from Paul the concision and power of metaphorical speech. Also, the diction is clear and simple, with short phrases, repeated syntactical patterns, and forceful verbs. Love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." Long before Lincoln's Gettysburg Address or Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, Paul knew that less could say more.

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The Lord’s Supper: Discern the Body (1 Cor 11:17–34)

Commendation and rebuke. Paul commended them for keeping the traditions that he passed on to them regarding worship practices (1 Cor 11:2), but is subject to severe qualifications (11:17–34). Paul received word of divisions in the church during their celebration of the Lord's Supper (1 Cor 11:18); thus, he rebukes them for their disunity and offers a stern corrective of their common worship meal.

Church disunity and division. The unnamed report about their disunity at table was from either Chloe's people (1 Cor 1:11) or Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (1 Cor 11:16:17). Division is a consistent concern of the letter (1:10–17; 3:1–4) with differences in the Lord's Supper. The meal should be the symbol and seal of oneness but some of them shamed others (1 Cor 11:21–22). Their assembly for the common meal became an occasion for them to "eat and drink judgment against themselves" (1 Cor 11:29). Paul says that "when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse" (1 Cor 11:17).

The Revised Common Lectionary has 1 Cor 11:23–26 as the Epistle reading for Holy Thursday each year but not the full passage (11:17–34). This retells the Lord's Supper without having any context. Paul uses the specific situation of the Lord's Supper tradition to address issues of inequality and conflict in the church. 2 preliminary observations.

1. Paul's reference to the Lord's Supper is not about a liturgical ritual celebrated in a church building. At the time, there were no separate buildings for Christian worship. The Lord's Supper was an actual meal eaten by the community in a private home. There's a distinction—later in church history—between "the agape" (love-feast) and "the eucharist," but Paul makes no such distinction. The sharing of the symbolic bread and cup of the Lord's Supper occurred as a part of a common meal, or the passage makes no sense. Christians who experienced the Lord's Supper only as a ritual "in church" removed from a meal setting, must keep this original setting in mind.
2. The problem addressed is not sacramental theology, but social relations within the church with their conventional social mores, requiring distinctions of rank and status to be recognized at table: the more privileged members expect to receive more and better food than others. This humiliates the community and is an abuse of the Lord's Supper, for it contradicts status divisions. Paul reminds them of the tradition of Jesus' institution of the meal to highlight Jesus' death. This memory of him as they eat together should halt their selfish behavior.

3 main parts.

1. Paul describes and deplores their behavior (11:17-22). Divisions at the Lord's Supper.
2. Remember the tradition of the institution of the Lord's Supper (11:23-26). It's the proclamation of the Lord's death.  
3. A call to discern the body. Infer the meaning of the tradition to reshape your practices of sharing the meal (11:27-34).

Divisions at the Lord's Supper (11:17–22). 1 Cor 11:17 is a deliberate counterpoint to 1 Cor 11:2. After commending them for keeping the traditions, he will now not commend them for what happens when they gather for worship. Note the 5 fold repetition of the verb synerchesthai ["to come together"] (1 Cor 11:17, 18, 20, 33, 34). This means either "to assemble" for a meeting (the obvious primary sense here in 11:17–34) or "to be united." Paul's rebuke plays off this double sense: when they come together as a church they paradoxically do not "come together" in unity and peace. Rather, their coming together makes things worse, because their schisms [schismata (1 Cor 1:10)] are clearly brought to light. Aristotle suggested that the coming together of citizens in the polis promotes the common good: "For it is possible that the many, though not individually good men, yet when they come together may be better, not individually but collectively...for where there are many, each individual, it may be argued, has some portion of virtue and wisdom, and when they have come together, just as the multitude becomes a single man with many feet and many hands and many senses, so also it becomes one personality as regards the moral and intellectual faculties." But Paul sees the opposite effect in their worship: rather than acting as one body when they meet, they are divided, and their disunity damages all.

Paul "partly" believes the report of divisions among them (1 Cor 11:18). He has emphatically scolded them for their factionalism. Here Paul's rhetorical "mock disbelief" implies that they've fallen way short of the norm expected of them, for he believes the reports (1 Cor 11:20-22). That he believes the report only "to some extent" (NRSV, NIV) is indirectly expressing his shock about what he's heard. His incredulity heightens his characterization of their conduct as outrageous. It is as though he wrote, "I can't believe it! You couldn't possibly have done what they report, could you?"

To expose authentic members of God's people and those who are not (1 Cor 11:19) is Paul's sobering observation that it's "necessary"—presumably in the divine plan—for there to be factions in the community. This foreshadows the theme of God's judgment (11:27–32), which is rooted in Jewish apocalyptic soil. Apocalyptic texts warn that times of trial will bring out the true colors of those who profess the faith (Mk 4:14–20; 13:9–13). Those who are dokimoi ["approved by God" [NIV] will stand the test, while those who are not will fall away or separate themselves from the community (1 Jn 2:19)]. Paul doesn't welcome this community split, but acknowledges its inevitability. Placing the community's divisions in an apocalyptic context emphasizes the gravity of the situation.

The problem: Those with greater resources feast on their own food and wine when the church gathers for its communal meal, while others "who have nothing" go hungry. As a result—contrary to what they may suppose—what they eat is not "the Lord's Supper," but their own private meal (1 Cor 11:20–21). This scenario seems strange in our time. It's hard to imagine how the wealthier could show such overt snubbing of the poor. But in the context of 1st-century Greco-Roman culture, they saw their actions as entirely normal. What is the concrete setting of the meal and the dinner party conventions in their cultural environment?

The Christian gatherings were held in private homes, not in large public spaces. Roman houses from this period show that the dining room (triclinium) of a typical villa could accommodate only 9 persons, who would recline at table for the meal. Other guests sit or stand in the atrium, with space for another 30-40 people. The host would, of course, be a wealthier member of the church. Therefore, the host's higher-status friends would be invited to dine in the triclinium, while lower-status members of the church (such as freedmen and slaves) would be placed in the larger space outside. So, the higher-status guests in the dining room would be served better food and wine than the other guests—like 1st-class passengers on a plane receiving much better food and service than others on the same plane. Pliny the Younger describes his dining experience as a guest of a man who boasted of his hospitality: "The best dishes were set in front of himself and a select few, and cheap scraps of food before the rest of the company. He had even put the wine into tiny little flasks, divided into three categories, not with the idea of giving his guests the opportunity of choosing, but to make it impossible for them to refuse what they were given. One lot was intended for himself and for us, another for his lesser friends (all his friends are graded), and the third for his and our freedmen."

The wealthier who host the meals continue to observe status distinctions, and while eating their own meals, there was no food for "those who have nothing" (1 Cor 11:21-22). Was it bad manners and not social inequality? "...each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else" (1 Cor 11:21). The Greek verb "go ahead without waiting"—has a temporal sense ("to take beforehand"), but not necessarily. A simpler translation would be "For, when you eat, each one consumes his own supper." So it's not that some are refusing to wait for others but that they're eating their own private food without sharing it.

Such practices—however "normal" in respectable Roman culture—is outrageous. He doesn't deny the more prosperous to eat and drink however they like in their own homes (1 Cor 11:22a), but he insists that the church's common meal should symbolize the unity of the community through equitable sharing of food at the meal. Their present practice demonstrates "contempt" for the church and "shames" the poor in the church (1 Cor 11:22). This powerfully indicts the high-status members who disregard their shameless behavior for the church as a whole. Paul's exasperation with the status-conscious Corinthians is forcefully expressed: "In this matter I do not commend you!" (1 Cor 11:22, 17).

The Lord's Supper as proclamation of the Lord's death (11:23–26). In response to this problem, Paul reminds them of the tradition he had taught them about Jesus' last meal with his disciples (11:23–26). The language of "receiving" and "handing on" refers to early Christian tradition (1 Cor 15:3). It wasn't in some experience of revelation (Gal 1:11–12), but that he received it "from the Lord" in that it was Jesus himself who originated the tradition of sharing the bread and cup as a sign of his death and of the new covenant. This shows clearly that Paul's original preaching and teaching included the events of Jesus' passion (1 Cor 15:3–5; Gal 3:1b). There were no written Gospels in Paul's time. So the telling of the story of Jesus' death and resurrection stood at the center of Christian proclamation from the beginning. Paul is not giving them new information, but is recalling the story that he told them about the foundational redemptive event, a story that they repeat—or should repeat—every time they gather at table.

God gave Jesus up/handed him over. "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was handed over took a loaf of bread…." (1 Cor 11:23). Translations don't repeat the verb paradidmi ("hand on, hand over"). The 2nd instance refers to Judas's handing over of Jesus to the authorities, and is translated as "betrayed." Though this is a possible interpretation, Paul's own usage of the same verb elsewhere suggests a different sense: Jesus was "handed over" (paredoth) to death by God "for our trespasses" (Rom 4:25), and God "gave him up [paredken] for all of us" (Rom 8:32). If Paul thinks similarly here, the meaning would be, "on the night when God handed the Lord Jesus over to death for our sake, he took a loaf of bread. …" This must be heard as echoes of the Septuagint: "And the Lord gave him up [paredken] for our sins" (Isa 53:6) and "And he bore the sins of many, and on account of their iniquities he was handed over [paradoth]" (Isa 53:12b). This is the background of 1 Cor 11:23. Even if the story of Jesus' betrayal was circulating in the early Christian tradition, Paul never mentions it. Instead, he consistently interprets Jesus' death as an act of obedience to the divine will—as foreshadowed in Isaiah 53—and at the same time as God's own act for the salvation of the world.

The eucharistic tradition in 1 Cor 11:23–25 is closer to the pattern in Lk than in Mk and Mt. The differences (Paul and Luke place the cup after the meal) is of interest for scholars to reconstruct the evolution of the eucharistic liturgy, but such comparisons are unnecessary for understanding Paul's advice to them. (See schematic comparison, Fee.) Paul's point rests not on any particular "order of service" for the Lord's Supper but on his overall interpretation of its significance.

Paul's emphasis on memory in his renarration of the tradition: "do this in remembrance of me" [twice (1 Cor 11:24, 25)]. The precise interpretation of this phrase is much debated: Is the church to perform these actions to remember Jesus, or that his memory might be kept alive in the sight of God? Whatever Jesus originally meant, Paul thinks of the symbolic action as reminding the church of Jesus' death: the proclamation of Jesus' death (1 Cor 15:26) occurs in and for the church. This "remembrance" is consonant with the Passover: it's to be "a day of remembrance for you" (Exo 12:14) a day Israel recalls God's deliverance of his people from bondage. Similarly, the Lord's Supper is for the people of God to remember God's action of deliverance through Jesus' death.

"Remembrance" (anamnesis) is suggested to be the actual making-present of the Lord through representing his body and blood in the eucharistic elements. But this is far removed from Paul's concerns in 1 Cor. The Lord's Supper expresses the community's memory of his death in the interval between cross and parousia: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death—until he comes" (1 Cor 11:26). This is precisely the opposite of the "real presence" of the Lord (1 Cor 11:26). Thus, the meal acknowledges the absence of the Lord and mingles memory and hope, recalling his death and awaiting his coming again.

2 closely linked themes stand out:

1. the sharing of the Supper calls the community to think of Jesus' death for others, and 
2. that death is understood to initiate a new covenant (1 Cor 11:25; Jer 31:31–34).

A covenant relation with God is to belong to be bound together by responsibilities to God and to one another. This new covenant is in the sharing of the meal. But their celebration of the Supper disregards the covenant obligations and shows amnesia about Jesus' death. By showing contempt for those who have nothing, they act as though his death had not changed their relationship with one another. Paul therefore retells the story to spotlight the death of Jesus as the central meaning of the Supper. His recounting of the tradition is only in 1 Cor 11:23b-25 and 11:26 is not a part of the tradition but Paul's explanatory commentary. Thus, the meaning of the meal is the same as the fundamental message of Paul's preaching: Christ crucified (1 Cor 2:1–2).

Not the Lord's Supper. Proclaiming the Lord's death isn't just in preaching accompanying the meal. The community sharing in the broken bread and the wine is itself an act of proclamation, an enacted parable of the death of Jesus "for us" and the church's common participation in the benefits of that death. That is what they're doing in their common meals is not the Lord's Supper (1 Cor 11:20). It's not that they don't say the right words but that their enactment of the word is deficient: their self-serving actions obscure the meaning of the Supper so thoroughly that it no longer points to Christ's death.

Call to discern the body (11:27–34). From 1 Cor 11:27, Paul draws conclusions and proposes remedies. 1 Cor 11:27–28 have often been taken out of context and seriously misinterpreted. Eating the bread and drinking the cup "unworthily" (1 Cor 11:27) is misunderstood to mean that only the perfectly righteous can partake of the Lord's Supper, and the call for self-examination (1 Cor 11:28) is heard as a call for intense introspection. This is a grave misreading. The context is that the more affluent are consuming their own food and shaming the poorer members (1 Cor 11:20–22). Thus, to eat the meal unworthily means to eat it in a way that provoke divisions (1 Cor 11:18), with contemptuous disregard for the needs of others in the church. Paul's call to self-scrutiny (1 Cor 11:28) must be understood not as an invitation to probe the inner recesses of their consciences but as a straightforward call to consider how their actions at the supper affect brothers and sisters in the church, the body of Christ.

This is indeed Paul's concern: "For all who eat and drink without discerning the body eat and drink judgment against themselves" (1 Cor 11:29). "Discern the body" cannot mean "perceiving the real presence of Christ in the sacramental bread"--a complete non sequitur. It means recognizing the community of believers for what it really is: the one body of Christ. Paul has used this image for the church (1 Cor 10:16–17), and he'll develop it at greater length (12:12–31a). Those who fail to "discern the body" are those who act selfishly, focusing on their own spirituality and exercising their own social privileges while remaining heedless of those who share with them in the new covenant inaugurated by the Lord's death.

You sin against Christ. Those who eat and drink in this selfish way, are "answerable for the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor 11:27). What does this mean? The NEB says, "guilty of desecrating the body and blood of the Lord." But this puts the emphasis wrongly on the holiness of the eucharistic symbols per se. [Paul avoids identifying the wine directly with the blood of Christ (1 Cor 11:25).] It's not desecration of the sacred elements but rather offense against Christ himself. It's similar to 1 Cor 8:12: "When you sin against your brothers in this way …, you sin against Christ." By mistreating other members of the church, they repeat the sin that made the death of Christ necessary; they place themselves "among those who were responsible for the crucifixion, and not among those who by faith receive the fruit of it" (Barrett). They're like the lapsed Christians in Hebrews who continue to sin, who are "crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt" (Heb. 6:6).

You're courting disaster by your division. Rather than find grace at the Lord's table, they bring God's judgment on themselves (1 Cor 11:29), which is already felt in sickness and death befalling church members (1 Cor 11:30). This is God's displeasure and his corrective discipline to make them recognize the error of their divisions, and change the church's behavior to avoid eschatological condemnation along with the unbelieving world (1 Cor 11:32). [Suffering as God's loving discipline (Heb 12:5–6; Prov 3:11–12).] If they make right discernments about their own church life—i.e. mend their divisions—they'd not be subject to the judgment of God (1 Cor 11:31). This reasoning may be disturbing to many, but Paul's judgment is clear: you brought suffering on your church by your divisiveness.

Paul may also be calling on the church as a whole to exercise disciplinary authority over those abusing the common meal. To understand this, note a series of etymologically related words for judgment that Paul uses (1 Cor 11:29, 31-32): "All who eat and drink without discerning (diakrinon) the body eat and drink judgment (krima) against themselves… . But if we discerned (diekrinomen) ourselves, we would not be judged (ekrinometha). But when we are judged (krinomenoi) by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we might not be condemned (katakrithonen) along with the world."

Paul used the verb diakrinein (to discern or judge) with disputes earlier in the letter: "can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to decide (diakrinai) between one believer and another?" (1 Cor 6:5), and again to describe the community's activity of judging and regulating prophecy in their midst (1 Cor 14:29). So 1 Cor 11:31 may not just be a summons to individual self-judgment but as a call for the community to exercise self-regulatory judgment to bring order to the Lord's Supper by disciplining those who treat it as their own private dinner party. Where the church exercises disciplinary discernment, it averts God's judgment. But where the church fails to exercise discernment, God's judgment intervenes to prevent them from falling under final condemnation.

Specific practical directions (1 Cor 11:33-34) close this discussion. There are 2 possible readings of 1 Cor 11:33 [ambiguity of the verb ekdechesthai ("to wait for" or "to receive").] Most English translations and commentaries says to wait for (ekdechesthai) one another when they assemble to eat. If too impatient or hungry to wait—the wealthier Corinthians—are told to eat at home before the meeting ["Do you not have homes to eat and drink in?" (1 Cor 11:22a)] so that they won't shame the poor by gorging themselves on their private store of rich food in front of the whole assembly, perhaps before the poor have arrived. [ekdechesthai elsewhere in the NT consistently means "wait for," including Paul's only other use of it in 1 Cor 16:11.]

In 1 Cor 11:21–22 the problem is not in the timing of the eating as in the unequal distribution of food. A 2nd interpretation is to not just wait for one another but to receive one another as guests (Rom 15:7) when they come together. Thus, Paul calls the more affluent not merely to preserve a public appearance of unity in the celebration of the Supper but to break down the barriers of social status and to receive the poorer members as guests in their homes, sharing their food with those who have none. This 2nd interpretation is a more satisfying solution to the problem (1 Cor 11:21–22), and is preferred.

Paul stops far short of calling for radical economic equality.  Eat at home (1 Cor 11:34a)—a stopgap solution until Paul can get to Corinth to straighten things out—presumes that the wealthy may continue to eat as they like in private."Within their own four walls they are to behave according to the norms of their social status, while at the Lord's Supper the norms of the congregation have absolute priority. Clearly this is a compromise." (Gerd Theissen)

"About the other things I will give instructions when I come (1 Cor 11:34b)" What are the "other things?" We'll never know. Paul had a list of matters in which he couldn't commend them (1 Cor 11:17-18). "to begin with"/"in the first place (1 Cor 1:18a) is not followed by any additional items. Perhaps he decided that the other matters were too complicated to deal with in a letter, or he deemed them less important and able to be deferred until his arrival. Alternatively, 11:34b means that he'll give further instructions about the Lord's Supper or about issues of economic sharing when he returns. But we'll never know.

REFLECTIONS. We're indebted to them messing up their celebration of the Lord's Supper. If not, Paul wouldn't have written to correct them, and we'd know nothing about the tradition and practice of the Lord's Supper. (Some NT scholars insist that the Eucharist was unknown in the Pauline churches, since he doesn't mention it elsewhere in his surviving letters!) Their trouble serves for our instruction: Paul's rebuke and advice helps us reflect theologically about what we're doing when we come together as a church around the table. 3 important themes.

1. The Lord's table must first of all express the community's unity as the new covenant people of God. Divisions and conflicts in the church are incongruous with the meaning of this common meal; indeed, disunity turns the celebration into a hollow parody of the Lord's Supper. This pertains not only to doctrinal conflict but also to divisions caused by social and economic disparity in the church. The major emphasis of Paul's pastoral response to them is in 1 Cor 11:21–22, 33: the rich must stop shaming the poor and begin sharing their food with "those who have nothing."
• This applies at the level of the local congregation, but also to the church on a larger scale: as long as some Christians go hungry, the Lord's Supper calls the prosperous to share their bread with those in need. This is a challenge for those who live in affluent societies--U.S., Europe. We tend to separate into different churches distinguished by social class, and we have made the Lord's Supper into a tidy rite disconnected from real eating and drinking. So, it's hard for economically comfortable Christians to see the connection between the Lord's table and the needs of the poor. The Eucharist is not just a private act of piety focused on receiving individual forgiveness but a coming together of the Lord's people at a common meal. This requires "discerning the body" (1 Cor 11:29): perceive the connection between ourselves and our brothers and sisters in Christ. If we discern the body rightly, we will symbolize our oneness in Christ by sharing what God has given us to eat and drink.
2. The church's memory of Jesus' death by telling the story of his death again and again at the Lord's Supper. The story Paul received and handed on highlights his self-offering: "This is my body that is for you" (1 Cor 11:24). Jesus' death wasn't an accident, or a tragic mistake of the judicial system; Jesus freely gave himself up to death for us, and the sharing of the bread and the cup signifies our acceptance of that incalculably great gift. To know Jesus rightly is to know him through the eucharistic story. To know ourselves rightly is to know ourselves as the recipients of his self-giving. How?
1. 1st, we acknowledge our desperate need: we were strangers alienated from God who could be brought into the new covenant only through this costly act of God's radical grace.
2. 2nd, we're called to live in a way that expresses such divine generosity: we too are to live sacrificially, not pursuing our own interests and pleasures but giving ourselves for others in remembrance of the one who gave himself for us. Because they failed to grasp this connection, Paul told them the story yet again: the task of all Christians is nothing more—and nothing less—than that.
3. The Lord's Supper is an occasion for us to ponder God's judgment. Some Christians are so conscious of their own guilt and unworthiness that they avoid church and the Lord's Supper, because they recognize that their lives are laid bare before God. But the Eucharist is 1st of all an offer of grace, not condemnation. In any case we cannot ultimately avoid accountability to God by staying away. Paul's point in 11:27–32 is that the Lord's Supper allows us to exercise discernment about our own lives in anticipation of God's eschatological judgment. This doesn't mean that sinless perfection is a prerequisite for eating the bread and drinking the cup: if so, no one could ever come to the table. It does mean that this supper calls us again and again to confess our sin and to open ourselves to leading a new life. In particular, this meal summons us to live—as the invitation to the table in the older Methodist communion service proclaimed—"in love and charity with [our] neighbors." When Paul speaks of eating the bread and drinking the cup "in an unworthy manner" (1 Cor 11:27), he's referring to those who ignore their poorer brothers and sisters in the church. The function of judgment language is very much like the parable of the sheep and the goats (Mt 25:31–46): it summons the church to care for "the least of these" in their midst.

God punished the church by causing illness and death among those who failed to discern the body (1 Cor 11:30). This is disturbing, due to of our discomfort with God's judgment. But this is in continuity with Israel's prophetic tradition from Amos onward, and particularly with Dt, which proclaims that curses and misfortunes will fall upon Israel if they disregard the covenant that God has made with them. Also Jesus describes the fate of the disobedient in Mt 25:46: "eternal punishment." Paul doesn't posit a one-to-one correspondence between disobedience and suffering, which wouldn't be coherent with the cross as the center of the gospel. He does, however, believe that God takes human sin seriously and sometimes acts to discipline those who defy his will. It's a message they/we need to hear. Don't we?

Reference:

1. Richard B. Hays. First Corinthians. Interpretation. A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. 1997.
2. Gordon D. Fee. First Corinthians. The New International Commentary on the NT. 1987, 2014.
   
3. Richard B. Hays. The Moral Vision of the N.T. A Contemporary Introduction to N.T. Ethics. 1996.

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