1-2 Corinthians by William Baker & Ralph Martin & Carl N. Toney

Author:William Baker & Ralph Martin & Carl N. Toney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Biblical Commentary / New Testament
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2009-07-20T04:00:00+00:00

COMMENTARY [Text]

Probably more than any other chapter of the Bible, chapter 13 is routinely torn from its context (an appeal to Christians to live out their intramural relations with respect and self-sacrifice) for use in a variety of cultural contexts, like weddings, funerals, and graduation ceremonies. In some ways, this is a tribute to the chapter’s stylistic construction, soothing lyrical quality, powerful vocabulary, and ideological balance that places it at the top of poetry in the Western world, comparable to anything in the Greek and Roman classics or anything written since.

The star status of this encomium (a praise or hymn in form but an exhortation in function; Garland 2003:607) on love’s virtues (Sigountos 1994:260) creates a pitfall every Christian reader must be careful to avoid. As eloquent as Paul is in developing this prose, probably in the course of his teaching ministry (Bruce 1971:125), Paul intended its insertion here to be a principled remedy to a real problem in Corinth involving the use of gifts, and so it should be seen as such when read today. Readers must not think he was singing praises to some personified abstraction of love (Holladay 1990:80-98). He was talking about a manner of conduct that must show itself in the lives of believers, foremost in the way they minister to one another in the body of Christ, though certainly also in their behavior to those outside the body and to God. It is to be the Christian’s basic code of conduct.

The stylistic rhythm of Paul’s tribute to loving behavior reveals three basic divisions to his ideas. First, employing a series of conditional clauses, he laments the emptiness of any personal action, however magnificent or self-sacrificing, without love as its root (13:1-3). Second, he rhapsodizes on the true attributes of love in 15 direct statements, alternating between what it is and what it is not, what those who love do not do and what they do (13:4-7). Third, using a string of contrasting statements, he extols the permanent value of loving behavior (13:8-13).

Most striking in the first division (13:1-3) is that Paul states all the conditional clauses in the first person. In so doing, he positions himself as a hypothetical “everyman,” but he also seems to play on his position as an apostle. Thus, even if he had the gifts he mentions that would enable him to serve the church in amazing ways, without their being done in love, they would have no value. He also orders the seven activities from least to greatest in the sense of difficulty and ministry value to the church. Once again (12:10, 28, 30), this puts tongue speaking at the bottom. The seven gifts listed are taken from his three previous lists in 12:7-10, 27-28, 29-30, except the last one (sacrifice of body). For most of them he tries to add some description as to how a person might maximize its usage for the purpose of presenting the widest possible contrast between the most positive use of the gifts imaginable, which is then undercut by the absence of love as the foundation.

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