1 & 2 Corinthians: Jesus Cross Church (Meditative Commentary Book 7)

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How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you!

Biblical Studies/New Testament Commentaries/1 Corinthians/Chapter 4

We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it;. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. Apostles ought to be thought of as stewards of God. God is their master, they are owned by Him. They carry out His work. He has given them great responsibility and trusts them to do a good job.

Without their effort, the work of God would be unfinished. Being a steward is a privilege. A steward is worthless if they disobey their orders. It is logical then, that the most important quality of a steward is faithfulness to their master. As a steward of God, the only person who has any power to judge me is my master.

No person from your church, no officials of the law, no one at all has any power over me because they are not my master. Even my own opinions of myself are of no significance since it is the Lord who judges me. I do live up to my own standards, but I know that God will judge me by His standards in the end. Comparing me to other apostles is fruitless. The Lord will judge later, do not worry about it right now. God will expose all the things that we try to hide from each other.

He knows our unconscious desires even better than we do! He will judge us rightly and completely. When he does, we will all be commended for our stewardship. My Corinthian brothers, I live by this so that you will live by it too! It will prevent you from getting all worked up about who is the best.

God has given you everything you have and has made you who you are. His presence in your life is your only claim to greatness. You, therefore, have zero rights to brag about your success. You seem to think that you have already been judged and that God has given you His praise.

You act as if your bellies are full while you should be hungering after Christ. You act as though you have already been recognized while you should continue in humble service. You think you have the power to rule, even though we apostles do not even rule! The judgment has not come yet. The apostles are not rulers and have not received an award.

In fact, they are treated as convicted criminals. All of society looks down on us apostles. They view us as fools, while you are proud of your wisdom! We make ourselves weak in order to showcase the power of the Spirit while you brag of your strength. You collect honor here on earth while we invest in heavenly honor. As I write this letter my stomach growls in hunger and my lips parch with thirst. We apostles have no proper clothes and no home to call our own.

We are not welcomed; we are beaten. Even though it is not fashionable, we work with our hands because our work, our duty as stewards of God, is more important than any judgment we receive from men. We respond to our suffering with the grace of God. We do not retaliate against our offenders because we are responsible to God alone. We endure persecution, even blessing the people that curse us. We offer kind words to those that slander us. This very day we have been treated as lower than human. We are treated like filthy garbage; like gunk scraped off of the bottom of your shoes. The New Century Bible Commentary.

Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. John Knox Press, The Expositor's Bible Commentary. The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. Beacon Hill Press; The New Interpreter's Bible. New International Biblical Commentary.

Christian Education Award – Dallas Theological Seminary, 1963

From Wikibooks, open books for an open world. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. If the intent of verses was to silence women who were disrupting congregational meetings with inconsiderate chatter, then these verses cannot be used to silence women who have a valid speaking ministry. Keener, who takes into consideration the culture of learning in the first-century, believes that the problem being addressed in 1 Corinthians It is difficult to see how verses follows on from the idea of ignorant, nuisance questions from women, unless the women were monopolising the meetings with their questions and were behaving arrogantly.

Verse 38, on the other hand, seems to fit very well with the idea of ignorant people with ignorant questions. But if anyone ignores this [or, is ignorant][9], they themselves will be ignored. However, there is no historical or archaeological evidence that supports the idea that men and women were segregated in church or synagogue meetings at that time. Moreover, while the Corinthian church started in a synagogue Acts Grudem goes on to say that women may evaluate prophecy silently in their own mind, but cannot voice these evaluations audibly.

Grudem acknowledges that Paul allows women to pray, speak in tongues, and prophesy aloud in church meetings; yet he maintains that women may not minister in any way that can be construed as exercising spiritual authority. And Paul lists the ministry of prophecy before the ministry of teaching in the lists of ministries in 1 Corinthians So it is unclear why Grudem considers the ministry of prophecy as lacking spiritual authority.

Wayne Grudem is well-known for espousing a hierarchical complementarian ideology. While Grudem claims his position is consistent with the context of Chapter 14, it is difficult to see how verse 36 fits with his view. More on this below. Ben Witherington takes into account the broader Corinthian culture in trying to determine the meaning of Witherington believes it is very likely that the Christians in Corinth, in particular, those with pagan backgrounds, had incorporated inappropriate pagan worship practices into Christian worship.

Since the sixth-century BC, Greece was famous for the oracle at Delphi. In the Temple of Apollos at Delphi, a prophetess called the Pythia[13] would respond to questions asked from inquirers. It is very believable that these women [in the Corinthian church] assumed that Christian prophets or prophetesses functioned much like the oracle at Delphi, who only prophesied in response to questions, including questions about purely personal matters. Paul argues that Christian prophecy is different: Prophets and prophetesses speak in response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, without any human priming of the pump.

Paul then limits such questions to another location, namely home. While many of the theologians mentioned thus far have tried to determine the meaning of Some scholars believe that 1 Corinthians This would account for the way it does not seem to fit with what Paul is saying in the surrounding verses. It is possible that one of these factions was trying to silence women in church meetings.

This would have been a real concern for Chloe! Or are you the only ones it has reached? According to Greek grammar, this adjective cannot refer only to women.

The masculine gender in verse 36 does not seem to follow logically after The view that If this explanation is the correct one, then Paul is not silencing women in Rather, Paul quotes and then rebukes the people who are trying to silence the women. As noted, verses sit uncomfortably within 1 Corinthians 14, both grammatically and hermeneutically. In fact, if you skip over verses 33b, and go straight from verse 33a to verse 36, the passage flows and makes good sense.

Furthermore, because of the existence of textual variations involving verses in several early manuscripts of 1 Corinthians, some scholars, notably Gordon D. Fee and Philip B. Payne, suggest that The Latin text of 1 Corinthians 14 runs onward throughout the chapter to ver. This note provides the text of verses 36 through These textual variations, plus others,[20] suggests that may not be original. Apart from the uncertainty as to what sort of speech is being prohibited, another significant problem with understanding the intent of Grudem, however, is careful to distance himself from linking the complementarian concept of male authority with Genesis 3: Other theologians suggest that Paul is referring to a Rabbinical Law.

Interpretations and Applications of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Still others suggest that Paul is referring to a Roman Law. There were many Roman laws that governed various religious observances in the Roman world. Richard and Catherine Kroeger The Kroegers believe the Christian women in Corinth may have imitated Bacchanalian worship styles in church meetings, and so Paul instructs them in Some apply it even more widely and believe that the women as a group were being commanded to be subordinate to the men. The NIV conveys this meaning in its translation of verse One woman who may have ministered in the church at Corinth was Chloe.

In the opening chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul writes that he has learnt that there are problems and factions within the Corinthian church from some people who had come from Chloe 1 Cor. They may have been members of her household and members of her church. Chloe had probably sent these people to Paul. Sending a delegation is clearly something only a person functioning as a leader can do. Considering the purpose of the delegation, it seems that Chloe was a church leader.

In New Testament times, most Christian congregations met in homes, and some house churches were hosted and led by women. Knowing that some early churches were hosted and led by women, makes the interpretation that women were not permitted to speak in church meetings unlikely.

The summaries presented in this article are just a sample of some of the better-known interpretations of Still more interpretations have been proposed by respected scholars. Because of this vast variety of interpretations, it is difficult to know precisely how to apply these verses, especially in the context of the contemporary church.

One thing is certain, 1 Corinthians Taking into account that Paul condones women who prophecy, it is difficult to see how The meaning, intent, and even the authorship, of Because of this uncertainty, Paul did not silence the Corinthian women who prophesied and prayed aloud in church meetings. The Bibliography to this article is here. The precise meaning is usually determined by context. In another way, publicly, addressing oneself to the whole church, and this is not permitted to women.

According to Paul, women have the freedom, or the right, to pray and prophecy aloud in church meetings with their own authority exousia upon their own heads 1 Cor. Paul instructs the women to be silent because they are women, not because they are disorderly. Paul is arguing from a larger conviction about an abiding distinction between the roles appropriate to males and those appropriate females in the Christian Church. These 83 ministries are categorised in three lists. The idea is that a line is drawn somewhere in the lists and that women are excluded from the ministries higher up in the lists.

Where the exactly the line is to be drawn seems incredibly arbitrary. They prohibit women from leading and teaching groups which include men. It is beyond the scope of this essay to discuss the validity and veracity of complementarian beliefs. Other complementarians, including D. Carson, hold to similar interpretations of 1 Corinthians The noxious vapours caused the Pythia to become delirious and speak gibberish.

The gibberish was then interpreted by a male priest-prophet. Ben Witherington, however, relies on the scholarship of Joseph Fontenrose These included questions about domestic concerns such as marriage, childbearing, separation, and the death of a spouse. Welborn proposes that there are three letters contained in First Corinthians. Letter A 1 Cor. Letter B 1 Cor. Welborn refers to Letter C 1 Cor. Grudem seems disingenuous when he criticises those who dismiss some Bible verses as interpolations.

Interpolations are not rare in the New Testament. Several interpolations, such as the Johannine Comma 1 John 5: See endnote 23 for other textual variations. Another possible translation might be: Catherine Clark Kroeger A Traditional Belief of the Church? Marg Mowczko lives north of Sydney, Australia, in a house filled with three generations of family. She strongly believes that if we are in Christ we are part of the New Creation and part of a community where old social paradigms of hierarchies and caste or class systems have no place 2 Cor.

Seems strange to me, but do you have any thoughts or responses to that? I think that 1 Corinthians 11 is about appropriate, respectable behaviour during worship in church meetings. Have you seen this video of NT Wright?

He speaks about 1 Corinthians The only point of his that I am not sure of is whether Corinthian women always covered their hair in public. Here are some other useful links: I read 1 Cor The reason is the Torah is written and therefore read. I think Genesis 3: I think I will rework this into an upcoming post. The numbering of verses in the LXX is slightly different.

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However almost all interpreters and commentators believe Gen 3: The next phrase clearly refers to childbirth: All I want to say is that not all women have painful, arduous labours. My guess to the meaning of this part of the verse is that most women still want desire to marry, despite the loss of harmony, affinity and equality between the sexes, despite the fact that a consequence of the Fall is that men will rule their wives.

Thankfully patriarchy is losing its power and being replaced by equality in a few societies today. See also Matt 5: Also, in the Genesis 3: God does not add a clause that says that this punishment applies to all women. Yet we see that women do suffer with sorrows and sighs, in painful childbirth and because of men who think they are divinely appointed as the leaders and authorities of women. Jesus came to deal with sin and the consequences of the Fall. We can turn back to God and be reconciled with him Acts 3: Wait to you guys and gals face Christ in judgement! Hi Mike, These possible interpretations of 1 Corinthians They have looked at the context of the verse, and the counsel of the Bible as a whole, to try and determine exactly what Paul meant in these two verses.

They have also tried to discern if there are any limits to the call for silence from women and what these limits might be. Do you believe that every woman should be completely silent in every church meeting for all time? Is it OK if women join in with liturgies where there is a call and response? Or do you believe women must keep silent in the churches and should not be permitted to speak at all. The life of St. Joan of Arc is a great example of the fact that God never intended for women to have any limits whatsoever and that it was as a result of the fall from grace that things became the way they were.

And He put everything in place for Joan. It was only after they burned her they realized she was God-sent, just as she claimed because as she told them before she died, her heart did not reduce to ashes but kept on beating as though she were still alive while the rest of her body did turn to ashes. If one has even the slightest bias against women no matter how small it is very easy to misinterpret what the intentions behind this and similar scriptures were. It is not that there is any unbelief in what is being said, it is just that it is easy to misunderstand it and basically the whole world has been misled about many parts of the bible that have been taught in a very biased manner misleading people into believing things of scripture that are totally inconsistent with who God is and the truth that He represents.

This has been happening for a looooonnngg time. I know this for myself apart from the info on this website. I think it is pretty clear from the way Paul and more importantly, Jesus Himself treated the women they came into contact with, that God never intended women to be bound by any limits whatsoever. Look at the fact that He exalted His Mother above all men including Joseph, her husband ….. Whether people approve or not and whether they beleive it or not, God intended every woman to be honoured the way His Mother has been honoured.

But that is incorrect because God is extremely different. Truth is, there will always be people out there in the world who will always want to believe things that are not true, because thats their preference. For those of us who really know the truth, which Jesus Himself said that there is only one of, we just have to be content in knowing that what we know is the one and only truth. Rather, I will try my best to be content in knowing that what I beleive is the truth.

It is quite clear that this verse intends for women not to speak in church. Obviously women would like to creep at the edges of the bible to weasel their way into the heirachy, and this is exactly why He has told us that they are unfit for the purpose. The intent and meaning of 1 Cor. I do not regard these men as creeping at the edges of the Bible; the opposite is the case.

II. The Crisis Between Paul and the Corinthians

These verses do not have anything to do with a hierarchy. Moreover, elsewhere in the New Testament, women, as well as men, are encouraged to minister and speak in meetings. The house church setting of the early church is very different to the setting of most churches today. Thankfully the Scriptures say wonderful things about women. And if some of the women were single, how can they have sk their husbands a question if they have no husbands?

Its like if a group of women sat in service, then starting talking and making noise while the preacher is speaking…they would have to keep silence for the church to hear the word. I know a friend that said all women have to submit to their husbands nomatter what He does. It means the husband will be the stronger vessel when I view it. And I strongly believe with proof that some of the scriptures were mistranslated. And they were in pastoral positions. Thanks for your comments, John. I completely agree that God does not want every woman to keep silent and be in submission to every man.

People have misunderstood, misinterpreted and misapplied the instructions in 1 Cor. Women in the New Testament church did indeed have pastoral ministries e. However, I do not believe that any Christian — man or woman — has authority over another adult Christian; rather we are all brothers and sisters. I believe the text of what paul was saying to the church of corinth was that its ashame for your wives to speak rather than just plain general women. But in my opinion, I believe the text in 1corinthians Which was just the wives that were disrupting the church in meetings.

As I took a look around 1Corinthians And yet the Jewish Law does not contain any statute that says or implies that women should be silent. My apologes If I sent this twice, 1Corinthians Notice how it says at 1st that they should ask their husbands….

Interpretations and Applications of 1 Corinthians | Marg Mowczko

Now what would make sense is if 1Corinthians I see paul was quoting like he does in most of his letters, and at corinth he was quoting the jewish teaching in 1Corinthians He said in 1Corinthians1: I really dont see evidence in this book showing any signs of wives disrupting the meeting though. For example, in John8: But we dont see that law mentioned and stated in the Old Testament. Now, Jesus in John8: But the 10 commandments says to keep the sabbathh holy.

My point for this is that the jewish law in the New Testament including 1Corinthians Thanks for the article, Marg. I really appreciate how carefully you have done your research and how clearly you have presented your information. Hi Dan, PhDs take a lot of work, and a lot of sitting still.

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