Y Safle

In My last post I spoke about preachers appealing to the Greek of a verse to make a point, but I used as my example 1 Corinthians 7 verse 1 (explaining the findings of Greek scholars including C K Barratt and Gordon Fee that the Greek term “to touch a woman” is idiomatic for “to have sexual relations”). What I did not do was provide an interpretation for this passage that makes sense of it armed with this knowledge.

So here is my view (which I think is quite clear once the idiom is understood).

The passage reads:

Now concerning the things about which you wrote, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Notice I have added some quotation marks. The Greek text has no quotation marks - they hadn’t been invented yet! So it is only conjecture, but I think it is a good one, that Paul immediately quoted from the letter that the Corinthians had sent to him.

He has dealt with many other issues in the preceding chapters - issues that had been reported to him. But now he turns to the Corinthian letter and he says:

“Now about the matters you wrote to me about. You said ‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations’”.

And then he immediately answers this point “BUT because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife” and he goes on to say that husbands and wives should fulfill duties to one another.

So what is going on here?

It seems that some of the Corinthian Christians had come to the conclusion that sexual relations were not appropriate for Christians within marriage. One or other of a couple were advocating sexual fasting within marriage, and had written to Paul to commend this practice.

This interpretation fits with what we know of the Corinthian church. They were proud of their spirituality, whilst embracing practices that we would find astounding in today’s church. They also had a pre-gnostic theology that might have led them to disdain the flesh and thus God’s gifts within marriage.

We also know that some of them were sexually immoral, and it may be that part of the reason that there was sexual immorality in the Corinthian church was because one partner in a marriage was denying the other their “conjugal rights”.

So Paul’s prescription: He agrees that celibacy is a wonderful option, but argues that where couples are married, to avoid the temptation to immorality, they should not deny their partners (except perhaps for short periods, when devoting themselves to prayer).

Read the passage again with this interpretation in mind, and I think you will agree that it makes much more sense than the NIV’s interpretation that Paul is talking about marriage.

(Incidentally, the passage quoted above is taken from the NASB, which is a literal translation. The RSV and AV (KJV) which are also literal translations, read almost identically.

I commented on MinTheGap’s blog yesterday in answer to the question of why did Paul say “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than any of you [Corinthians]“?

I repeat some of the answer here, but it leads to some questions in our own Church life unrelated to the gifts issue that we could perhaps explore.

I think Paul believed that tongues were a language of prayer, and that he who speaks in a tongue speaks only to God (prayer through the agency of the Holy Spirit). This is why he tells the Corinthians that prayer in tongues must be interpreted, so that others may say the amen and agree with that prayer. This is why he speaks of praying with his spirit and also praying with his mind.

If we accept this point, then Paul is actually saying “I thank God that I pray more than you do”!

But why would he say something like that?

It is clear that the Corinthian error was pride and arrogance. They were “puffed up”. They broke into parties, some following Paul, some following Apollos and others saying (perhaps), “we are above all this. We just follow Christ”. This pride led to dissension and disunity, and to puffed up boastful people doing unchristian things (be it approval of immorality, or shouting away in unknown tongues in a church service so that no one could understand what was going on, and probably could not hear - as they seemed to be doing so all at once).

It is hard to imagine the disorder of the Corinthian church service, without having been there - but Paul felt the need to reign in this excess. He has had a report of what is going on, and he writes to the Corinthians. When he comes to this excess he writes (literally):

“Now concerning spirituals, I would not have you ignorant…”

I think Paul is saying “now concerning those of you who think yourself so spiritual, as you shout out in tongues in the Church service in your pride”. He goes on to speak of the gifts of the Spirit, but it is a valid interpretation to say that this is what Paul was saying in 1 Cor 12:1 (the NIV footnotes it for instance).

So Paul seems to be saying that you proud tongues prayers are disrupting the Church service, as you show off your spiritual gifts - but I thank God that I pray in tongues more than any of you. Paul is saying that they are not as spiritual as they think, and that boasting before men is disorderly, disruptive and not glorifying to God.

I trust that the Corinthians heard Paul’s message. Pride in our outward worship is still the very same error. When we sing loudly, pray long, dance or engage in any other demonstrable worship in our Church life, why do we do it? Are we as exuberant and devoted in our private moments? Do we dare pray for a full ten minutes in public, if we would not spend an hour in prayer beforehand?

How much of our church worship (with or without demonstrations of tongues and such like) is done for our own edification, rather than the glory of God? How much “spiritual experience” is nothing more than feeding our own pride and need for significance?

Why do so many people think that the loud churches are the spiritual ones?