Tag Archives: New Testament

Review: First and Second Timothy and Titus (Interpretation)

Leave a reply

Thomas C. Oden (1931–2016) is a renowned Methodist theologian. He wrote numerous theology books and was editor of the monumental Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.

The Interpretation Series

The Interpretation series of Bible commentaries was created with the purpose of assisting “preachers and teachers”, focusing on the homiletical applications of the biblical text. It is a very useful series both for personal use and for teaching. I recommend this series it highly. The series includes many prominent theologians among whom I’ll mention: Thomas C. Oden (this volume), Terence Fretheim (Exodus), Walter Brueggemann (Genesis & 1 & 2 Samuel), and Richard B. Hays (1 Corinthians).

Oden’s Method

Oden’s method in this commentary is primarily to synthesize his own applications from Church Fathers and classical Protestantism. Among Church Fathers, he quotes most widely from Chrysostom and Augustine. Among Protestant authors, he quotes most from Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley.

My intention is to provide a modern commentary on the Pastorals grounded in the classical, consensual tradition of interpretation of these texts. (p. 2)

The author does cite modern commentaries in many cases, but he quotes the classics much more extensively. This lends an enduring interest to Oden’s commentary. Perspectives from the Fathers are often stunningly fresh, coming as voices from outside our culture and our zeitgeist. His focus on speaking from “consensual tradition” means he tends to dwell outside modern polemical arguments.

Arrangement of the Book

Oden’s volume on First and Second Timothy and Titus (1989) is unique in its arrangement. Passages are grouped thematically, rather than in canonical order, so that the book is less repetitive when read cover-to-cover. The Pastorals can be studied in canonical order using the index. For example, all three Bible books are introduced together, but the section that follows covers 2 Timothy 3:14–17 and 2 Timothy 1:3–7, grouped under “The Authority and Traditioning of Scripture”.

As the Pastoral Epistles are read and studied, Oden’s arrangement becomes more intuitive; but it takes some getting used to.

I think in such a commentary, although it is not long, it would be unproductive to try to cover the entire outline, so I will just point out some of the major contributions that I thought were insightful.

Who Wrote the Pastoral Epistles?

Historical evidence for Pauline authorship is a little weaker for the Pastoral Epistles than for the General Epistles. None of the Pastoral Epistles is mentioned in Marcion’s canon, the earliest New Testament canon. Oden argues, though, that the Church Fathers were unanimous in attributing these letters to Paul and ascribing apostolic authority to them. The historical sequence is also messy, comparing Acts to the Pastorals. But for Oden (p. 8), it is simplest to believe that the events related to these epistles occurred after Luke’s authoring of Acts, than to argue that the Pastorals are inauthentic, merely because we don’t have enough data to fit them together into a neat timeline. The Pastorals also differ thematically from other epistles because they differ in audience. Paul is addressing “long-term associates who did not need to be instructed on elementary teachings” (p. 13).

I do not put much stock in studies that seek to identify the author of a text based on vocabulary. Shakespeare, for instance, wrote much more than Paul, in language much closer to ours, and debates still rage about whether he could have written all the plays attributed to him. But, ultimately, they circle back to the man himself, because it takes very hard proof for speculation to oust tradition.

Do Not Rebuke a Mocker

At many points in the book, Oden helpfully points out how Paul dismisses false teachings rather than attacking them. This comes up repeatedly in the Pastorals. Timothy is to “give no heed” to conspiracy theories (1 Tim. 1:4); “spurn” old wives’ tales (1 Tim. 4:7); “flee” fake preachers who profit from the gospel (1 Tim. 6:11); “avoid godless chatter” (2 Tim. 2:16); Titus is to “give no heed” to Jewish fables (Titus 1:14); “avoid foolish questions” (Titus 3:9). Oden argues that even in our dealings with heretics, we should “refuse further dealings”:

This is not the same as excommunication. It is far more passive than that. If you enter into dialogue, you will inadvertently lend legitimacy to the false teacher by granting that his premise is tenable.

Oden, p. 86

Women in Ministry

Many readers will be interested in Oden’s comments on women in leadership in relation to 1 Timothy 2:11–15. On 1 Timothy 2:12, Oden quotes Chrysostom, arguing that women are called to “quietness” (ἡσυχίᾳ) rather than “silence” (σιγὴ), and that this “quietness” is a virtue enjoined upon both men and women. Other New Testament uses justify this: Acts 22:2, 1 Thess. 4:11, 2 Thess 3:12, 1 Peter 3:4. The cognate term in 1 Timothy 2:2 is usually translated “peaceable”. Oden’s conclusion: “It is not that women in general cannot teach but that a woman cannot teach in such a way as to usurp authority over teachers already duly designated.” (p. 97) The juxtaposition is not between “holding authority” (αὐθεντεῖν) and “being in silence” (εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ), which are not very good antonyms; rather, the juxtaposition is between “usurping authority” (perhaps, “domineering”) and “quietness” (or something like “being at peace”).

In his comments on 1 Timothy 2:12, Martin Luther wrote that he believed this verse to pertain to “wives”, not “women”—the two senses are expressed by the same word in Greek, as also in Arabic and many other languages. For Luther, a “wife” (not “a woman”) should not usurp authority over her “husband” (not “a man”). The same lexical problem comes up in treatments of 1 Corinthians 11:3 (see here) and 1 Corinthians 14:34 (see here and here).

Bring the Parchments

Oden writes that Paul’s request, “bring the parchments”, is the most interesting passage in the Pastoral Epistles, and I tend to agree. It certainly sparks the imagination.

Bishops, Presbyters, Elders, Pastors, Deacons … ?

I had planned to write a little about Oden’s ecclesiology and church leadership, which is a major theme in the Pastoral Epistles. He delves at some length into questions such as the distinction between “elders” and “pastors” (hint: for him, there is none). I disagreed with some of Oden’s ideas here and the arguments got a little tricky for me to follow. Many have pointed out that Titus 1:5 and 1:7 seem to collocate “elders” and “bishop” as synonyms, and 1 Timothy 3 only outlines “bishops” and “deacons”, probably because elders were not a third category, but a synonym for “bishops”. This is a frequent argument used in documents that defend congregationalist ecclesiology, which has a flatter hierarchy than most Methodist denominations, in that it has no bishoprics presiding over multiple churches.

Conclusion

I’ve finished three volumes from this series and all have been very good. My main problem with getting through Oden’s book was how it was organized. It is a difficult task writing a commentary that covers portions of scripture that are somewhat repetitive, and yet maintaining readable prose. But his use of classical commentators, in my opinion, made up for this defect. And in spite of his self-proclaimed “fogey”-ness, his style is mostly quite accessible. This book is a refreshing mix of old and new.

Review: Women and Worship at Corinth

3 Replies

Author: Lucy Peppiatt is an evangelical charismatic minister, theologian, and principal of Westminster Theological Centre in Cheltenham, England. She has pastored churches in the Church of England alongside her husband, Nick Crawley. Her research focuses on the Trinity, 1 Corinthians, and Paul’s view on women.

Full title: Women and Worship at Corinth: Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians

Overview:

Women and Worship at Corinth (2015) may be the most intriguing book-length contribution to the Christian theological debate on women’s roles since the Kroegers’ I Suffer Not a Woman (1992). It is a thorough defense of the idea that Paul was quoting his opponents at certain points in 1 Corinthians 11; thus, the passage about head coverings for women is a Corinthian argument Paul is opposing, not a command he is giving them. An overview of her argument is available from the OnScript podcast.

The setting of 1 Corinthians

On 1 Corinthians as a whole, Peppiatt writes:

The letter is written to admonish the Corinthians for ways in which they have begun to depart from Paul’s original teaching and practices, and is a response to their reply to his original epistle.

Woman and Worship at Corinth, p. 2

This means that there is a lot of missing context, and—like the similarly problematic passage in 1 Timothy 2—commentators and preachers resort to (rampant?) speculation with regard to the church situation Paul is responding to. In both passages (1 Cor. 11, 1 Tim. 2), Pauline teaching on women seemingly contradicts Pauline practice (e.g., Rom. 16, Acts 18).

In this book, Peppiatt defends what she calls a “rhetorical reading” of both 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 and 1 Corinthians 14:34–36, asserting that Paul is quoting his opponents in both passages. She is not dogmatic, however, and begins the discussion by freely admitting her biases. She writes that even a “flat” reading of these texts is circumscribed by the limits of the reader’s imagination in reconstructing the context, and thus, there is no unproblematic (“literal”) way to read the text without coping with contradictions and difficulties (contra, among others, David Pawson).

What is the rhetorical reading?

It is already universally accepted that [Paul] quotes some Corinthian slogans in 1 Corinthians in order to make a point. These verses include 6:12, 13; 7:1; 8:1, 8:4; 10:23; and 15:12.

Women and Worship at Corinth, p. 4

A rhetorical reading of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 will be unfamiliar to some readers, but we know that quotations were not always signalled by ancient writers, and that Paul quotes others many times in 1 Corinthians. A rhetorical reading in 1 Corinthians 14:34–36 has also been proposed convincingly for some decades.[1] Here I’ve bolded the verse where Paul is apparently quoting his opponents. The disjunction is obvious in verse 36.[2]

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?

1 Corinthians 14:34–36, KJV, emphasis added to show proposed quotations

Given a rhetorical reading of 1 Corinthians 14:34–36, it is likely that Paul was dealing with some sort of misogynism in the church at Corinth (unlike those at Philippi and Ephesus, where women apparently held great influence). If we follow the “flat” reading of both passages, Paul truly intended for women to be veiled, at least in Corinth, during Christian worship, in which they pray and prophesy (11:5); but he also (somewhat confusingly) instructs women to be silent in church (14:34). The overlapping contradictions in these chapters, along with their contradictions to the early church’s recorded practices, require further explanations, and Peppiatt points out that scholars are routinely confused by many aspects 1 Corinthians 11:2–16.

A rhetorical reading of 1 Corinthians 11 was first proposed by Thomas Shoemaker in 1987, in a single “underdeveloped” article. Peppiatt has fleshed this out and found that quite a few contradictions result from a “flat” reading of 1 Corinthians 11.

Below is 1 Corinthians 11:2–16, showing the proposed quotations from Pauline opponents in bold.

2 Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. 3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. 5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. 10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. 12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God. 13 Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? 14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? 15 But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering. 16 But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.

1 Corinthians 11:2–16, emphasis added to show proposed quotations

Why do we need a rhetorical reading of this passage?

  1. Paul himself had long hair when he was in Corinth. Why then would he condemn long hair in men?
  2. Paul contradicts himself within the passage: Are men independent of women, or are they interdependent?
  3. Paul contradicts his own words later in the letter: Do women have to stay silent, or can they pray and prophesy with correct attire?
  4. “Apostleship for Paul is marked by public dishonor and disgrace.” (p. 70) Why then does Paul appeal to shame and honor? Did he not say in the same letter that the apostles were disgraced before angels (1 Cor. 4:8–13)?
  5. Even if we believed this was motivated by some local custom, historians do not point to any coherent custom in ancient Corinth regarding veils or hair.
  6. Paul does quote his opponents elsewhere. “In sum, it seems that Paul does quote texts from others when composing his letters, and that he does not always signal those overtly with written cues . . .” (Campbell’s Deliverance, p. 541).
  7. Paul mentioned the headship of Christ over men first. The order is not insignificant.
  8. Paul used the word “nevertheless” (Gk. πλήν) in between two apparently contradictory passages.
  9. Practically no church obeys the letter of 1 Corinthians 11, even though its argumentation is apparently rooted in the creation order, and therefore—according to Lucy Peppiatt and Michael Lakey—its commands should be considered transcultural if we choose the flat reading of the text.
  10. Interpreting male headship as meaning “authority” (in v. 3) requires us to apply the same language to the Trinity, which leads to eternal functional subordination (EFS), which has been historically condemned as heresy.
  11. Finally, we have no idea what is meant by the phrase, “because of the angels”! The line of thought drops off quite abruptly.

One final note

In his booklet on the topic, Michael F. Bird writes that 1 Corinthians 11 cannot be used to keep women out of ministry anyway, because the point of the passage is that women can “pray and prophesy” publicly if they follow culturally appropriate guidelines of modesty and unostentatiousness.

For more on this topic, see Peppiatt’s 2019 book, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women: Fresh Perspectives on Disputed Texts, which is a more thorough defense of Christian egalitarianism.

[1] Pepiatt cites: Allison, “Let the Women Be Silent in the Churches” (1988); Flanagan and Snyder, “Did Paul Put Down Women in 1 Cor 14:34–36?” (1981); Manus, “The Subordination of Women in the Church: 1 Cor 14:33b–36 Reconsidered”; Odell-Scott, “In Defence of an Egalitarian Interpretation of 1 Cor 14:34–36″ (1987).

[2] Some scholars, such as Murphy-O’Connor, have also argued that a scribe who disagreed with Paul added the bit about silencing women in 1 Corinthians 14:34–35; thus, it is a scribal “interpolation”. This is supported by some manuscripts in which the verse order is rearranged, with verses 34 and 35 being moved after verse 40 (though verses 34 and 35 are never omitted in the existing manuscript tradition). Odell-Scott argues that this was a scribal re-arrangement which lent to us a more positive interpretation of the verses about silencing women.

Review: The Glory of the Manger

Leave a reply

Rating: ★★★★½

Author: Samuel M. Zwemer was a pioneer missionary among Arabs along the Persian Gulf. His later career was spent writing, teaching and mobilizing for missions among Muslims while he was based in Egypt for many years, and later at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Click here for more on Samuel M. Zwemer’s writings, or read his biography.

Overview:

While Samuel Zwemer was an extremely prolific writer throughout his career, only a few of his works have as much devotional value as The Glory of the Manger. It was the second published in a triad of devotional books, which are quite similar despite the time gaps:

  1. The Glory of the Cross (1927)
  2. The Glory of the Manger (1940)
  3. The Glory of the Empty Tomb (1947)

Zwemer was a voracious reader and an indefatigable worker, and it shows through even in his devotional works; that is to say, even his “devotional” works are very academic in tone. In several chapters, he takes to task the naysayers and philosophical materialists of his day who sought to deny the virgin birth of Christ. After these doctrinal defenses and logical forays, so common in Zwemer’s writings, he does move on to more applicable content!

Meat:

Although defenses of Christian creeds often feel like watching someone hold their breath until they turn blue, Zwemer presents here quite a bit of evidence for the historicity of Jesus and the reliability of the New Testament. The appendix to Chapter III, on the “Witness of Pagan Writers to the Historicity of Jesus Christ,” is extremely interesting.

When he’s not presenting evidence for our faith, Zwemer gets to a masterful handling of Scripture.

The poetry and hymns presented at the beginning of each chapter—as it was in The Glory of the Cross—include a number of hymns that will be both fresh and fascinating to modern readers, chosen as they were from his wide reading across centuries of Christian tradition. Some may skip these few verses as if they were filler, but if you take a moment to read them, you will find that they are filled with treasure new and old, such as this four-hundred-year-old verse, taken almost at random, from Giles Fletcher:

“See how small room my Infant Lord doth take,
Whom all the world is not enough to hold.
Who of His years, or of His age hath told
Never such Age so young, never a Child so old!”

Bones:

It was characteristic of the time period to associate Christmas with doctrinal attacks on the virgin birth, as seen here in Zwemer’s Glory of the Manger, and Lockyer’s 1942 book The Christ of Christmas (material reprinted and expanded in All about God in Christ). Today that war has gone cold, so the polemical tone around this issue seems overblown. Nonetheless, Zwemer gives a wealth of historical and doctrinal resources in even as small a package as this book.

Quotes:

“The Incarnation was the greatest miracle of human history. And it is true. God who fills the universe was born a Babe.” (loc. 65)

fountain pen

Scribes of the Kingdom

Leave a reply

An Apologia for Christian Scholarship

There are several classes of people in the New Testament setting that are difficult to translate or describe, and are liable to be painted with a broad brush:

As we take each of these in turn, a clear picture emerges: Jesus and the apostles endorsed the role of theologians and scholars as essential to the function of the church. The problem with the Pharisees and Sadducees was most assuredly not that they took their Bible seriously and sought to learn all they could about it; rather, Jesus’ conflict with them was caused by their neglect of applying what they knew so well (Matthew 23:23). Their expertise brought upon them a great responsibility.

Who Are Pharisees and Sadducees?

Pharisees and Sadducees are two important schools of thought within the Judaism of Jesus’ day. The Pharisees derived their authority from the law of Moses, and numbered in the thousands. According to Josephus, only the wealthy elite were persuaded to become Sadducees. Their main distinguishing doctrine was their denial of an afterlife.

Both of these groups frequently become straw men during sermons on the New Testament. However, it is clear from the Bible that not all of the scholars or religious elite of Jesus’ day were hypocrites. In the New Testament, the Sadducees are never depicted in a positive light.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were rivals with different views of the Torah. Interestingly, Jesus warns his disciples about “the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6). Thus, he steered them away from joining both of these leading schools of thought, though several Pharisees did later join them.

Who Are Scribes and Lawyers?

Scribes and lawyers are, for all intents and purposes, the scholars and theologians of biblical times. But they are not translated this way because there are clear differences related to the tasks that they were involved in. In general, scholars of today are more specialized and less involved in clerical work.

In Greek, scribes are, etymologically, “lettered” or “literate” people. This makes more sense here in Asia, where handwriting is considered a marketable skill. In the Middle East, a “scribe” (خطّاط) acts mainly as a calligrapher, and neat handwriting is prized; in South Asia, scribes also may act like notaries, helping with official documents and clerical work, as they did in Bible times.

Lawyers as spoken of in the New Testament were not mainly concerned with secular law, but with God’s law found in the Torah. It is not entirely misleading to think of someone constructing an argument from piles of books or manuscripts, but the key difference here is that it was a religious role, not a secular role. For this reason, modern translations often use phrases like “expert” or “teacher” of the Law (that is, Mosaic law).

Woe to the Scholars!

Of the four categories listed above, all are are prone to negative descriptions. Among these, the Sadducees are perhaps the only one that is consistently portrayed in a negative light in the New Testament. They were in serious doctrinal error, and none of them in the Gospels or Acts ever offers any encouragement to the gospel of the kingdom.

Jesus also pronounces woe on lawyers (Luke 11:46, 52), and scribes and Pharisees, whom he groups together (Matthew 23, Luke 11:42-44). In light of this, and Paul’s writings about the cross being “foolishness” to the wise of this world, intellectuals and scholars have become low-hanging fruit for Bible teachers who want to lead people into a more spiritual worldview.

In general, this kind of anti-intellectualism is not only unfounded, but unbiblical. In the New Testament, there are many scholars and teachers that seriously consider Jesus’ teachings or even follow him. There are several verses where Jesus explicitly speaks of scribes in a positive light, which are listed below. As for the lawyers, Paul requests a lawyer named Zenas to minister with Apollos (Titus 3:13).

Several Pharisees are either sympathetic to the Christian faith or believers themselves. Paul calls himself a Pharisee before and after conversion, suggesting that there was nothing offensive about their doctrine; rather, similar to the “Nazirites” of Scripture, it denoted a certain status in relation to the law (Phil. 3:5). In today’s terminology, some contemporary writers have characterized the Pharisees more like a conscientious revival movement—not a bumbling cult of nitpickers.

Jesus Sends Us Scribes

There are at least three passages in which Jesus makes explicitly positive evaluations of scribes:

  • In Mark 12:28-34, a scribe asks Jesus about the first commandment. (This is one of several passages in which scholars ask Jesus sincere questions, not intending to “trap” him as in other stories.) After their discussion, Jesus pronounces that this scribe is “not far from the kingdom of God.”
  • In concluding the parables of the kingdom, Jesus tells his disciples that “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52). Scholars, therefore, have an important role in preserving and disseminating kingdom truths!
  • In Matthew 23, Jesus is pronouncing woe on the “scribes and Pharisees.” He tells them that he sends “prophets, wise men and scribes.” This is the most important verse in this study because it not only legitimizes scribes, but proclaims that Jesus himself sends them, working alongside prophets and other “wise men.”

Jesus and his disciples frequently interacted with scribes, lawyers and Pharisees in neutral settings. They attend his teachings and ask genuine questions:

  • In Matthew 17:10, Mark 9:11, Jesus’ disciples knew scribal teachings. In Mark 12:35, Jesus himself knew the teachings of the scribes.
  • In Luke 17:20, the Pharisees ask about the coming of the kingdom.
  • In John 9:40, Pharisees ask Jesus if they are blind, too.
  • In Mark 7:1, Pharisees and scribes come to see him—though he afterward rebukes them.
  • In Luke 7:37 and 39, Jesus sits in a Pharisee’s house. In Luke 11:37, Jesus accepts another invitation from a Pharisee.
  • In John 3, Nicodemus (a Pharisee) approaches Jesus in the night.

In other passages, scribes agree with Jesus:

  • In Luke 20:39, scribes agree with Jesus about the resurrection.
  • In Mark 12:28-34, the scribe (mentioned above) agrees that Jesus has spoken well about the greatest commandments.

In many New Testament Scriptures, scribes, lawyers and Pharisees have even become disciples of Jesus:

  • In Matthew 8:19, a scribe asks to be a disciple.
  • In Acts 15:5, some Pharisees had believed the gospel.
  • In Titus 3:13, Paul asks Titus to send “Zenas the lawyer” with Apollos; here he appears to be financially endorsing a scholar with a traveling ministry.
  • Paul himself was a Pharisee, and proclaims himself “a Pharisee, son of a Pharisee” well after becoming a follower of Jesus (Acts 23:6, 26:5, Phil. 3:5).

There are also New Testament passages where scholars, teachers, and Pharisees receive Jesus’ spiritual ministry:

  • In Mark 9:14, scribes came seeking healing.
  • In Luke 5:17, Pharisees and teachers came from every town, and “the power of the Lord was present.”

In a surprising number of passages, scribes and Pharisees defend Jesus and the apostles from the persecution of others:

  • In Luke 13:31, some Pharisees warned Jesus of persecution from Herod.
  • In John 7:50, Nicodemus (a Pharisee) publicly defends Jesus.
  • In Acts 19:35, a scribe calmed the mob in Ephesus.
  • In Acts 23:9, scribes of the Pharisees wanted to release Paul.
  • In Acts 5:34, Gamaliel (a Pharisee) advises the Sanhedrin to release the apostles.

Conclusion

The above passages resist caricatures of the Pharisees, who were a large and presumably diverse group. Rather, unlike the Sadducees, many Pharisees became followers of Jesus, or defended him against others of their sect.

More importantly, though, there is a clear and legitimate role for theologians in Jesus’ teaching. He does not exclude all intellectuals with a wave of his hand; rather, in Matthew 13:52 and 23:34, he maintains space for scholars and experts who maintain a high regard for God and his words.

Pentecost_mosaic cred Pete Unseth

Christ’s Body Is the Temple

1 Reply

There is only one verse in the New Testament that teaches specifically that a believer’s physical body is a temple:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? (1 Cor. 6:19)

But it seems like believers today have removed this verse totally from its immediate context, its greater context, and from the many similar verses that clarify the full meaning of this truth. Let’s take a look.

A Variety of Passages

Now, there are at least seven passages in the New Testament that compare believers themselves to a temple or building, but we commonly only hear that our bodies are temples. In fact Paul is emphasizing different things in different passages, but we’ll note some patterns that bring them together.

You are God’s field, God’s building. (1 Cor. 3:9)

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Cor. 3:16-17)

 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them ...” (2 Cor. 6:16, q. Ezek. 37:27)

You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are … members of the household of God … Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure … grows into a holy temple in the Lord … (Eph. 2:19-21)

The main thing you should notice is that Paul is talking about the entire, invisible Church as God’s temple in the New Covenant—not the individual believer, or the physical church—and that none of these verses are talking directly about physical health.

Health Is Never Mentioned—Sexual Purity Is

In none of these verses does Paul mention working out. 1 Corinthians 6:19, so often trotted out in that sense, is actually about avoiding sexual immorality by keeping away from sexual immorality and prostitutes, which are still so common in many of the world’s cities.

Prostitutes were kept in pagan shrines, and money from sex funded the work of these temples. Shrine prostitutes are mentioned many times in the Old Testament. So it makes sense for Paul to say to them, you shouldn’t be going to the shrine of a pagan god for sex, when you yourself are the shrine of the one, true living God.

Indirectly, you can of course say that a miniature “temple” demands respect and care. I’m not saying that health isn’t important, or that Christ’s workers shouldn’t live long, healthy lives. That may be true and implied, but it’s simply not directly what this verse is saying. If anything, rather than teaching on working out, we should teach from this verse against pornography and its vital role in maintaining the wicked global sex trade. Any believer that supports this sins against much more than his own body.

I Am Not God’s Temple—We Are

The subject is plural in every case except for 1 Corinthians 6:19. So Paul teaches that we are God’s dwelling place much more often than he teaches that our individual bodies are. (The singular/plural distinction was clear in the early modern English of the King James: “Ye/you/your” was plural, while “thou/thee/thine” was singular.)

Paul used the singular just once, to emphasize the sense of personal responsibility, and the personal defilement that comes from misusing your body sexually. But in most of the New Testament he teaches not that God dwells in me, but that God dwells in us.

When Paul compares the body to a temple, he is taking a cue from Jesus, who compared his body to a temple. Now, in the same passage where he says that “your body is a temple,” he uses the word “body” to mean Christ’s body:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! (1 Cor. 6:15)

So each of us is only one part of the picture. Even the most commonly quoted verses on Christ’s indwelling, like Colossians 1:27, where he says that “Christ in you” is “the hope of glory,” are plural, and being addressed to a group. “The Holy Spirit dwells in us” (2 Tim. 1:14). “He put his Spirit in the midst of them” (Isa. 63:11).

We Are Not a Religious Building—We Are a Sanctuary

The word used for temple in these verses is slightly more specific than ‘temple’; it is the sanctuary of the temple. Richard Trench points out that the distinction is well maintained in New Testament Greek. Whenever Jesus is teaching “in the temple,” we are to understand that he is in the courts of the temple; whenever Zechariah goes into the temple and has a vision, we can understand that he was in the sanctuary, the Holy Place.

Every verse that compares believers to a temple uses the word for sanctuary. The implication is not that it is a grand, important building, consecrated to a religious purpose, but that it is a sacred place, consecrated to God, whatever else it may be.

The teaching that says that our physical well-being honors the indwelling Christ, may be true in some sense. But is this to say that people with lifelong illnesses are dishonoring Christ? That is not what the Bible teaches, and we dishonor the sick when we try to create a karmic link between health and spirituality. There is no mystic link between physical fitness and spiritual fitness.

A Church Is Not God’s House—The Church Is

Another misunderstanding about God’s dwelling is the still-frequent usage of the phrase “house of God” for a church building. This phrase, when used in this way, is essentially a vestige of Judaism, or a holdover from heathenism. It is not the language of the New Testament. Paul and Peter both teach that the church itself—that is, believers—are the house, or family, of God.

If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in [or among] the household of God, which is the church of the living God … (1 Tim. 3:15)

Some versions say “house of God” in 1 Timothy 3:15, but only a medieval interpretation of the Bible would say that Paul was referring to a physical church.

We are his house. (Heb. 3:6)

You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house … (1 Pet. 2:5)

The word for house also means household. In the time when Paul wrote this, when most churches were still meeting in houses under threat of persecution, Paul could not have conceivably taught that a church building is God’s dwelling place. He taught something much more shocking—he taught that we are.

Conclusion

When Jesus said that the Comforter was with the disciples, but would be in them, he was teaching the fulfillment of multiple prophecies given over hundreds of years. He was teaching that Moses’ wish, that all God’s people could prophesy, was one step closer to fulfillment. He was teaching the end of the Old Covenant—in which God dwelled in limited believers and limited places—and the beginning of a new economy of grace, in which God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh.

That pouring out began on the Day of Pentecost, a Jewish celebration centered around the assembly of men at the temple. But now this outpouring has broken the bounds of upbringing, ethnicity, gender, age, and nation. It is not limited to any physical church or temple, but has entered the hearts of a manifold spiritual assembly, “the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” (Heb. 12:23). This assembly now gathers to no physical meeting place, but under the spiritual banner of the slain Lamb.

Each person who is part of this assembly is like a single stone of a sacred building, or a single cell of Christ’s body, which he said was the temple. Each cell contains the DNA blueprint that represents the whole, which is why we can point a finger at a fellow believer and say, “You yourself are God’s dwelling place.” But it would be far better to imagine every believer from Pentecost onwards, from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and say together, “We are God’s dwelling place.”

Your body may be a temple. But Christ’s body is the temple.

Mosaic credit: Pete Unseth

The Color of the King

Leave a reply

The language of color, the blood of Jesus, and why we argue about what pink is.

“Is that bag pink?”
“No, it’s red.”
“It looks pink to me.”
“I hope it’s not pink.”

My friend and I went on to discuss how we had problems identifying certain colors. One of us may have a mild color blindness, which is common in men. But the more likely culprit is a concept called linguistic relativity.

Language is based on convention, but colors usually have loosely defined conventions. Put another way, any given color is actually a range of specific pigments, which explains why we can disagree: in each person’s brain, those ranges are slightly different, whether or not they are color blind. This is why we can argue about whether something is pink or not.

Translating Colors

Color words are also difficult to translate. Some languages in New Guinea have no colors—only words for “dark” and “light”—while the Hanuno’o Language of the Philippines only has four colors (or color groupings): black, white, red, and green. Even European languages use almost identical words for different colors!

The French color pourpre is much closer to crimson:

image

The German color purpur is shown in this logo:

image

If you search Wikipedia for the modern Greek color porphyro, from which the other words come, the site redirects to kokkino, which is their word for red!

image

So translating color words is fishy business. And any two people can tell the same story accurately but describe the colors they saw differently. This partially explains why the gospels disagree about the royal color that Jesus’ torturers gave him before his execution:

They stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. (Matt. 27:28)
They clothed him with purple. (Mark 15:17)
They unclothed him from purple … (Mark 15:20)
They put on him a purple robe … (John 19:2)
Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. (John 19:5)

Why Four Gospels?

When it comes to the gospels—especially the accounts of the Resurrection—many inconsistencies are solved by one simple principle: If the stories were exactly the same between the four Gospels, it would imply collusion, just as it would in a court case. However, the stories could also be so different as to be irreconcilable. Instead, they share the most important narrative elements but vary when it comes to the non-essentials. This alleged argument against the Gospels shows that the four writers used different firsthand sources, inasmuch as they differ. Yet the picture they paint of Jesus as a person, the attitudes he represents, the places he went, the phrases he used, is consistent.

Why Two Colors?

In modern Greek these two words (κόκκινο and πορφυρό) are actually synonyms (as mentioned above), and they may have been near-synonyms in ancient Greek. But even if they differed at the time, varying testimonies could improve the accuracy: the color Jesus wore during his humiliation was purplish crimson. Since colors are relative, the Gospel sources disagreed slightly on what the royal color was—and yet they all told the truth! John pairs the same two colors, purple and scarlet, multiple times in the Book of the Revelation, and says that the prostitute of Babylon wore them both.

The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour … (Rev. 17:4)

John may have paired the two colors to get as close as possible to the actual color, as we do when we say reddish orange or bluish green.

Hast Thou Purpled?

Lastly, the meaning of purple in English has changed dramatically since English Bible translation began. (Not to mention, it was also used as a verb!) Translating Matthew in the 1520s, William Tyndale rendered our Greek word for scarlet as purple, apparently showing he saw no discrepancy at all between the colors in Greek. Perhaps more importantly, John Donne, a poet contemporary with King James, saw no discrepancy between crimson and purple in English:

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?

The color of blood was, at that time in England, within the range of hues recognized as purple. The Oxford Dictionary even says that the word “purple” comes “from Greek porphura, denoting molluscs that yielded a crimson dye”—again, equating the color, both in English and ancient Greek, with crimson.

What Is the Royal Color?

Linguistic evidence provides many interesting reasons that the two colors are not inconsistent. But I think the most interesting point of all is what Jesus actually wore. It could not have been a pansy violet color as some suppose, but, according to the combined testimony of the Gospel writers, was undoubtably much closer to the color of blood. The color of the King is not a color of florid gentleness, but the color of a royal sacrifice.

He was not just killed, but rejected, tortured, humiliated, and murdered. But the crimson garment they mocked him with became in their hands the clothing of Christ with a greater destiny: He would see the travail of his soul and be satisfied.

But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. (Hebrews 2:9, ESV)

Proclaiming the Secret

Leave a reply

Is the Gospel a ‘Mystery’?

When discussing the greatness of God’s nature and infinitude, there is a temptation that overtakes a Christian. It is the temptation to appeal to mystery as an excuse for having no thoughts about God. We have all done it, I think. We are both humble and healthy to say often, “I don’t know.” But that’s a different thing entirely from saying “I can’t know.” In many cases, we end discussion by erecting a wall of ignorance out of William Cowper’s misquoted phrase: “God moves in a mysterious way.” We forget that the hymn that begins with God’s majestic transcendence ends in God’s self-revelation:

God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

Of course, I am too quick to judge. We are not always wrong to quote Cowper about “mysterious ways”, depending on the subject matter. If we are discussing omnipresence, the discussion is bound to cross the path of the Psalmist: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” Here the word “cannot” is important; it expresses God’s final and inviolable transcendence. This is what is meant by Christian mysticism in its best sense, in the sense A. W. Tozer used it: we can know God as we know a friend, but we cannot comprehend him with fullness and finality. We do not yet know him as we know ourselves. As Tozer said, the moment that we understand our God fully, is the moment we have created an idol. Paul said, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

But God forbid we replace Paul’s “I know in part” with “I don’t know at all.” Some Christians have draped God’s incomprehensibility over the whole of their theology, fearing or neglecting to opine about the Friend we should know so well. And yet another day we may sing of walking with him in the cool of the day. Why?

One culprit is a misunderstanding of the biblical sense of mystery. As William Cowper and biblical David knew, mystery should lead us not into ignorance, but into worship. Mystery shows us our finiteness. But Paul uses the Greek word musterion, from which the English word comes, in quite a different sense than we do.

The revelation of the mystery … was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed … (Rom 16:25-26)

This begs the question, how a mystery, which to us means the unknowable, can be both revealed and disclosed. A quick look at the New Testament usage of this word will, I think, show us secret is much closer to what Paul usually meant, and judging by his letters, many of God’s secrets are made to be revealed in due time.

What Paul Meant by ‘Mystery’ (Gk. musterion)

The word mystery (Gk. musterion) is used 27 times in the New Testament, mostly by Paul. The word ‘mystery’ denotes grand themes such as the Church, the Gospel, the Incarnation, the Body of Christ, the Resurrection, or Christ himself. I’ve divided these passages into four lists to show four ways the word mystery is used in the New Testament.

1. As you’ll see in the first list, mystery is primarily used in the New Testament to mean, not something that’s now unknowable, but something that was once unknown. Usually Paul means the Gospel itself, which is known to Christians but which an unspiritual person “is not able to understand” (1 Cor 2:14). Paul sometimes speaks of a mystery as being kept secret but more often, he speaks of them being made known, as he does in the passage quoted above. So a better understanding of the word mystery, for Paul at least, is a secret—something that was unknown or unknowable until God revealed it to us in Christ.

2. Another common theme for Paul is “declaring the mystery” of the Gospel. Again, a gospel that cannot be understood by the Christian cannot be proclaimed to anyone else. Paul asks his readers to pray for him, that God would open a door for him to “declare the mystery of Christ” (Col 4:3). (See List 2.)

3. As I said, Christ is the greatest secret that God ever revealed to Paul. But there are a few other concepts that he calls mysteries, seen in List 3. Every concept that Paul identifies as a mystery is more fully revealed in Christ’s New Covenant than it ever was in the Old Covenant. Although Paul uses words like “unsearchable” and “inscrutable” to describe God’s transcending wisdom and knowledge (Rom 11:32-36), he never uses the word mystery in this way.

4. Finally, John uses the word “mystery” in Revelation for prophetic symbols which were not understood by John at the time that he first saw them. (You could also argue that Paul uses this meaning in Eph 5:32 for Christ and the church.) In both of John’s cases, his heavenly guide had to reveal the meaning of those symbols to him, effectively putting an end to the “mystery” of each symbol.

In the final analysis, none of Paul’s usages of this word lead us into God’s incomprehensibility—for that we have to look elsewhere. But he does show us something else about God; though he kept a big Secret from humanity all the way from Adam to Mary, it was only hidden that the dull human heart might not read it unprepared, and miss the meaning entirely. God is always ready to offer a Word, but we are rarely ready to receive it. For this reason we complain that so little-s secrets pass us by. But for those of us who have met Christ, the capital Secret has been written, as Lewis says, in small letters that our eyes might understand. It was kept so well, that angels desired to look into it—but it was, in fact, a Secret made to be broken.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father … that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. (Eph 3:14,17-19)

1. God Made Known the Secret of the Gospel

And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven …”
Mt 13:11 (cf. Mark 4:11, Luke 8:10)

The revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations …
Rom 16:25-26

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge …
1 Cor 13:2

… making known to us the mystery of his will … which he set forth in Christ …
Eph 1:9

… the mystery was made known to me by revelation …
Eph 3:3

When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. [This mystery is] that the Gentiles are fellow heirs …
Eph 3:4-6

To me … this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God … so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rules and authorities in the heavenly places.
Eph 3:8-10

… the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make knownhow great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim …
Col 1:25-28

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea … that their hearts may be encouraged … to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdomand knowledge.
Col 2:1-3

They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.
1 Tim 3:9

And the angel … swore by him who lives forever … that there would be no more delay, but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.
Rev 10:7

2. We Declare the Secret of the Gospel

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age … But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
1 Cor 2:6-7

… servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
1 Cor 4:1

For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God … he uttersmysteries in the Spirit.
1 Cor 14:2

… making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mysteryof the gospel … that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.
Eph 6:18-20

At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ …
Col 4:3

3. Other Secrets

a. The hardening of the Jews

I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery …
Rom 11:25

b. The Resurrection

I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
1 Cor 15:51

c. Christ and the Church

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Eph 5:32

d. End-time lawlessness

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
2 Thess 2:7

e. The Incarnation of Christ

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
1 Tim 3:16

4. Symbols

As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand … the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches …
Rev 1:20

And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great…”
Rev 17:5

But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman … the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”
Rev 17:7, 18