Paul’s Journey Letters study guide

Where do the various topics in 1 Corinthians come from?

Q. My Sunday school class has just started studying 1 Corinthians. I have your study guide and I agree that the questions Paul addresses are of two sorts, some that were asked in person and some that were asked in a letter (that we do not have today).

My question is, what are the clues to do the sorting? Before your book I just thought that the division came about halfway through 1 Corinthians where Paul says, “Now for the matters you wrote about.” I thought that everything after that was addressing the questions from the Corinthians’ letter, and everything before that was addressing the questions delivered in person. But your book does not sort them that way, so I was wondering what clues I might be missing.

Here is how my study guide to Paul’s Journey Letters divides up the material in 1 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians Outline — (click to enlarge)

You’ll see that I distinguish between “things Paul heard about” and “things the Corinthians wrote about,” rather than between “things the Corinthians asked about in person” and “things the Corinthians asked about by letter.” This helps account for the way I sort out the material a little bit differently from the way you are used to.

I agree that it’s a perfectly straightforward reading of the epistle to understand that starting at the point where Paul says, “Now for the matters you wrote about,” he is answering questions that the Corinthians have asked him by letter. That’s really the only explicit indication he gives of the distinction between where the questions have come from. So why do I feel that two of the topics he addresses after this point (head coverings and the Lord’s Supper) actually aren’t things the Corinthians have asked about?

It’s because of the way Paul characteristically introduces topics as he takes them up in the letter. Paul explains when he begins to address his first topic, divisions in the church, that “some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.” Paul is in Ephesus, across the Aegean Sea from Corinth, and apparently some servants of a woman named Chloe (presumably a member of the community of Jesus’ followers in Ephesus) have just returned from Corinth with disturbing news of problems in the community there that weren’t mentioned in the recent letter to Paul. So these aren’t so much matters that the Corinthians have asked about verbally via these servants; rather, they are matters that the servants have reported back to Paul.

And so Paul also says, as he takes up his next topic, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you.” And since he does not refer to “the matters you wrote about” until after he has addressed his next two topics, lawsuits within the community and believers going to prostitutes, it appears that these are matters he has heard about from Chloe’s servants as well.

As Paul does take up the topics from the Corinthians’ letter, he characteristically introduces each one with a standard formula, peri de, translated “now for” or “now about” in the NIV. This is how he introduces his discussions of abstinence within marriage, whether to get married, food offered to idols, spiritual gifts, and the collection for the poor. Paul does not begin his discussion of the resurrection with this formula, but he nevertheless appears to be responding directly to their questions in what he writes on this topic.

By contrast, when Paul talks about the observance of the Lord’s Supper, he begins not with the formula peri de but once again by saying, “I hear that . . .” He doesn’t say this specifically when introducing the topic of head coverings, but he does use language of “praise” that is reminiscent of his adjacent discussion of the Lord’s Supper. Regarding head coverings he says, “I praise you for . . . holding to the traditions . . . but I want you to realize . . . ,” and about the Lord’s Supper he says, “I have no praise for you.”

These are admittedly subtle indications that are open to different interpretations. Nothing in them absolute rules out the division of material that you’re used to. But if we do take them as cues to where the topics in 1 Corinthians may have come from, they suggest that Paul is actually grouping his material somewhat thematically in places. He ends his opening discussion of things he has “heard about” with a teaching against going to prostitutes, and begins his discussion of the matters the Corinthians “wrote about” with thematically related teachings on sexual relations within marriage. And since the teaching about spiritual gifts has largely to do with their use in worship, he addresses two other topics related to worship, head coverings and the Lord’s Supper, just beforehand, even though they are matters he has presumably “heard about” rather than matters the Corinthians have “written about.” So in my understanding at least, Paul is not strictly dividing the two types of topics into separate sections of his letter.

I hope this explanation is helpful. And I wish you all the best as you teach this fascinating letter in your Sunday School class!

What was Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”?

Q. What was Paul’s “thorn in the flesh“? I’ve heard some people say it was a disease he couldn’t recover from. But I’ve heard other people say this isn’t right because Paul had the gift of healing and could have healed any sickness he had, so we need to take him literally when he calls it “a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” In other words, these people say it was a demon that was harassing him that he couldn’t make go away. Which is right?

I think the first understanding, that Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was a disease he couldn’t recover from, is more likely the correct one.

We know that Paul suffered from a disease at some point in his ministry because he wrote to the Galatians, “It was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you.” (“Illness” here is astheneia in Greek, literally “weakness.”) This was most likely some disease of the eyes, because Paul goes on to say, recalling the Galatians’ love and concern for him at this time, “If you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.”

There’s a further suggestion that Paul had eye trouble at the end of Galatians. Paul authenticates the letter, which he has been dictating to a scribe, by adding some things in his own handwriting, and he begins by saying, “See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand,” as if he had difficulty seeing.

Some have actually speculated that Paul suffered from chronic bacterial conjunctivitis, a recurring infection of the lining of the eye (a common ailment in the time when he lived) that would have made it difficult for him to see. It would also have affected his appearance, making his eyes red and causing them to discharge fluid or mucus. Perhaps this is why Paul also told the Galatians, as he recalled their earlier care, “Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn.” There was something embarrassing about Paul’s condition that the Galatians overlooked in love.

All of this background helps make sense of what Paul says about his “thorn in the flesh” as he defends his credentials to the Corinthians, at the demand of the self-styled “super-apostles” who had infiltrated the church there. Paul describes some amazing visions he had, but then explains he was given a “thorn in the flesh” to “keep me from becoming conceited” because of these “surpassingly great revelations.” An unsightly disease of the eyes would be an ironically appropriate means of keeping a person from boasting about visions they’d had.

After explaining that he’d asked the Lord to take this “thorn” away from him, but that God had told him in response, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” Paul says, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest upon me.” “Weakness” here is astheneia, the same word Paul used to describe his “illness” to the Galatians.

Paul also notes, earlier in this section, that the super-apostles were saying about him, “In person he is unimpressive,” literally “the appearance of his body is weak” (asthenos). Such language about “weakness” seems more appropriate for describing the effects of a disease like chronic conjunctivitis than the frustrations of persistent spiritual harassment.

Even though Paul had the gift of healing, this didn’t mean that God always chose to heal everyone through him. For example, Paul tells Timothy at the end of his second letter, “I left Trophimus sick in Miletus.” The fact that Paul had to leave this valuable co-worker behind shows that he couldn’t heal everybody, and that would include himself.

And so when Paul describes his illness as a “messenger of Satan,” he most likely uses this language not because his “thorn in the flesh” was a harassing demon, but to indicate that God is not the creator or source of sickness and disease. These things are instead the result of sin and evil in the world.

We’re promised that when God renews the heavens and the earth, there will be no more sickness or pain. But in the meantime, Paul’s experience with his “thorn in the flesh” shows us that God can redeem even these features of our fallen world to make our character more Christ-like and to lead us to rely more on the sufficiency of his grace.

(When I discuss Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” in my study guide to Paul’s Journey Letters, I ask, “Do you have a physical ‘weakness’ that you wish God would take away? If so, given what Paul writes here, could this weakness actually be protecting you from something and permitting God’s power to be seen more clearly in you?” What would you say in response to that question?)

The apostle Paul, 5th-Century Ceiling mosaic, Archepiscopal Chapel of St. Andrew, Ravenna, Italy. (Do the large eyes reflect some ancient tradition about Paul’s appearance?)

Does the Bible tell women to wear head coverings?

I recently learned about the “Head Covering Movement” through a post asking about it on the Christians for Biblical Equality Facebook group. In response to this movement, I’d like to use this post to make clear what I believe is the biblical teaching on this subject:

Women who wear head coverings are choosing to do something that the Bible says they should always be free to choose.

But they are not doing something that the Bible commands all women to do.

This is the conclusion of a detailed study I made some years back with Laurie C. Hurshman on Paul’s teaching about the subject of head coverings in 1 Corinthians. The study was published in Christian Ethics Today and it was later reprinted in Priscilla Papers, the journal of Christians for Biblical Equality. I will summarize it here; you can read the longer version at the link just provided.

Paul’s assertion that “a woman ought to have exousia over her head” is the key statement in his teaching about head coverings, and the meaning of the word exousia is the key to understanding this statement.

Paul uses this term frequently in 1 Corinthians in both the noun form (exousia) and in the impersonal and personal verb forms (exesti and exousiazein, respectively). Everywhere else in the epistle, the term refers to authority exercised, specifically in the sense of “being able to do what one wishes.” (In the examples below, the English translations of this term are italicized.)

– When correcting the Corinthians for going to temple prostitutes, Paul says, “I have the right to do anything” (probably quoting the Corinthians’ slogan back to them) “—but I will not be mastered by anything. More literally, “I can do whatever I wish, but I will not have anything do whatever it wishes with me.”

– In the very next section of the letter, when discussing the Corinthians’ belief that it was somehow spiritual to abstain from sexual relations in marriage, Paul writes, “The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.” Again, more literally, “the wife does not have the right to do whatever she wishes with her own body, nor does the husband with his body, but they are to share their bodies with one another.”

– As Paul continues his discussion of marriage and addresses engaged persons, he says that the one who “is under no compulsion but has control over his own will” can postpone marriage. Once more, the reference is to one who has the freedom and the power to do what he wishes with his own will.

– When talking about food offered to idols, Paul acknowledges that those who are spiritually strong may eat this food without danger, but he immediately adds, “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” Exousia here means the freedom and ability to eat the food without stumbling.

– As Paul continues this discussion of food offered to idols, he uses the term exousia several times to describe his own rights as an apostle so that he can illustrate the principle of voluntarily giving up rights. He asks, “Don’t we have the right to food and drink? Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us? . . . If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?” But then he adds that “in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights.”

– Finally, in his discussion of the resurrection, Paul describes how Jesus will destroy every opposing “dominion, authority and power.” In this case exousia describes a being who exercises authority.

Since exousia means authority exercised consistently throughout 1 Corinthians, there’s no reason to believe that when Paul talks about head coverings, the same term means authority submitted to, without any qualifying language indicating that Paul has suddenly given it an opposite connotation.

No, Paul is saying that “a woman ought to have freedom of choice regarding her head,” as Gordon Fee translates this statement in his commentary on 1 Corinthians. In other words, she should be free to wear a head covering, or not, based on her own convictions before God.

The NIV translation is quite accurate here: “A woman ought to have authority over her own head.” By contrast, in my view, translations like the ESV, “A wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head,” badly miss the point. They turn a proclamation of freedom into a restriction. (The words “a symbol of” appear nowhere in the Greek; they have been added by the ESV translators.)

So why did this question arise in Corinth in the first place? I think it’s a reasonable deduction that if Paul is insisting on a woman’s freedom to wear a head covering if she wishes, it’s likely that the Corinthians were forbidding women to wear head coverings for some reason. (There’s a fuller discussion of one possible reason in the published version of our study and in my guide to Paul’s Journey Letters.)

But whatever the reason, since the essential point of Paul’s statement is freedom, it would be just as incorrect today for anyone to require women to wear head coverings as it was for the Corinthians to forbid this. The principle should be, as Paul wrote to the Romans about all such matters of individual conviction, “Each one should be fully convinced in her own mind.”

So if a woman feels that she is honoring God (and perhaps her husband, if she’s married) by wearing a head covering, no one should forbid or discourage this. But if a woman feels that she does not need to do this in order to honor God (or her husband), no one should require or even encourage this. But full information about the choice, based on a sound interpretation of the relevant biblical material, should be provided to all who are interested.

And then, “A woman should be free to wear a head covering, or not, based on her own convictions before God.”

Why isn’t Galatians Paul’s first letter in The Books of the Bible?

Q. If you’re trying to place Paul’s letters in chronological order in The Books of the Bible, why isn’t Galatians first? I was taught it was the earliest of Paul’s epistles, written around AD 49.

Actually, scholars disagree about when Galatians was written. The date depends on how the visits to Galatia and Jerusalem that Paul describes in the letter correlate with the ones described in the book of Acts. A related issue is what Paul means by “Galatia.” If he’s speaking of Galatia simply as a province, the letter was probably written to people he visited in the southern part of the province on his first journey, or even from Tarsus before going on any of his journeys. But if he’s referring to Galatia as the home of an ethnic group, the Galatians or Gauls, who lived in the center and north of the province, then the letter was likely written later, to people he visited on his second journey (when, as Luke tells us in Acts, “Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia“).

After considering all of the evidence and arguments, our Bible Design Group, which created The Books of the Bible, agreed that a date towards the end of Paul’s second journey made the most sense to us. Our “Invitation to Galatians” explains:

“It’s difficult to know exactly when and where Paul wrote his letter to the churches in Galatia. He doesn’t say where he’s writing from, as he does in his letters to Thessalonica and Corinth. And while he says he’s writing on behalf of all the brothers and sisters with me, he doesn’t say who these ‘brothers and sisters’ are. Many interpreters believe that Galatians may actually be the earliest of Paul’s letters. However, its themes and language are so close to the letter he sent to the church in Rome that it is quite probable Galatians was written about the same time as Romans. This would mean he wrote it from Corinth around 56–57 AD while arranging for the offering to be sent to the poor in Judea.”

In my study guide to Paul’s Journey Letters, I offer this fuller explanation:

“The scholarly conversation about when Paul wrote this letter continues. But this study guide will follow the interpretation that it was written in Corinth, when Paul was preparing to travel to Jerusalem with the collection. Many interpreters believe that Galatians was actually written several years before this. However, certain details in the letter arguably correspond best with this particular moment in Paul’s life:
• Paul writes in Galatians that the apostles in Jerusalem asked him to ‘remember the poor,’ and that he was ‘eager’ to do this. It’s unlikely he would bring this up years before he’d actually done anything about it, but it makes sense for him to mention it in the middle of the collection.
• Paul’s language of being ‘eager’ is identical to his reference in 2 Corinthians to the ‘earnestness’ [‘eagerness’] of the Macedonians in their giving.
• Paul’s encouragement to ‘do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers’ may similarly refer to the collection. (The Galatians were taking a collection of their own at this time.)”

The study guide also notes the similarity between the language and themes of Galatians and those of Romans—for example, the discussions of what it means to be dikaios (righteous or justified) by faith; the appeals to the example of Abraham; and the believer’s relationship to the law.

While it is possible that Galatians was written at an earlier time (this is a respected position among scholars), a setting in Corinth while Paul was arranging for the offering provides a reasonable and cohesive account of the letter that is consistent with its contents. This is what persuaded me and my fellow editors of The Books of the Bible to place Galatians just before Romans as we worked to put Paul’s letters in their likely chronological order.

The Roman province of Galatia stretched from near the Black Sea almost to the Mediterranean Sea. One issue in dating Paul’s letter to the Galatians is whether he was writing to people in the south or the center/north of the province. Image courtesy Wikipedia.

Does the Bible say that women can’t teach or have authority over men? (Part 3)

In my last post I suggested that we can best understand what Paul says he doesn’t want women to do, when writing in 1 Timothy about teaching and authority, if we appreciate as clearly as possible what he does want them to do. For that, we need to look at the words he uses.

Paul uses two forms of the same Greek root. When he says that women should “learn in quietness,” he’s using the noun form, hēsuchia. When he says that women should “be quiet,” he uses the verb form, hēsuchazō.

When we look at all the ways that hēsuchia and hēsuchazō (as well as the adjective from the same root, hēsuchios) are used in the New Testament, we discover something interesting. (You can follow the whole word study in several posts starting here.) While the root sometimes describes complete silence, the absence of speech or sound, it more often describes a person refraining from saying something they otherwise might. In other words, it signifies that a person doesn’t object, or stops arguing.

One typical example is in the book of Acts. After the apostles in Jerusalem heard Peter’s explanation of why he preached the good news to Gentiles, “they fell silent, and they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life'” (ESV). Clearly this is not silence in the sense of no speech, because the apostles continue speaking. Rather, it means “they had no further objections,” as the NIV translates the phrase.

We know from Paul’s other letters that he does not want women literally to say nothing in gatherings of Jesus’ followers. He tells the Corinthians, for example, that each person in their community, without qualification, should have something to share in worship, and he specifically describes women praying and prophesying. So we need to recognize that in the passage we’re considering in 1 Timothy, and in the similar one in 1 Corinthians about women being “silent” (where Paul uses the synonym sigaō in place of hesuchazō), what Paul is actually saying is that women shouldn’t argue or object.

But what would women in particular have wanted to argue about or object to in this setting? I believe that Richard and Catherine Kroeger, in their book I Suffer Not a Woman, have correctly identified the point of dispute. It was the myth, prevalent in the Mediterranean world of Paul’s day, that the woman (Zoe or life in Greek, identified with Eve by syncretistic teachers) was created first and brought spiritual life to the man by showing him that the creator of the world was not the true, supreme God.

Paul’s comments here would be a correction of that myth. In other words, by saying “Adam was formed first,” Paul is actually countering the content of this false teaching. He’s not citing primogeniture as a reason why men should be in charge of women.

So what Paul does want women to do is “be quiet” or “not argue,” that is, not dispute this point, particularly in gatherings of the community. What he doesn’t want women to do is publicly and authoritatively “correct” a speaker, which they may have felt was a duty to their own gender. (I’ll talk about this more in my next post.)

In my view, Paul’s use here of the infinitives didaskein (“teach”) and authentein (“be in authority” [?]) together is well suited to convey the idea of public correction. The verb authentein appears only here in the New Testament, so we have no parallel uses that can confirm this is what the verb itself means. However, this kind of correction is described in Galatians, where Paul says that he “opposed Peter to his face . . . in front of them all.” The same kind of thing happens more privately when, as described in Acts, Priscilla and Aquila invite Apollos to their home and “explain the way of God to him more adequately.”

If this is really what Paul’s comments in 1 Timothy mean, then they have a specific, local focus: women representing this false teaching about the respective origins of men and women are not to argue with or authoritatively “correct” someone who is presenting the true teaching. (The example of Priscilla shows that Paul’s comments don’t even apply to women “correcting” men generally, but are limited to this specific issue.)

While many applications can be drawn for the present day from the way Paul addresses this situation in 1 Timothy, one application is not that no woman should be in a church-wide position of teaching or authority. When we understand the historical and literary context of Paul’s words, we realize that the Bible does not teach this.

Did ancient cultures worship the true God under a different name?

Q. I’m homeschooling my daughters and we’ve been learning about ancient Greek civilization. When they heard about its highly developed religion, my daughters asked me whether the Greeks were worshipping the true God under a different name. What do you think I should tell them?

The Bible says that something about the true God can be known through creation and conscience. Paul wrote to the Romans, for example, that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” (See the Paul’s Journey Letters study guide, Session 24.) And Luke records in Acts that Paul explained to the people of Lystra, “God has not left himself without testimony: he has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons.” Paul also told the Athenians that God created the nations and made them finite in duration and territory so that “they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him” (Luke-Acts study guide, Sessions 21 and 22). So there is a natural seeking after God, and people are able to find out some things about Him that way.

I would not conclude from this, however, that ancient cultures were actually worshiping the true God under a different name. In addition to the testimony to God in creation, there is the witness of the covenant community through time about its encounter with the God who has entered human history to redeem people and restore them to relationship with himself. I believe that people need to connect with that work by hearing and believing this witness. Thus the witness needs to be offered all over the world.

So I would encourage your daughters to understand that these ancient cultures were in a position to learn something about God, and that some of what they believed about God was therefore true and correct, but that we need God’s self-revelation in order to know Him in the way that we should. In other words, I don’t believe that the Greeks who worshiped Zeus were actually worshiping the covenant God of redemptive history without knowing it. But they may have taken some steps toward this that enabled many of them to understand and believe the good news about Jesus when they heard it.

Is it all right for Christians to get tattoos?

Q. In your guide to Paul’s Journey Letters, when you get to the end of Romans you ask about outward ways of identifying as a follower of Jesus. When we discussed this question in our group, the subject of tattoos came up. Most of the group members didn’t have a problem with them. But I thought Christians weren’t supposed to get tattoos. Doesn’t the Bible say, “Do not put tattoo marks on yourselves”?

I personally don’t think this one verse can be used as a proof-text against tattoos. The particular commandment you’re describing is found in Leviticus. It says in full, “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves.” The concern is with cutting or marking oneself as a pagan worship practice designed to appease or cultivate the spirits of the dead. (A similar commandment is found in Deuteronomy, “Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead.”) So this is not necessarily a prohibition of using these practices for other purposes, including identifying oneself as a follower of the true God.

However, we need to be careful here. There are other things that are mentioned in the Bible only in the context of pagan worship, such as human sacrifice, that we shouldn’t conclude are acceptable in other contexts. We really need some indication that a practice can be used positively to honor God before we decide that any prohibition against it is really aimed only at pagan worship practices.

In the case of marking the body, in one of his visions Ezekiel sees a man with a “writing kit” whom God tells, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.” This image is echoed in Revelation when God “seals” the 144,000; later in that book we learn that they had the Lamb’s name and his father’s name “written on their foreheads.” Jesus also says in Revelation, in his letter to the church of Philadelphia, about anyone who remains faithful, “I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God . . . and I will also write on them my new name.” So Ezekiel and Revelation use the symbol of God marking or writing on his servants as a positive sign of protection and identification.

However, these passages really can’t be used as proof-texts in favor of tattooing, any more than the one in Leviticus can be used as a proof-text against it. This isn’t just because Ezekiel and Revelation are highly symbolic books and it’s often difficult to know how literally to take their imagery. Rather, it’s because those two books, like Leviticus, are recording the warnings and encouragement that God gave his faithful people over the centuries as examples and instruction for us today. We’re not supposed to turn any of this into rules, but rather use it to become familiar with the ways of God so that we can discern how to follow those ways in our own place and time.

On questions such as whether followers of Jesus can get tattoos, we do well to be guided by the counsel in the very part of the Scriptures that prompted your group’s discussion—the end of Romans. Paul writes there, “I am convinced . . . that nothing is unclean in itself. . . . Let us . . . make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. . . . Whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God.”

In other words, a tattoo is really just ink on the skin, not something spiritually dangerous in itself. But a person who’s deciding whether to get a tattoo should ask how this would build up other believers and how it would make for peace within the community of Jesus’ followers. And whatever a person decides on a question like this, they should have a well-considered position that they keep mainly as a private conviction between themselves and God, and grant others freedom to follow their own convictions.