Hot, Cold & Lukewarm (part 3)

In Revelation, though there is an employment of a significant amount of apocalyptic imagery, much like in the prophetic works of the Hebrew Scriptures, this apocalyptic imagery is primarily designed to reveal what some may refer to as “spiritual” truths and activities that are at work and at play in relation to material and physical happenings. 

Humans are limited in vision, and as Isaiah says, the Creator God’s ways and plans are not those of humanity, nor are His thoughts and deeds the thoughts and deeds of those that were created to bear His image (Isaiah 55:9).  There is something of a veil that limits human vision, which keeps humanity from seeing what it is that the Creator God sees.  The purpose of apocalypse (revelation) is to remove that veil, which is the very definition of the word. 

For those that were understood to have been receiving communications from the Creator God through the Hebrew prophets in the centuries before Christ, and for those in the first century that were understood to have been receiving communications directly from Jesus through John the Revelator, this removal of the veil, in a world in which there were no separations between religious activities and so-called “secular” activities---no division between the sacred and the profane, the unveiling would be understood as the Creator God taking steps to condescending to reveal the spiritual goings-on that were related to what was happening in the world around them.  This is dreadfully important for any potential understanding of words to be found within Revelation. 

One must remember that Paul and Peter, along with the Hebrews author and the author of the letters of John, all wrote letters to specific churches and individuals.  Though these letters would become useful to the whole of the church, they were first directed to and dealt with places, people, and events.  Knowing this, one should exercise restraint when tempted to treat John’s communications differently.  Just because a reader of Revelation happens upon fantastic and difficult-to-understand imagery, that certainly doesn’t mean that the same reader should dismiss John’s insistence that these letters, and this Revelation, are for the “seven churches that are in the province of Asia” (1:4a). 

Returning then to the words of temperature (hot, cold, lukewarm), having insisted that they serve as geographic indicators, it is imperative to realize that they are something of a play on familiar words and of what is well-known about the area in which Laodicea is set.  It should not be a surprise to find Jesus, through the author, employing such a strategy.  Even the Apostle Paul’s famous phrase of “from faith to faith,” or “ek pisteos eis pistin” (Romans 1:17), is lifted from what could be termed as the liturgy of the Caesar cult. 

In this, Paul takes a familiar term and applies it to what should be truly understood about Jesus, rather than Caesar.  This is even more pronounced with the New Testament’s employment of the very word “gospel,” which was also in heavy and specific use within the Caesar cult, in application to the works of Caesar himself.  So the New Testament has recurring instances of plays on words and the usage of familiar terms, re-worked and re-deployed for particular effect on a regular basis. 

Speaking In Tongues (part 9)

Now it is possible to read through Paul’s Corinthian correspondence against the appropriate backdrop of the prizing of rhetorical skill and the honor competition and assignment associated with public speech acts.  In this, one gets the distinct impression that Paul did not quite measure up in this area.  It appears that some of the Corinthian believers derided Paul, going so far as to question his apostolic credentials, simply because, in his speeches before the assembled church community, he failed to employ the rhetoric and rhetorical skill that was so-highly-valued.  At the same time however, Paul had no difficulty whatsoever in deploying his rhetorical arsenal in his written communications. 

One can see evidence of this attitude towards Paul in the second Corinthian letter, when reading “For they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak and his speeches of no account.’” (10:10)  It seems that they were uncomfortable with the idea that the person to whom they pointed as the presumptive founder of their community was not able to command respect through his public speaking.  Thus, because Paul was unable to accrue honor for himself through his rhetorical abilities, the community was also going to be unable to accrue honor.   

This goes a long way towards understanding the divisiveness in the Corinthian church that Paul references in the third chapter of the first letter.  Paul writes “For whenever someone says, ‘I am with Paul,’ or ‘I am with Apollos,’ are you not merely human?  What is Apollos really?  Or what is Paul?  Servants through whom you came to believe, and each of us in the ministry the Lord gave us.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow” (3:4-6).  Apollos, according to the eighteenth chapter of Acts, “was an eloquent speaker, well-versed in the Scriptures.  He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and with great enthusiasm he spoke and taught accurately the facts about Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John.  He began to speak out fearlessly in the synagogue” (18:24b-26a).  Chapter nineteen commences with mention of Apollos in Corinth, while Paul is in Ephesus. 

Apparently, Apollos put his skills to use in service of the church at Corinth, with his eloquent speech causing some to see him in a more positive light than Paul (read: more honorable).  One should not immediately surmise that Apollos was somehow in competition with Paul, but with some understanding of the honor and shame culture, it is not difficult to figure out that his rhetorical abilities caused him to be assigned honor in a way to which Paul apparently did not have the same access.  Thus, again, because Apollos could accrue honor through the use of his rhetorical skills, so too could a community that he led accrue honor.

Paul, without condemning or criticizing Apollos, his speaking, his eloquence, or his learning, refocuses the Corinthian believers by criticizing them and their continued introduction of societal (old age) values into the church as they elevated and assigned honor to one based on accepted custom.  Paul attempted to make sure that they understood that both he and Apollos were nothing more than servants (diakonoi in Greek, those who were assigned to “wait on tables” in Acts 6), and that honor was to be assigned to the one that they served (both the believers and the Creator God).  Paul stresses the unity and equality between he and Apollos in their role of servants, disavowing the attempts at elevation and emphasizing the need for the same amongst the congregation of believers, writing “The one who plants and the one who waters work as one, but each will receive his reward according to his work.  We are coworkers belonging to God.  You are God’s field, God’s building” (3:8-9).