Speaking In Tongues (part 18)

In verse three of the chapter Paul writes “If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no benefit” (1 Corinthians 13:3).  The use of “boast” should be a reminder of the constant jockeying for status and honor that was the dominant component of the culture.  Again, this seems as though it could be directed towards a single individual within the Corinthian congregation. 

If that is so, then while he is most certainly ascribing honor to love (and probably the one that is thought to embody love), Paul can also be heard taking aim at various members of the community, pricking the conscience of a number of those that are assembled and listening to the reading of his letter, as they hear “Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious.  Love does not brag, it is not puffed up.  It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful.  It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (13:4-7).  Clearly, some of these things have no place in the church of Christ, nor should they be on display between and among the members of that body.  Envy, bragging, puffery, rudeness to those lower in the social order outside the church, and self-serving behavior would stem from the pursuit of honor.

With all that has been said to this point, one should be sufficiently capable of catching the ethos of the remainder of chapter thirteen---listening to Paul in concert with his original audience and hearing: “Love never ends.  But if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be set aside.  For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when what is perfect comes, the partial will be set aside.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways” (13:8-11). 

The bottom line here is that all of these things that are being employed so as to gain individual honor will come to an end.  What’s more, Paul equates the pursuit of honor as it was then in effect as little more than childish ways.  An adult---a mature member of the body of Christ---does not engage in such ultimately meaningless pursuits, especially if those pursuits stand in opposition to that which the covenant God expects from those that constitute His kingdom come to earth (when those that believe in Jesus act as if Jesus is King of all). 

“Paul continues on to write “For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love” (13:12-13).  Paul would seem to be here insisting that true honor will come from demonstrations of love that are not concerned with individual honor but with the honor of the one that is ostensibly being served. 

Table Of The Justified (part 3)

Resuming with the fifth verse of the fourteenth chapter of Romans, we read “One person regards one day holier than other days, and another regards them all alike.  Each must be fully convinced in his own mind” (14:5).  Paul does indeed value the role of conscience, for it is individual believers, be they Jew or Gentile (all are justified---participate in the covenant people---on the same basis), acting in love and compassion, that compose the communities that are to be the signposts of the kingdom of God.  Thus, “The one who observes the day does it for the Lord.  The one who eats, eats for the Lord because he gives thanks to God, and the one abstains from eating abstains for the Lord, and he gives thanks to God” (14:6). 

Here, giving thanks to God is the abiding concern, rather than “opinions” or “abstaining.”  We should not be surprised to learn that Paul, the apostolic advocate for the kingdom of God and Gentile participation in that kingdom project on an equal basis with Jews, wants the focus when it comes to the activity of the citizens of that kingdom to fall upon God.  Paul reasons “For none of us lives for himself and none dies for himself.  If we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die for the Lord.  Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.  For this reason Christ died and returned to life, so that He may be the Lord of both the dead and the living” (14:8-9).  With this, we are reminded that the list of thoughts/ideals that should linger in the background as we hear the words of this chapter should include the fact that calling Jesus “Lord,” especially in connection with talk of living or dying, is a subversive claim against the one who bore that title---Caesar.  Claiming allegiance to another Lord and another kingdom, and doing so in Rome of all places (not to mention that the one being looked to as Lord was executed as a state criminal), could most certainly get one killed.

Returning our focus to food and to all of the issues attendant to that (Gentile justification, the unity of the church, the family of God composed of all peoples, the importance of the church’s meal table, the value and place of traditional covenant markers, costly acts of sacrificial love performed by those that claim allegiance to Jesus as Lord, and the role of faith), we read “But you who eat vegetables only---why do you judge your brother or sister?  And you who eat everything---why do you despise your brother or sister?  For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God” (14:10).  Judging and despising clearly stand counter to the ethic of love and compassion, while the fact that “we will all stand” for God’s judgment again emphasizes the unity and equality of all believers, regardless of national origin or ethnicity identifiers, as the family of God. 

Emphasizing that point, Paul employs the services of Isaiah, communicating “For it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to Me, and every tongue will give praise to God.’  Therefore, each of us will give an account of himself to God” (14:11-12).  The quotation from the forty-fifth chapter of Isaiah calls to mind the God that vindicates and delivers, with that vindication extending to “the earth’s remote regions” (Isaiah 45:22b).  There, the prophet writes that “All the descendants of Israel will be vindicated by the Lord and will boast in Him” (45:25).  Of course, we know that Paul is of the opinion (a most valuable opinion) that all those that believe in Jesus as the crucified and resurrected Messiah of Israel and Lord of all compose the Israel of God, and that said belief (with the accompanying transformation of heart and mind by which the belief is accompanied) is all that is required for one to participate in the family of God that is now composed of all nations.  Such considerations cannot be divorced from our consumption of these words. 

Consequently, “we must not pass judgment on one another, but rather determine never to place an obstacle or a trap before a brother or sister.  I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean in itself; still, it is unclean to the one who considers it unclean” (14:13-14).  Not only is this the place where love and a self-denying and compassionate understanding become operable, but this is also the place where Paul, clearly relying on his awareness of the Jesus tradition as embodied by Mark seven, points out that uncleanness is not an intrinsic quality of a certain item of food.  Indeed, like Jesus, Paul makes the point that if there is uncleanness, it is extrinsic and linked to the person there dealing with the food.  Coming to terms with this is of great import for the church’s wall-removing, undivided meal table.  To this point, Paul adds “For if your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat” (14:15a), that is, if the food on the table is creating stress and friction for a part of the body of believers, and you know it (regardless of the reason or the source, be it Jewish or Gentile sensibilities), “you are no longer walking in love.  Do not destroy by your food someone for whom Christ died” (14:15b).  Yes, Jesus died for all, Jew and Gentile, and food should not be an issue that causes one to withdraw from the family of the kingdom of God. 

Table Of The Justified (part 1)

Paul’s experiences, as would only be right and proper, play an obvious role in his soteriology and his ecclesiology.  It is not in the least bit difficult to discern that, along with his knowledge of early church traditions, along with what he has experiences as recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Acts has a heavy influence on portions of his letters.  While others are concerned about maintaining a certain understanding of propriety concerning food that would allow for Jews and Gentiles to join each other at a meal table, Luke’s presentation has Paul appearing to want to allow love to have its say, tempered with compassion, mercy, patience, and understanding.  For Paul, it is the expansion of the kingdom of God that is the abiding concern, rather than the ability for some to maintain their dietary provisions (identifying features) in such a way that may limit the impact of that kingdom and of the new creation it portends. 

It is useful, of course, to hear the letter from Jerusalem.  This letter places us in the enviable position of knowing the precise situation that stood behind the production of the letter (the events of the fourteenth chapter), which cannot be said of Paul’s letters.  When placed side by side with Paul’s letters, and especially with those that focus on the unity of believers under covenant, the difference in tone and spirit is marked.  So we read: “From the apostles and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile brothers and sisters in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, greetings!  Since we have heard that some have gone out from among us with no orders from us and have confused you, upsetting your minds by what they said, we have unanimously decided to choose men to send to you along with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas who will tell you these things themselves in person.  For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to us no to place any greater burden on you than these necessary rules: that you abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality.  If you keep yourselves from doing these things, you will do well.  Farewell” (15:23b-29).

This letter from Jerusalem could be construed in such a way that may cause some to think that Jewish dietary sensibilities are more important than the unity of believers.  As can be seen, the instructions contained in the letter are quite clear.  The implications of the instructions are that Gentiles must do certain things that will allow for them to join with Jewish believers (or that will allow for Jewish believers to join them) at the church’s society-altering meal table.  Understandably then, since Paul was concerned with the positioning of Gentiles in relation to the covenant, and was quite insistent that the basis for entrance upon the covenant (justification) was the same for all people (belief in Jesus), with Abraham as the model, anything that could conceivably stand in the way of full unity and full equality under that covenant was problematic.  Interestingly, Luke never gives us a report of Paul’s response to the debate in Jerusalem or his opinion concerning the letter.  One could say that the silence is deafening. 

The tripartite directive to the Gentile believers concerning the food that could be placed upon and consumed at the meal table of the believing assembly could easily be utilized as a means of creating a second-class of kingdom citizens, as it was the dietary restrictions of the Jewish believers, and the attendant and implied morality of those restrictions, that could be seen to have trumped the apparently lax morality of the Gentile believers (as indicated by their lack of concern with the history of their food, its association with idolatry and sexual immorality, and its lack of proper preparation).  Now, this is not to say that Paul did not value the dietary restrictions or that he believed that the Jewish believers should abandon the law-based restrictions that they observed.  He never insists that Jewish believers violate their conscience, but he does insist that it is, in fact, a matter of conscience, and that the presence of certain foods, if they are not eaten, should not be an issue for the Jewish believer.