A Church of Feet and Ears, Section C

By Mark Roberts

Part 15 of series: What is a Church? Biblical Basics for Christian Community

In my last couple of posts I've been describing the historical and cultural context for the letter we know as 1 Corinthians. I explained how the Corinthian congregation was divided, and how the culture of Corinth undoubtedly contributed to this problem. Today I want to focus a bit more closely on the issues that led Paul to use the image of the human body as a way of talking about the church in Corinth.

As we read through 1 Corinthians, it's obvious that some of the Christians there were majoring in what we would call self-centeredness. They were going to do what they wanted to do, without concern for how their behavior impacted others. If, for example, they ate meat in pagan temples and this scandalized their fellow Christians, tough! If some of the men in Corinth participated in prostitution, tough! Some in Corinth were going to enjoy their freedom in Christ whether it hurt others or not. Tough luck for the rest!

This was especially true when it came to the matter of behavior in the ekklesia, the gathering of Corinthian believers. In 1 Corinthians 11, we learn that some of the women were dressing immodestly in the assembly, even though this scandalizes the men who were present. And when it came time for the assembly to share in the Lord's Supper together, which they did in the context of an actual meal, some folks ate sumptuous dinners while others went hungry.

Then there was the matter of purported spiritual experiences and demonstrations. Some members of the Corinthian ekklesia spoke in unknown languages – usually called speaking in tongues – while others did not. A version of this behavior was common in some of the pagan cults that were popular in Corinth at that time. Participants in these cults became so wrapped up in corporate frenzy that they engaged in ecstatic activity, including babbling in unrecognizable syllables. It seems likely that some of the Corinthian believers, believing that speaking in tongues was the apex of spirituality, did so in the Christian gatherings, just as they had once done in their pagan celebrations.

This behavior was disruptive and not helpful to the rest of the gathered believers. Moreover, if an outsiders were to visit an ekklesia and hear such behavior, they'd be inclined to dismiss the Christian community as one more odd Corinthian cult.

Yet those who spoke in tongues not only failed to see how their behavior in the gathering was unhelpful, but also tended to see themselves as spiritually superior to the believers who didn't speak in tongues. Some of these self-appointed elite may even have thought that those who didn't speak in tongues were not even important at all. And it seems likely that those who lacked such demonstrations of spiritual influence also devalued themselves.

So spiritual self-centeredness became mixed up with spiritual pride. The net result was hurting the Christian community in Corinth, especially when they came together for common meetings. Paul's task in response to this problem was a tricky one. For, on the one hand, he agreed with the selfish Corinthians that the Holy Spirit empowered Christians in unusual ways, including speaking in tongues. Yet, on the other hand, Paul saw the value of such spiritual demonstrations in very different terms. In order to help the Corinthian Christians to have a right understanding of how they were to relate to each other, and how, in particular, they were to employ demonstrations experiences in the ekklesia, Paul used the image of the church as a body.

In my next post I'll begin to examine how this image functions in 1 Corinthians.