Category Archives: Pauline Studies

Unequally yoked

Posted by on January 6, 2011 10 comments

So this may just be a throwback to some of my conservative evangelical roots, but I’m sure many of us are familiar with the common pastoral injunction that Christians, biblically speaking, ought not to ever even consider marrying one who was not a Christian. After all, this is what Paul referred to in 2 Cor 6:14 when he commanded us not to “be unequally yoked [Gk: heterozugeo] with unbelievers.”

Now, I think a contextual reading of the passage makes abundantly clear that what Paul is arguing against is not related to marriage and sexuality at all, but rather in trying to convince the Corinthians to adhere to his teachings rather than those of potential (unbelieving) competitors. But whatever, leaving the exegetical reality of that behind, lets take a look at what it might mean for marriage if we took the common appropriation of this text seriously.

The most striking part of it is the “unequal” business. If the text is taken (correctly) to be referring to non-Christian teachers in conflict with Paul’s message it makes sense. Their message is one that is mismatched, unfitting, inferior to the good news that Paul is trying to bring the Corinthians. But if this is somehow about marriage, doesn’t that imply a fundamental inequality between partners as being inscribed into marriage itself? It seems to me that there is a hidden enthusiasm among proponents of “don’t marry non-Christians” interpreters of this verse about the potential door this opens to construing marriage as a hierarchical relation of power. But maybe I’m just being paranoid.

Cruciform love

Posted by on May 24, 2010 5 comments

Yesterday I (re)read most of Michael Gorman‘s excellent book, Cruciformity. Gorman’s paraphrase of Paul’s encomium to love in 1 Corinthians 13 stuck out to me in a new way:

Cruciform love is faith in action. It does not seek its own good but the good of others. Indeed, for the good of others it renounces the use of certain rights. Cruciform love edifies others and never harms them, not even enemies. It never retaliates or uses violence. Cruciform love welcomes diversity. It is not judgmental, but neither is it tolerant of values antithetical to the cross, and at times it can be tough.

Cruciform love is hospitable and generous, especially to the poor and weak — those marginalized or rejected by others. If it has worldly status, it becomes downwardly mobile in order to life others up. It gives of itself and its material possessions. Cruciform love, in a word, continues the story of the cross in new times and places. Cruciform love is imaginative. (p. 267)

It is truly my hope, cry, and prayer that this sort of cruciform love, this truly radical agape will come to more fully define my life and the way I do theology. Thanks to Michael for the powerful words, words that shake me from the many compulsions and self-seeking movements I succumb to.

Live blogging with Doug Harink: Lecture 3

Posted by on February 20, 2010 Comments Off

Sadly I’m late to this last session which is entitled “The Messianic Mission: The Revolutionary Subordination”, a reference to the work of John Howard Yoder. In this session Harink will be talking about the much-despised household codes about “submission” in 1 Peter and the Pauline corpus.

Body and bride, ctd.

Posted by on February 12, 2010 2 comments

Further to this whole connection between the images of the body and the bride, consider the way Ephesians 5:26-33 frames the issue:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

Here the image is, thoroughly relational, centered on the union between two spouses. It is precisely in that context that the image of the church as Christ’s body is referenced. The church here is seen as Christ’s body in the sense that Christ loves it as he loves himself, with the very love that God is. Thus the church is the body (at least here), not in the sense that it is mystically the same person as Christ, but that in Christ’s love it is brought into the deepest possible intimacy in relation to him.

Christ regards the church as his body precisely as the bride. Both images speak, seamlessly, of the infinite love that Christ has for the church, that he lavishly bestows on her, loving her so as to give himself way for her sake.

Thus the image of the “one flesh” — which describes the intimacy, both conjugal and social — of a husband and wife serve to illuminate the image the church as Christ’s body. The church is the “body” of Christ precisely in the sense that spouses’ bodies belong to each other. The church is Christ’s body because he has utterly and radically given himself to her in love, to which the church responds in gratitude, love, and service.

Body and bride

Posted by on February 12, 2010 5 comments

When the image of the church as the body of Christ is conceived as indicating a monopersonal, ontological identification between Christ and the church, it is usually found to be something of a contrast with the image of the church as the bride of Christ, which is clearly an interpersonal rather than a monopersonal image. Thus, in most ecclesiologies that take this tack, the two contrasting images serve to dialectically “balance” one another.

However, the very notion that the two images are contrastive in this way, is I think, open to question once we abandon the notion of the body of Christ should be interpreted as indicating a mystical co-personhood. Rather, the image of the body points at once to the interdependence of the members of the church (1 Cor 12:14-26) and the singular and sovereign lordship of Christ over the church (Col 1:18; Eph 1:22-23). Thus, the image of the body, like that of the bride directs our attention to the interpersonal dimension of Christ’s relationship to the church. Christ relates to the church as it’s Head, its Lord and Source (which is a very probable translation of kephale, a fact that often goes unnoticed).

The way the bride image qualifies the image of the body, then, is not that it supplies an image of distinction whereas the body supplies an image of union. Rather, both together indicate the nature of the distinctly interpersonal union between Christ and the church. In the image of Christ as Head/Source he is seen as the Lord of the church to whom the church owes its existence entirely. In the image of Christ as Bridegroom, he is seen as the one who utterly and fully loves the church, to the point of giving up his own life for her. Both images speak to the nature of the utterly intimate, unbreakable communion between Christ and the people of God: Christ is at once their sovereign Lord ans Source, and their self-giving Servant who pours out his life for them in love.

The bride, not the wife

Posted by on February 11, 2010 32 comments

It is interesting that the church is described by Paul, not as the wife of Christ, but as the bride (2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:27). Clearly there is something important about this distinction. A spouse stands in a settled and determined relationship. The vows have been made, the union has been actualized, the relationship has been consummated. The relationship between two betrothed however is quite different, at least in biblical understanding.

The relationship between a groom and a bride is one of promise. They are bound to one another by vow, but their relationship is not yet consummated, though it is a binding and real relationship. Inherent in the notion of betrothal is the element of anticipation, of deferred longing, of unactualized union. The betrothed live from promise towards a future in which they will be given to one another in a full and decisive way.

This image of the church as bride seems to me to be a necessary qualification towards how we interpret the metaphor of the body of Christ. Or rather, this is the question I am interested in seeing discussed. Should the image of the bride have priority in our understanding of the image of the body or vice versa? To my mind the image of the bride is preferable as a controlling metaphor because, 1) it is much clearer in meaning, 2) it is rooted substantially in the Old Testament’s language, 3) it is clearly the controlling metaphor for the union of God and his people in Revelation, and 4) it is clearly attuned to the whole framework of eschatological anticipation that the New Testament as whole presupposes.

Love, Conflict, and Church Order

Posted by on June 24, 2009 1 comment

Ran across a quote I found interesting in a book I’m proofreading the other day on Paul’s correspondence in 1 Corinthians about church order:

Paul does not settle a question of disorder or division with a form of order or an organizational structure. Rather he underlines the diversity of contribution by naming it as a gift from the risen Christ. He leaves open the full effect of that variety according to the core principle of love. Love is more abiding than faith and hope, it is certainly more fundamental than arrangements of order. This is extraordinarily high risk in group dynamic terms. In theological terms, it is a stunning assertion of confidence in the creative ordering of divine presence.

The quote is taken from Conflict and the Practice of Christian Faith by Bruce Kaye, p. 16-17 (forthcoming from Cascade Books).

I think it is a pretty important point on the issue of the meaning and function of church order, at least insofar as we seek to have the apostolic witness of the New Testament inform such issues in our own context. Here Paul sounds remarkably Johannine, lacking even a hint of what would later come to be called Petrine in his recommendations for dealing with conflict in the church.

Theosis Defined

Posted by on May 8, 2009 4 comments

Gorman offers the following definition of theosis as it applies to the thought of St. Paul:

Theosis is transformative participation in the kenotic, cruciform character and life of God through Spirit-enabled conformity to the incarnate, crucified, and resurrected/glorified Christ, who is the image of God. (p. 125)

The only thing I might tweak here would be to replace “Spirit-enabled” with “Spirit-actualized” or something of that nature. Other than that this seems to be a good definition of theosis, which makes clear that theosis is not about having our human nature changed into divine nature or something like that. Rather it is transformative participation that results in conformitas Christi.

Cross Talk

Posted by on May 7, 2009 Comments Off

As I’ve been blogging through Mike Gorman’s excellent new book, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, I thought it might be good to mention that Mike is himself now actively blogging. His blog includes a great series on theological interpretation among other things. Definitely worth a look.

Justfication as Theosis

Posted by on May 6, 2009 6 comments

Again, from Gorman:

Because the faithful and loving crucified Christ is the image and self-revelation of God, the paradoxical process of justification by co-crucifixion, or resurrection through conformity to the crucified Christ, means that the pisteuontes (“believers”) are those who are becoming like God and thus experiencing the process of theosis inasmuch as they embody the symbiosis of fidelity and love found in the Son of God.

What does that mean? Inasmuch as Christ’s faithful and loving death reveals the faithfulness and love of God, and justification is participation in that death, justification is participation in the faithfulness and love of God. It is, thus, a process of deification or theosis. The cruciformity that is constitutive of justification is actually theoformity, or theosis . . . This means also that to become the righteousness or justice of God in Christ is theosis. This is not primarily an individual experience, but a corporate one of communal theosis–we become, in Christ, the righteousness/justice of God. (p. 90-91)

Justification as Co-Crucifixion: Summary

Posted by on May 5, 2009 1 comment

Again from Gorman, here is the summary of his view of justification:

Justification is the establishment of right covenantal relations–fidelity to God and love for neighbor–by means of God’s grace in Christ’s death and our Spirit-enabled co-crucifixion with him. Justification therefore means co-resurrection with Christ to new life within the people of God and the certain hope of acquittal/vindication, and thus resurrection to eternal life on the day of judgment.” (p. 85-86)

Cruciformity as Theoformity

Posted by on May 5, 2009 14 comments

More good stuff from Michael Gorman’s new book, Inhabiting the Cruciform God:

To be more specific, Paul has not two soteriological models (juridical and participationist) but one, justification by co-crucifixion, meaning restoration to right covenantal relations with God and others by participation in Christ’s quintessential covenantal act of faith and love on the cross; this one act fulfilled by of the “vertical” and “horizontal” requirements of the Law, such that those who participate in it experience the same life-giving fulfillment of the Law and therein begin the paradoxical, christologically grounded process of resurrection through death. That is, they have been initiated into the process of conformity to the crucified Christ (cruciformity, Christification), who is the image of God–and thus the process of theoformity, or theosis.” (p. 45)

Against Cheap Justification

Posted by on May 5, 2009 1 comment

Michael Gorman’s new book, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology is just a goldmine. Mike was kind enough to send me a copy, so today I’ll be posting a smattering of quotes and thoughts from my reading of the book thus far. At the center of the book is Gorman’s supremely helpful proposal of how to understand the doctrine of justification in Paul. According to Gorman, the best way to understand the much-debated doctrine of justification by faith is to understand it as “justification by co-crucifixion.” In contrast to the constant squabbles, particularly amongst those who claim the name “reformed”, Gorman calls us toward Paul’s far more radical doctrine of “costly justification”:

There have always been legitimate theological arguments about justification, as well as less noble but understandable interconfessional squabbles. But it may also be the case that there is another, more subtle (and thus more dangerous) theological reason for at least some aspects of the current situation regarding justification. To paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer, parts of the Christian church have become enamoured with cheap justification. Cheap justification is justification without justice, faith without love, declaration without transformation.” (p. 41)

Love is Fucking Stupid

Posted by on April 28, 2009 71 comments

First Corinthians 13 is one of the most famous of oft-quoted scriptures in existence. How often have all of us found ourselves at a wedding in which the folks getting married may not even be Christians in any sense in which this Scripture is movingly quoted? It’s everywhere. First Corinthians 13 is ubiquitous. Arguably, the apostle Paul never penned anything more marketable.

But seriously, has anyone ever stopped to examine this particular little Scriptural sonnet, let alone think about it? Seriously, who on earth do you know that is like this?

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

What is ironic is that just about anyone that I can think of that would match up to this description is any significant sense is really fucking boring, annoying, and dumb. Seriously, who do we know who “bears all things” or for goodness sake, who on earth “believes all things”? “Endures all things?” Please. Anyone who trusts so easily, who endures without flinching, who remains hopeful in face of hurt and betrayal is, quite literally, a moron. I mean, who on earth would actually thing think that loving means literally bearing anything that comes to you as a consequence of your love? The fact is that we all have limits that we’re not going to cross when it comes to loving others. There is some stuff that we just won’t bear. That’s how it is. If we try to deny this we are liars.

And yet, according to Paul, love, the love that defines who God is bears all things. How have we turned this into the kind of sentimental message that it now is in our popular romantic consciousness? How has the impossible task of bearing any and all hurts, wrongs, and terrors from another person come to mean nothing more than wedding day sentimentality?

Regardless of how this passage of Scripture has become coopted in this way, what is important is clear. If we take 1 Corinthians 13 seriously as a description of the kind of love that defines God and to which we are called as followers of Jesus, we have to realize that this love is fucking deadly. I don’t just mean some heroic notion that if we actually live like this the evil bad guys will want to try to kill us for being so loving. What seems clear to me is that if we love like this, we are going to wear the fuck out. We are going to be used up, depleted, empty, pathetic, gullible, dumb. If we actually believed in loving people according to this Pauline description we would die. Not because people would regard us as some sort of danger, but simply because we would be pathetic, losers, fools, awkward and unattractive imbeciles.

Who besides an imbecile would live a life that bears all things, that believes all things, that hopes all things, endures all things? It is completely unreasonable. It is completely stupid in its excessive irresponsibility. Only dysfunctional idiots endure all things.

Love, understood in this sense is the least attractive thing we can imagine. Love is fucking stupid. Love will kill you. And not in a heroic, self-validating sort of way. Love will kill you by rendering you pathetic, naive, and stupid. To love according to this Scriptural definition will inevitably result in the crucifixion of any successful and attractive mode of existence. The love that the gospel invites us into is one that does nothing less than reduce us to nothing. The gospel makes us pathetic, lonely, manipulable, vulnerable, empty.

In this is love, that we become pathetic nothings. Forlorn, forsaken, foolish, empty, and pathetic. Only so do we live. In any sense whatsoever. According to the gospel, the pathetic life of love is the only truth, the only way, and the only life.

Resurrection and Glory

Posted by on March 31, 2009 1 comment

In Romans 6:4 Paul states that “Christ was raised by the glory of the Father.” What would it mean to think a little more about what it means to say that Christ was raised by the Father’s glory? The context of the passage is centered on the theme of the superabundance of divine grace compared with sin (cf. 5:20). In keeping with this theme, the notion of Christ being resurrected by the Father’s glory seems to emphasize the superabundant luminosity of God. Christ descends into the fullness of death, but being the Son of the Father, he embodies the fullness of the divine presence in that very void, suffusing it with the inexhaustible life of God,the kabod of God.

The trinitarian logic that undergirds the Pauline claim here is one in which the glory of Trinity is understood as an inexhaustible plenitude of sheer life which cannot do other than invade the void that is death and transform it into utterly new life. God’s glory cannot do other than end in resurrection.

Switch to our mobile site