One In Jesus

Chapter 13 famously concludes with —

(1Co 13:13 ESV) 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

What few notice is that this famous triad appears elsewhere in the New Testament —

(1Th 1:2-3 ESV) We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers,  3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1Th 5:8 ESV)  8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

And less obviously in such passages as —

(Rom 5:1-5 ESV) Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 

(Gal 5:5-6 ESV)  5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.  6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

(Eph 4:1-6 ESV)  I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,  2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,  3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  4 There is one body and one Spirit– just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call–  5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,  6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 

(Col 1:3-5b ESV)  We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,  4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,  5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. 

It’s clear that this is no mere rhetorical flourish! These three words stand at the very heart of Paul’s theology, coursing from his earliest to his later epistles. In fact, many commentators conclude that the three words were the core of Paul’s preaching (and I agree). Continue reading →

Tongues in Acts

I take the gift of tongues in Acts 2 to have been the miraculous ability to hear in one’s own tongue — and I don’t know whether the apostles spoke in multiple languages or that’s how God allowed them to be heard, but it must have sounded odd or else why accuse the men of drunkenness?

But the tongues spoken by new converts in Acts — or “tongues and prophesying” — was surely ecstatic speech as in Numbers 11. For example,

(Act 19:6 ESV)  6 And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.

Notice that the laying on of hands was used to commission for a task of office. Continue reading →

One of great difficulties of interpreting chapters 11 – 14, is we really just aren’t that certain about what “prophecy” and “tongues” were. And the first step to a deeper understanding is admitting our lack of certainty.

It’s been traditionally taught (not just just in the Churches of Christ) that the New Testament prophets were given to fill the gap created by the New Testament not being yet complete. Congregations were equipped with prophets who taught doctrine and such until the canon was completed, and then the gift of prophecy was no longer needed.

Nice theory. Zero scripture to support it. In fact, the scriptures plainly contradict it! After all, no congregation had more prophecy that the church at Corinth. 1 Corinthians is likely the oldest book in the New Testament. But the Corinthian church was filled with prophecy — even the women prophesied in church (chapter 11!) — and the assemblies were evidently filled with so many prophecies that the problem was they kept interrupting each other! — so why did they need Paul to begin writing the New Testament by sending them his first epistle? If the prophets filled in for the missing New Testament, why did Paul have to write them two letters? Continue reading →

Insist on its own way

Gormon’s study of Paul’s ethic concludes that love “seeks the good, the advantage, the edification of others. It is characterized by regard for them. Love, according to the apostle, is the dynamic, creative endeavor of finding ways to pursue the welfare of others rather than one’s own interests. It is not self-centered but others-oriented.”

Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Pillar NTC; Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 646. Continue reading →