The NT epistle for Epiphany 3 in this year C continues reading 1 Cor 12.12–31a. Here, Paul expands his themes of unity and diversity of ministry, but shifts the register from ‘gifts of the Spirit’ to ‘members of the body’.
In doing so, he makes surprising use of an existing metaphor from ancient politics, but inverts the usual assumptions about hierarchy and importance. All are valued, and all have something to contribute, and being part of the body of Christ trumps lower, political, allegiances.
Come and join Ian and James as they explore these questions!
Full written commentary behind the discussion can be found in the next article on the blog.
Ian’s new booklet What is Sex For? (mentioned at the beginning of the video) can be bought on the Grove website here.
The video on the gospel reading for this week or Luke 4.14–21 (The ‘Nazareth Manifesto’) can be found here.
The written commentary on this passage can be found here.
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I know you are no doubt both modest chaps, but I wonder what you think your own gifts are that God has given you. James mentioned speaking in tongues, I would assume also teaching (?). Any others?
Do you think everyone in your own congregations who sit there every Sunday also believe they all have at least one God-given gift, which is the usual charismatic evangelical view?
I also wondered who you think in today’s church are the equivalent of the sexual organs who are to be more honoured than the obvious ones?!
Peter
When James starts to make a point on the back of the Epictetus quote he starts to say that the mention of hands or feet in the body is used by a number of ancient authors in the way that the quotation illustrates, that it is to subordinate the individual… and Ian finished the sentence with “…to the greater good” whilst James says “…to the governing, ruling classes” but it seems like Ian was right in regards to this Epictetus quote. Does James have other examples that back up his point? If it’s “to the greater good” that’s a lot closer to Paul and it doesn’t seem obvious to me that Paul is inverting it.
Doesn’t the twin reference to being baptised in [the waters of] the spirit and being made to drink of [the waters of] the spirit make sense naturally as a single image when you are thinking of the drowning waters that covered the Egyptians, since in the process of drowning you are both submerged and made to drink so that the waters are both covering you and inside you? Surely Paul doesn’t have to be saying “no we didn’t go into the Spirit” when he says that the Spirit has come into us.
As for the French, it’s more like “I hurt myself at the finger”, which may still make your point if your point was that I as a whole am hurt and not just my finger.
Lastly, Ian you say that Paul refutes directly Pentecostals who say “everybody must speak in tongues” but it seems to me he is only refuting “everybody does speak in tongues”.
Thanks John. On your last point, can you explain the difference?
If I say “not everybody stops at red lights” have I directly refuted “everybody must stop at red lights”?
I’m not advocating for “everybody must” and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Pentecostal advocate for that but I struggle to see that Paul would say he desires for all to speak in tongues if he knows that it would be for the best if only some did.
It’s clear that he sees edifying the church as greater when the church is gathered but I don’t think he is thereby nullifying the value of self-upbuilding. My experience of that self-upbuilding by that gift leads me to also desire it for all.
Yet Paul placed prophecy well above tongues in their importance precisely because tongues without interpretation do no good to anyone else except themselves. Although I never agreed with Stott’s view that Paul was being sarcastic in his words about tongues, I can see where he was coming from.
Paul did not place prophesy well above tongues in their importance. He places the one prophesying well above the one speaking in tongues without interpretation.
I commented to that effect in response to the previous video and I doubt it will be the last time I need to make the point.
Paul also clearly found tongues without interpretation very important outside of the context of the coming together of the called out.