Posts tagged as:

First Corinthians

Gaius is not Stephanas

November 28, 2009

Richard Fellows suggests with many that in the Corinthian Church Gaius and Titius Justus are to be identified as the same person. He goes a step further and suggests the man with this good proud Roman name is also to be known by a Greek nickname and identified with Stephanas.

The name “Stephanas” means “crowned” or [...]

Read the full article →

The lost leaders of Corinth?

August 25, 2009

It seems a fairly common assumption that the way in which Paul deals with the problems at Corinth suggests that there is no clear leadership there. If there were elders, or some such office of leadership, then why is it so absent from Paul’s attempt to bring some sort of order to the Corinthian chaos. [...]

Read the full article →

The bias of Protestant Paul

August 21, 2009

Paul’s coherence and consistency is not always entirely obvious – or at least not as obvious to me as it is to some of those who have wrestled Paul’s theology into their own Procrustean bed with hermeneutical knives and theological axes.
My underlying sympathies are with those who, like Douglas Campbell, deplore what he calls the [...]

Read the full article →

A big dose of so-what-ness over subordinationism in Paul

July 26, 2009

I’m really struggling to see the point over the spat between Mike Whitenton and Rob Kashow over whether Paul subordinates Jesus to the Father in 1 Corinthians. It seems to me to be relatively clear that there is one place where he does so specifically – 1 Cor 15:28. It is less clear how strong [...]

Read the full article →

Tongues and worship: is Corinth a good guide?

July 10, 2009

I increasingly wonder how much First Corinthians pulls our understanding of worship in the early church out of shape.
Take the example of tongues. In the Acts of the Apostles this occurs in the context of initiation: on Pentecost, with the conversion of Cornelius’ household, and with the conversion of those who had only received the [...]

Read the full article →