Ep 276: Paul and the Corinthians with Paul Duff

In this episode I talk with Dr. Paul Duff, professor emeritus in the department of world religions at George Washington University and the author of the brand-new book Paul and the Corinthians: Reconstructing the Relationship and the Letters, out now on Eerdmans. In this book Dr. Duff explores 1 and 2 Corinthians , the divisions which plagued the church, and Paul’s complicated relationship with his Corinthian congregation. We talk about the theory that 2 Corinthians is a collection of several small letters Paul sent to Corinth, Paul’s identity and travels, and the city of Corinth. Duff explains the rocky relationship Paul had with his Corinthian congregation and the various issues he addresses in 1-2 Corinthians. We talk about the divisions which plagued the church (1 Cor. 1-4), issues of sex, celibacy, and marriage (1 Cor. 5-7), eating meat sacrificed to idols (1 Cor. 8-10), the collection for Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1-4, 2 Cor. 8-9), and Paul’s defense of his ministry (2 Cor 2-7, 10-13). We conclude by discussing the relevance of Paul’s relationship with the Corinthians for the church today. 

Media Referenced:

Paul and the Corinthians: https://a.co/d/0cmDcKKB

Jesus Followers in the Roman Empire: https://a.co/d/0aQ8zIZS

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network. I really hope that you guys enjoy today's show. All right, guys, welcome to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. My guest today is Dr. Paul Duff, Professor Emeritus in the Department of World Religions at George Washington University and the author of the brand new book, Paul and the Corinthians: Reconstructing the Relationship in the Letters Out and Out on Eardmans. In this book, Dr. Duff explores 1st and 2nd Corinthians, the divisions which plague the church and Paul's complicated relationship with his Corinthian congregation. We will be discussing this book on the show today. Dr. Duff, welcome to the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

I'm excited to talk to you. As I was telling you before the show, I think this is a really excellent overview of the Corinthian epistles. But you are new to the show. So before we get into your book, tell my audience about yourself, your background, and your work.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Sure. I grew up in northeastern Ohio, outside of Akron. I went to college at Miami, University of Ohio, not Florida. I did my graduate work at the University of Chicago. I studied there with Hans Dieter Betts. I spent most of my time working on the Corinthian correspondence, specifically 2nd Corinthians. So other than that, uh now I live in outside of Washington, D.C. I taught at George Washington University for 32 years, which is downtown D.C.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

So you also wrote another book a few years ago called Um, and here I'm gonna Jesus Followers in the Roman Empire, right? So a lot of your work has dealt with the Mediterranean context of the New Testament. What got you interested in that initially?

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Mostly my teachers. Um in college, I had a wonderful teacher, Roy Bo Roy Bowen Ward, who taught New Testament, and um he kind of took me under his wing. He was a wonderful guy. He's uh he's no longer with us, unfortunately. Uh, but he really got me excited thinking about Paul, and uh I did a master's uh thesis with him on Paul and Ignatius of Antioch. Uh so anyhow, after that he encouraged me to pursue a doctorate. Um, and so I applied to various places and was delighted to be uh accepted to the University of Chicago's program.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah, and your your work has your work has dealt, like you said before, primarily with the the Corinthian epistles. You've done a lot of writing and research on that over the years. Uh there have been several commentaries written on Paul and the Corinthians, some really good social scientific commentaries. Um but yours is yours is a broad overview. What motivated you to write this book at this particular point in your career?

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yeah, that's a good question. Um like I said, I've been working in the Corinthian correspondence, some other, among other things. Um but you know, when you're publishing and you're involved in the scholarly enterprise, you tend to get narrower and narrower. And a lot of my work was pretty granular. Um, but that's that's kind of what is expected when you're writing articles or monographs. And um I just wanted to write something that was broader than that, and also I really wanted to kind of nail down my thinking on this. So I had given some thought to the Corinthian correspondence as a as a whole, but I was at a conference, this must have been over 10 years ago, and the conference resulted in a book. The conference was about the Eucharist in its Mediterranean context. So I was tasked with writing an article on 1 Corinthians 11, which is about the Lord's Supper. And that got me thinking about the Corinthian correspondence in a very different way. Um the talk about the Lord's Supper has a lot to do with how people treat one another. And it also talks about factionalism, which of course 1 Corinthians 1 also talks about. But I thought, how did this really work? So I started to think about these little communities, these little house churches, that would occasionally, maybe monthly, we don't know, come together for this Lord's Supper. So let's say you have six or seven house churches in Corinth, they would meet somewhere in the Corinthian environs for a Lord's Supper. And it seemed to me that a lot of the issues that were raised in 1 Corinthians probably revolved around issues that came up at the Lord's Supper. My thinking is that these smallhouse churches probably did not come into contact with one another any other time. So the issues that are raised throughout 1 Corinthians and the rivalry and the conflict, it must have arisen during the Lord's Supper. So that really got me thinking differently. And then I tried to project that into 2 Corinthians, into what was going on, what I thought was going on in 2 Corinthians.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah, and we got to talk about 2 Corinthians before we get into some of the more contours of your book. Uh, you argue in your book that 2 Corinthians is not a unified letter, but actually a collection of smaller letters that Paul wrote. So 1 Corinthians is one long, continuous letter, but 2 Corinthians is made up of kind of a pastiche of Paul's different letters. So talk to us about that theory and how you understand the divisions in 2 Corinthians as reflecting different letters written by Paul.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Okay. First of all, I I have to admit that I did try to read 2 Corinthians as a unity. Um, and I just it it didn't make sense to me. But there's a couple things that are really specific. So one is in chapter 8, Paul talks about Titus and the brother. And he says, I am sending Titus and the brother. So this is forward looking, looking into the future. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, he says, When I sent Titus and the brother, so that's backwards looking, looking into the past. So these can't be part of the same letter. The only way to do that is to say, well, Titus and the brother must have been there twice, which is not impossible, but it seems to me the simple solution is these are parts of different letters. Another problem is the last three chapters, chapters 10 through 13, or four chapters, sorry, the last four chapters, are a pretty harsh self-defense. He doesn't really hold that. He's sarcastic. Um he really goes at the Corinthians. Okay. The interesting thing about that is it follows an appeal for funds. So what preacher would ask for money and then, you know, go on and tell the Corinthians how lousy they were. So that's another thing. Now that's a difference in in tone. Um, but still, it's it's pretty convincing. I should say that I'm not the only one who thinks that 2 Corinthians is made up of more than one letter. I think the majority of scholars do. Um, so there's that problem. Let me talk about some of the other problems. Um, chapters eight and nine both are requests for funds, funds for the assembly in Jerusalem. But chapters eight and nine sound like two different appeals. Chapter nine kind of repeats what he says in chapter eight. So that's kind of strange, too. The most um difficult problem, I think, comes in chapter two, where Paul seems to be writing a conciliatory letter to the Corinthians. Um, in the midst of that letter, he talks about a search for Titus. He's worried about Titus because Titus has been in Corinth. Paul doesn't know what the result of the visit was. So there's this peace on the search for Titus. He says in uh chapter 2, verse 12, When I came to Troas to proclaim the good news of Christ, a door was opened for me in the Lord, but my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said farewell to them and went on to Macedonia. All right. But then we have something else. Then he says, But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads at every priest the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. And that goes on. That's that's kind of a self-defense that goes on until chapter seven. And then shortly into chapter seven, we have for even when we came into Macedonia, I f our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted in every way, disputes without interferes within. But God, who consoles the downcast, console us by the arrival of Titus. So what you have in two and seven seem to go together, and this part that starts with thanks be to God, et cetera, et cetera, seems to be an interruption. Now, a small interruption, and coming back to the main theme, not a big deal, right? But you know, it's chapter three, chapter four, chapter five, chapter six, and then chapter seven. So that's a heck of an uh interruption. So those are the problems. Now the most there's a there's a number of solutions. The most common are there are two letters, chapters one through nine, and chapters ten through thirteen. But um you still have the problem of Titus in chapter eight and chapter twelve, you still have the problem of the context, and you still have the problem of that interruption. Those who hold the two-letter hypothesis also uh argue about which of the two letters are first. The majority of those argue that chapters one through nine comes first and chapters ten through thirteen come next. The next most common theory, and again, there's there's there's others, yeah. The next most common theory is there are five letters. Um chapters ten through thirteen, chapter eight being its own letter, chapter nine being its own letter, and the self-defense in chapters two through seven being its own letter. Um, and then that part that surrounds a self-defense in chapters one through two, and then picking up in seven, would be the fifth letter. Now, people who hold to the five-letter hypothesis also have some disagreement about the order of the letters. Um understanding is chapter nine, the appeal for funds, comes first. Chapter eight, the appeal for funds comes second. And I think chapter eight is a follow-up on chapter nine, because what Paul had expected had not come about. Then I think you have that interruption, the self-defense in chapters two through seven, then the self-defense in chapters ten through thirteen, and then finally that passage surrounding the first self-defense, so chapters one and two and chapter seven. Now, it it's pretty confusing, but I've tried to break it down as simply as I could.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Yeah, and I think that's really helpful. And there are a couple at the towards the beginning of your book before you actually get into the issues that Paul addresses in the Corinthian epistles. You have to deal obviously with the literary phenomenon that is 2 Corinthians, but then you also very helpfully situate Paul in his context and then situate the Church of Corinth in its context. So, what do we need to know about Paul and who he was and his travels around the Mediterranean in order to understand the Corinthian correspondence? And then what are what are what are some uh or what's some background information about the city of Corinth itself that is relevant to your interpretation of these letters?

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Okay. So, with regard to Paul, we have two sources. We have Paul's letters themselves, um, which are a good source because they're written by Paul. Um, unfortunately, they're not as full regarding Paul himself as we would like. Then we also have the Acts of the Apostles, which is a much fuller um account of Paul's life. The problem with the Acts is it's first of all written at least a generation after Paul. Luke has sources. Some of them may be reliable, some not. The other thing is that Luke, the author of Acts, same guy, the gospel of Luke, Luke tends to shape his story in a way that he thinks is best. So one of the things that Luke does in Acts is he smooths out any conflict. So he makes the early church look like a nice big happy family, which it was not. Um, but but Acts does have good history in it if you use it carefully. And you know, we can talk about that later. But but basically, what what Acts tells us is that Paul was a Jew born a Jew from Tarsus in Silicia. So that would be in uh Southeast, what is now Southeast Turkey. Um he, according to Acts, he's brought up in Jerusalem. He studies with the Pharisee Gamalia, he's educated according to Jewish law, he's a tent maker by trade, he's a persecutor of Christians originally, and he has a dramatic conversion on the way to Damascus. Now, some of that we can take for granted. I think it's pretty clear that Paul is a Jew born in Tarsus. Tarsus, I mean, Acts has a real Jerusalem-centric focus. So if Luke were to write this, if he didn't know where Paul was born, he probably would have put him in Jerusalem. So Tarsus is not really, it's one of those details that you really, I think you can trust. Um He's brought up in Jerusalem. Now, that is only an act. Paul does not say anything about a Jerusalem upbringing. We know that he's born in Tarsus, or we can be pretty sure. We know um from his account of the conversion that he is in Damascus. Uh he's he says at one point that he returns to Damascus, which sounds like that's where he's living at the time. Uh so did he study with Gemale? Well, if he was raised in Jerusalem, maybe, probably, but again, that's we don't know. Um was he educated according to the Jewish ancestral law? Certainly. Paul says himself that he was a Pharisee. Now, what that means is unclear because what we know about Pharisees from the Gospels and from the rabbinic literature does not match up with Paul as a Pharisee. But interestingly enough, we only have two people who claim that they are Pharisees in the ancient world. One is Paul, the other is Josephus, who does not sound like a Pharisee either. So that's who knows. I think by Pharisee, Paul means that he was a strict observer of Jewish law. Uh, did he have a dramatic conversion on the way to Damascus? Well, I think yes and no. I think there was an event, a life-changing event outside of Damascus, but I wouldn't call it a conversion. A conversion implies that you are going from one religion to another. I believe that Paul, at least in his mind, we mean a Jew his whole life. So I think we can talk about a call rather than a conversion. In Galatians 1, he says that he was called by God to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. So that's the call. Not that he became a Christian or Jesus follower. Something else we can learn from Paul is that, and this is implicit, he is educated. He can read and write, and he can read and write very well. He knows some principles of Greco-Roman rhetoric. He has the Greek version of the Bible, of the Jewish Bible, memorized. He can say off the top of his head, within Genesis, within Exodus, within Psalms. So he clearly is well educated. Um that's interesting, especially with regard to the fact that he's a tent maker, because a tent maker is pretty low on the social and economic ladder. Someone who was raised and trained to be a tent maker, presumably by his father, for example, would have no need of an extensive education. He would need to be able to write his name, to sign contracts, he would be able to read a little bit, uh, he would be able to do some mathematics, simple mathematics. You know, you owe me this for this and this for this, and that equals. Um So the fact that he's an educated tent maker is very, very interesting. Um He's an urban preacher. He spends most of his time in cities. You know, he's in Philippi, he's in Thessalonica, he's in Corinth, he's in Athens, he's in Ephesus. These are the last couple are very big cities. Um and I suspect he's in big cities because he can reach more people, he can find work, and um that's his milieu. So with regard to Corinth, you know, what do we know about Corinth? Well, it is a boom town. It is a very uh up-and-coming city, and mostly it has to do with its location. So it sits on the isthmus between the Pelponese and mainland Greece. So it's this narrow strip of land, so it controls trade going from north to south and south to north. It's also a center of sea trade. So if you're traveling from the east to Rome or from Rome to the east, you would probably go through Corinth. The trip around the bottom of the Peloponnese was dangerous. Uh, lots of shifting winds. So going through Corinth would be a much easier way to go. So what typically happens is ships would come either from the west or the east. They would unload at Corinth and sell their wares. Some would be bought by Corinthians, um, some lots would be broken up and sold to people who were going either to the east or to the west. Um, but as a result of that, it was a prosperous city. There was lots of opportunities for work. Um so if you were someone who had no land, if you were secondborn or a thirdborn, or were in debt, you can go to court and you could find work. So there were probably lots of immigrants there, uh, maybe looking for community. Uh, and so Paul would offer them that. It's also a uh religiously diverse community. It was originally a Greek city, but it was destroyed by the Romans in the second century uh BCE, and then it was refounded as a Roman colony under Julius Caesar. And so it has Romans there and it has Greeks there. So from a Corinthian perspective, for example, Aphrodite is the protectress of the city. She's the patroness. From a Roman perspective, Aphrodite was often identified with Venus Genetrix, who is basically the mother of the nation that had destroyed Corinth. So who are you worshiping? Are you worshiping the Roman god who was the protectress of the people who are oppressing you, or are you the uh worshiper of the Greek god Aphrodite? So now I think in this mix, Paul has a pretty receptive audience, and he spends a fair amount of time in Corinth, acts as a year and a half. Um that's reasonable. That's a reasonable assumption, uh, but we can certainly say more than a year. He knows the Corinthians well.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Yeah, and initially, according to Acts 18 at least, he's fairly successful in Corinth, correct?

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Yes, yes. I think that um by the time he writes 1 Corinthians, I suspect that there are um maybe six small house churches. But when they come together for the Lord's Supper, I think it's a pretty large group. I think it's probably up to a hundred. And so where they would meet would be another interesting issue. Um yeah. So Acts talks about his uh arrival in Corinth. And the interesting thing about Acts is if you read 1 Corinthians, Acts 18 sounds different. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in Acts 18 that you don't find in the Corinthian correspondence. So again, Luke is working with sources, he's writing at a later time, and he also tends to want to shape his narrative. So what I've done with Acts 18 is to break it down into five uh units. Now, this isn't all of them, but it's most of them and the most important ones. The first would be Paul arriving uh and connecting with Aquila and Priscilla. Now, I think that's probably historical. Paul calls Priscilla Prisca. So Priscilla is the diminutive of uh Prisca. So Paul does talk about Aquila and Prisca in 1 Corinthians. So we can assume that that's that's historical. He probably arrived somewhere around 50, middle of the century. Um, the next unit that I talk about is that he breaks, that he preaches in the synagogue in Corinth, and he uh there's a lot of Jewish hostility against him. I I don't think that that is probably historical. Um Luke tends to want to set Jews against people in the Jesus movement, particularly Gentiles, but if you read the Corinthian correspondence, there's no there's no real evidence of hostility by any Jews against Jesus' followers. Um and secondly, that whole scene of Paul preaching in the synagogue and getting a rejection, uh strong rejection by the Jews, we find that everywhere in Acts, about five or six times. Whoever Paul preaches, it seems to happen. So I think that's probably Luke. The third thing that I talk about is that Paul goes to the home of Titius Eustace. Now that's a really interesting little, it's only one verse, but it says he moves to the home of Titius Eustace, but it doesn't say from where. Is he moving from the house of a quil in Prisca, or is he moving from the synagogue? And, you know, the the New Revised Standard Version puts in synagogue and some other interpretations or uh translations too as well. So that's unclear. But the other thing is there's no mention of this tedious uses anywhere in the New Testament, which makes one wonder. The other thing is it would not have been unusual for a wealthy individual to invite a philosopher, a religious expert into his household, and he would do this to prove his sophistication. I mean, some might have wanted to learn, but on the other hand, it's it's kind of a mark of status. So I don't know whether that's historical or not. I just leave that up in the air. The fourth thing is that he converts Crispus. Now, we have Paul talking about Crispus in 1 Corinthians, so I have no reason to doubt that. However, in Acts, Crispus is described as an argis synagogos. That's a Greek word which is translated as an official of the synagogue. If you read 1 Corinthians, you would have no indication that Crispus is a Jew. So is he? Is he not? Not clear. But Paul certainly does convert Crispus and a lot of other people. Um the fifth episode is that Paul is dragged by the Jews before the consul, uh the proconsul of Galileo. I tend to doubt that. First of all, Paul mentions nothing about it. There's a particular passage in 2 Corinthians 11 where he enumerates his sufferings. And it would be great if he could stick this in there. So what he says is five times I've received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods once I received a stoning. But if he could have put three times I was beaten with rods once I was dragged before a Roman council, once I received a stoning, that would really strengthen his case. He doesn't say that, but you know, an argument from silence is a pretty weak argument. But there's also a lot of strange things going on in that episode. First of all, Paul has no speaking role. He's dragged before Galileo, the Jews accuse him, he's about to open his mouth, excess, and then Galileo makes a pronouncement. The other thing is, like I said earlier, there's no evidence from the Corinthian correspondence of any Jewish hostility. Um, and finally at the end of the passage, Sosanus, who was also called Archisynagogus, is um beaten by the Jews. Why? I mean, it's very strange. So it has been suggested that this was a passage that Luke inherited that originally had nothing to do with Paul, and then Paul has kind of slipped in there. Um I don't know. You know, to my mind, it doesn't really matter, but it seems um it seems more likely that is from Luke.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Yeah. Well, I want to spend the rest of the episode talking about some of the concrete problems that Paul deals with in the Corinthian epistles. And the Corinthians are kind of like Paul's problem children, and that uh there just seems to be issue after issue that he has to address. Um, and as you argue in the book, it does not take long after Paul leaves Corinth for the church in Corinth to start dividing. So he, when he writes 1 Corinthians, uh deals with that problem head on in the first four chapters. So talk to us about why the church in Corinth was divided, how Paul found out that they were divided, and then how he addresses those divisions at the in the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Okay, let's talk about sources first. Um, there's three places he could have gotten this information. The first he mentions in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, and that is from Chloe's people. Chloe's people are probably her slaves. And so that is all information. He said, I heard from Chloe's people. Another possibility is that he heard it, or in addition, I would say, he heard it from a letter that they had written to him. So he says in 1 Corinthians 7 1, um, concerning the matters about which you wrote. So he got a letter from the Corinthians. That may have also added some information, or the carriers of the letter may have given him information. And those carriers are most likely Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, who are mentioned in chapter 16. Now, the issue is uh factualism. He says in chapter one, each of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, or I belong to Christ. Now, Cephas is, of course, Peter. But when we get to the third chapter of 1 Corinthians, it's pretty clear that the real problem is between the followers of Paul and the followers of Apollos. Now, is there an issue with followers of Cephas? Well, followers of Cephas don't really come up again, but it's not impossible. If Cephas did go to Rome, and tradition has it that he was killed in Rome, um, he probably would have passed through Corinth. So if he sailed from, let's say, Antioch, because we know he was in Antioch, to Corinth and then on to Rome, he probably would have stayed in Corinth maybe overnight, maybe a couple days, while he was waiting to get a ship to the west. Um so he could have founded an assembly. And maybe he decided this is, you know, the people are receptive. It's worth staying here and founding an assembly. So that's possible. We just don't know. Um, so I would say maybe yes, maybe no. Um I think if there is an assembly founded by Peter, it doesn't figure hugely into this uh into this rivalry. Now, this last passage, I belong to Christ, is really strange, and people have argued over it for years and years and years, and there's no consensus. So was there a so-called Christ party? I don't think so. I think, and this is not my idea. This comes from uh a scholar in the early 20th century, but it is also uh reflected in Chrysostom, one of the early church fathers. And that is the translation that we usually read can be translated in a very different way. Let me show you. Um each of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, but I belong to Christ. So I belong to Christ is Paul giving his opinion. I belong to Christ. Um, anyhow, that's the issue. Now, the solution to the problem, what Paul argues, is basically for unity, and that unity is based in love. So he throughout 1 Corinthians, he appeals for unity. He says at the early part of the first chapter, you know, basically I want you to all think and say the same thing. Um I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. He says later in chapter three, after he talks about the rivalry between his followers and the followers of Apollos, he says, What after all is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants to whom you came to believe. In other words, it doesn't matter who you got this message from. You got it. Right. And so don't worry about who it comes from. Just be united and look out for one another. And what is important is building up the community.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah, and he's going to appeal in those chapters to the community bonds and the fact that they think that they have this wisdom, but they don't actually possess the wisdom. And so just four chapters of Paul directly trying to deal with those divisions head-on.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

Right. And I think he talks about both rhetoric, their speaking ability. He says when when he showed up in Corinth, he didn't come with uh basically speaking uh wise words or speaking words of wisdom. And I think that probably is a reference to Apollos. I suspect that Apollos was a much better speaker than Paul, and that Apollos' followers are bragging about that. You know, Paul is a really good writer. He is a very persuasive writer in many ways, but it sounds as if he is not a very good speaker. Um, in 2 Corinthians 10, he quotes one of his detractors as saying that his physical form is terrible, and his speech is as well. So again, I think that may be the issue with Apollos' followers, that he is a wise and well-spoken individual.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Okay. In uh 1 Corinthians chapter 5, 6, and 7, Paul deals with several issues related to sex, celibacy, and marriage. Talk to us about what's going on in those passages and why those issues are important to the Corinthians.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

Okay, so it seems that there are a liberal faction, uh, people who are sexually liberal, they're going to prostitutes. You have a man living with his father's wife that's not his mother, but probably his stepmother. Um and so sexual liberality, if you will, would not be unusual in the Greco-Roman world. Um sex was not the big deal that we think it is. Um you know, going to a prostitute was no big deal at all. Um, but then there are some very conservative people, uh, and I would count Paul as one of the conservative people who are urging celibacy. What Paul's, you know, it's interesting, with some of these factions, Paul is really trying to walk the line. He doesn't want to alienate either side. So he draws a hard line with prostitutes. Um with regard to celibacy, he's much more open. He says if if you have the gift, the charisma that I have that is to be celibate, that's fine. But if you don't, then you should marry. Because it's better to marry than to be, you know, in some kind of situation where sinning sexually. This would be what Paul called pornea, which is where we get the uh pornay is a prostitute. We get the word pornography from that. So this is a bad thing for Paul. Um but he is also against um street celibacy if one is married, because he says, you know, you you are not your the owner of your body. Your spouse owns your body, and you owe your spouse. Um so he says it's okay to be celibate for a time, but then to come together. In other words, you can be celibate for, you know, a couple of weeks if you agreed to that, and then go back to your normal married life. So again, he tries to walk the line there. Um the other issue that is a big one is meat. Offered to idols. So any meat that has been sacrificed to a pagan god, uh, at least among some strict Jews, is you know, it's forbidden. Now that would not necessarily be a problem, because if you're eating meat that has been sacrificed to a pagan god, you have been involved in that sacrifice. So a Jesus follower would probably not be involved in that. But um if you bought meat from the meat market, that meat may well have been sacrificed to a pagan god. Uh when an animal is sacrificed, or multiple animals are sacrificed, the sacrificer, the person who brought the animal, gets some of it. The temple gets some of it. And so the temple doesn't need most of this meat. So they would sell it onto the meat market. So you in the if you're buying meat in the meat market, you may inadvertently buy meat that has been sacrificed to pagan gods. So um in big cities, Jews would have their own meat market. So the animals would be uh kosher, that is, killed in the proper way, and uh they would have nothing to do with Greco-Roman gods. So meat is not something that people ate frequently like we do because it was expensive, and most people in the Roman Empire did not have a lot of money. Paul's followers probably did not have a lot of money. Paul did not have a lot of money, but you know, it is an issue, and so basically there are two opinions: the liberal one and the conservative one. The liberal one um basically comes from people who I suspect learn from Paul. There is no God but one. And so these people think, well, there's no such thing as a pagan god, they don't exist. So what's the big deal? Right? So we can eat whatever. Now, interesting enough, in theory, Paul agrees with them. But he says, but if someone who is a brother or sister that is a fellow Jesus follower, uh sees you and is convinced that it's okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols, but they actually still kind of believe in these idols, then you're leading them into sin. So that's a bad thing. So he says, so for my part, if it means eating no meat, so I don't offend a brother or sister, that's what I'll do. But again, he he says in theory, it's okay. So presumably, I think what Paul would have to say is if if no one sees you, no problem.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

Now the what he says to the conservatives is is very interesting. This is a couple chapters later. Um, he he basically compares the Jesus followers to Israel. And he talks about Israel in the wilderness, so the exodus of that. And he refers to the golden calf implicitly and says, you know, these people tempted and angered God, and God struck them down. Tens of thousands of them were struck down in the wilderness, he says. And there is referring to a passage from Numbers, I believe. So do you really want to tempt God? Right. Do you think that you know you're stronger than he is? So so that seems to be another opinion. So he says, you know, so if you're of this conservative faction, you know, you probably have a right to stay away from this food. So you think at the end, maybe he agrees with the conservatives, right? But then he says, shortly thereafter, if one of your neighbors, that is a non-Jesus following neighbor, invites you to dinner, go. Don't question whatever is set before you. So if meat from the meat market is given to you as part of the meal, don't worry about it. Eat it. It's okay. Um unless somebody raises the issue with you.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

So again, he he really tries to walk the line. Um the ambiguity there, I think is not resolvable. And it's curious that the issue of food sacrificed to idols or meat sacrificed to idols continues. At the end of the first century, in the book of Revelation, Jezebel, the opponent of John, uh, seems to be thinking like Paul. You know, John accuses her of teaching her followers to eat meat sacrificed by idol to idols. But I think that's probably John going a little bit overboard. I think probably what Jezebel's doing is saying it's okay. Yeah. My guess is she's basing this on 1 Corinthians. You also see it later in the first century, and it's still an issue.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Yeah. There are two more problems that Paul addresses in his letters that I want to ask you about before we get out of here today. The the first of those two has to do with the collection for the church in Judea. Now, one of the things that's become apparent to me over the last couple of years is that this is a major part of Paul's life and ministry that is often completely underappreciated in church. I don't think I ever heard a sermon about this growing up. Um, and it's an element that's kind of muted sometimes when we talk about Paul and his mission. But in 1 Corinthians 16 and in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, he talks about this contribution that the Corinthians and other Christians around the Mediterranean were collecting for the believers in Judea. So talk to us about that collection, how that factors into Corinth. And then what was the what was the ultimate result of Paul's collection for the churches in Judea?

SPEAKER_02 51:13

Okay. This is a great example of Acts smoothing things out because the author does not really mention it specifically. There are some allusions to it, uh, but that's all. So the the origin of the collection has to do with the famine in Excelsus. He says that a prophet named Agabbas stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine over all the world. The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the brothers and sisters living in Judea. This they did, sending it to the elders by Barnabas and Paul. Now, Barnabas and Paul at this point are in Antioch. And so they're talking about the assemblies in Antioch sending aid to the assemblies in Jerusalem. So that's how it starts. And Paul refers to it in Galatians when he goes to this meeting with Peter and James, uh, basically to get their okay about what he's preaching. Um, and they they basically give them their seal of approval. But only if you would all they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, that very thing I've been eager to do. So, you know, we can see here the beginnings of the collection. Now, Peter ends up in Antioch, and Paul talks about this shortly after this in Galatians, and he has a blow-up with Peter. He accuses Peter of hypocrisy because Peter had been eating with non-Jews. The men from James show up, and Peter and the other Jews in the assembly back away and they separate from the Gentiles. Now we don't really know what that looks like exactly. But, you know, again, Paul accuses Peter of hypocrisy. Interestingly enough, after that he says nothing. So it seems likely that he lost that argument that the Jews and the rest of the assembly in Antioch sided with Peter. So Paul, uh probably in a huff, says, I'm out of here. And he leaves and heads west. And he's kind of on his own. But interestingly enough, he does feel an obligation regarding this collection. And so he kind of reimagines it. He reimagines it as a one-time collection from the assemblies that he found that would go to Jerusalem. So he this is part of the problem in Corinth, that you know, Paul is suspected of asking for money uh under false pretenses. But regardless, it gets resolved, and Paul does send a collection taken from the Macedonians of the Corinthians to Jerusalem. He talks about this in Romans 15. We don't hear anything more about the collection. So was it accepted? Some scholars say yes, and this is basically Paul reconciling with Peter and the others. Some say no, it was rejected. And again, this is speculative, and some argue that there was some kind of compromise worked out. And Acts does have some kind of compromise. Uh X has uh the Jewish members of the assembly, probably James, telling Paul, we have four men who are under a vow. Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Now, that's a compromise. I mean, paying for the shaving of their heads would not be a lot of money.

unknown 55:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

And Paul presumably has a fair amount of money. So, but anyhow, there there may have been some sort of compromise. That sounds to me the most likely. Um, but again, we just don't know. Uh, and here's one of these places where we just have to kind of throw up our hands and say, yeah, maybe, maybe not. Yeah. Uh maybe kind of.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

Yeah. The the last issue that I want to ask you about dominates 2 Corinthians. And I think that this is even more pronounced if your theory of 2 Corinthians as kind of a pastiche of several letters that Paul wrote to Corinth is correct. Um, all throughout 2 Corinthians, Paul's defending his apostolic credentials. So, again, if there's more than one letter in 2 Corinthians, then he's writing to them several times to say, hey, I am your apostle and you need to get behind me. So talk to us about Paul's defense of his apostolic credentials and how that works itself out in what we call 2 Corinthians.

SPEAKER_02 56:58

Yeah, okay. So there's a couple things going on. First of all, as I said, I think that one of the early letters in the Corinthian correspondence, in the 2nd Corinthian correspondence, is that first self-defense that's embedded in chapters 2 through 7. And from that self-defense, we can learn a couple things. We can learn that the Corinthians are uh not happy with Paul's uh appearance in his speech. And so he does defend his appearance. Now, what does his appearance have to do with anything? I think the other thing we learn from that self-defense is that there's suspicions about Paul in the collection. He says in chapter two, um, I'm not selling the word of God. He says in chapter four, I've I've put off shameful hidden things and I don't do those things. And he says in chapter seven, I haven't defrauded anyone. So again, the issue is money. Some Corinthians think that Paul Paul's physical problems, his suffering. Again, he in this first apology, he does defend himself against his weakness, his suffering. Um, and I think some Corinthians think that Paul's suffering is a result of God's vengeance. Paul is trying to rip off the people of Corinth, God's people, and God is punishing him. And so Paul is gonna stand up and say, No, I mean, I'm I'm sincere, I'm not in this for the money, I'm not selling the gospel. Um and I can explain my suffering, and he compares the suffering to the dying of Jesus. But his suffering always comes to an end, and he says he's he he implies that he's delivered by God, so he's always carrying around, he says in chapter four, the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might be revealed. So the dying of Jesus is Paul's suffering, the life of Jesus is Paul recovering, he says, from the hand of God, from his suffering that represents the resurrection. So um that's basically what he says in the first apology. Now, it is not sufficient. He goes to Corinth after the first apology, and something happens. Yeah, and Paul leaves. So is he insulted? Um, he talks about being humiliated in a later part of Second Corinthians. So what he he does, he follows up this first apology with the second apology, and that's the kind of nasty self-defense in chapters 10 through 13. Um eventually it gets worked out. And I suspect it gets worked out because of the letter carrier. It's carried by Titus. The Corinthians seem to like Titus, and I suspect that Titus, when he's reading this letter and explaining it, is softening the edges. And so Titus comes back to Paul basically saying, you know, I think everything's okay. And then Paul writes his final letter, that is the letter that starts in chapter one and goes through chapter seven, without, you know, minus the first apology, in which he's offering uh reconciliation. He says, I'm good, are you? Yeah. And presumably there is reconciliation, because we know from chapter 15 of Romans that the collection is completed.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

Yeah. All right, that was all really helpful. And again, uh, there's just there's so much to the Corinthian correspondence, and I appreciate you outlining all of those conflicts and how they worked in Paul's context. The last question I want to ask you today has to do with the relevance of this conflict between Paul and the Corinthian church for today. So, for believers that take First and Second Corinthians as Christian scripture, what can we learn about, you know, whether it's our faith or how the Bible should impact us from Paul's rocky relationship with the Corinthians?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:11

Okay. Um, first, I'm not a preacher. So, but but if we look at the Corinthian correspondence, in First Corinthians, Paul emphasizes unity through love. Um in 2 Corinthians, he re-emphasizes what he had said in 1 Corinthians, that there should be this unity, and love is what should underpin it. Um, but he also says something really interesting, and that is that weakness, suffering, um, sickness should not necessarily be taken at face value. And I think this may come to Paul from Jesus, because in the Gospels, um, Jesus goes out of his way to help the weak, the suffering, and the outsiders. So I think, you know, the message that I would take is that people should be approached with love. They should be accepted with love. Um, we should not necessarily prejudge them by what they look like, by how they are suffering, by if they're um, you know, in some way disabled, uh, we should accept them for who they are. People who are you know God's children in Christ. So if I were a preacher, that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:53

Yeah. Well, Dr. Paul Duff, thank you again so much for coming on the show today. Before I let you go, where can people find your work?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:00

Okay, so obviously you can get it from the publisher, and that's Erdmans, E-E-R-D-M-A-N-S, Erdmans.com. Um, you can get it from Amazon, Barnes Noble. If you go to your local bookstore, they probably would not have it on the shelf. It's too specialized, but they would certainly order it for you. So I think you would not have trouble finding it if you wanted to read it. And I encourage you to read it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

Yes, and I second that. I'm going to put links to this in the show notes. It's an excellent commentary on First and Second Corinthians. Again, Dr. Duff, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian at gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter. You can follow me at the handle at Pro Liberty Pod. Again, that is at Pro Liberty Pod. And you can also visit me at the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com. At the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com, you can also support the Christians for Liberty Network and the Libertarian Christian Institute. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and we will see you next Tuesday.