Iii. The Role Of The Spirit
II. WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE DATA
When we turn next to an analysis of these data, we must begin by noting how little we really learn about many things that interest us. For example, we learn nothing at all about such matters as time, frequency, size, order, or leadership. The references to the churches of various households indicate that the Greek word ekklesia has just enough flexibility to it, so that although in places it can refer only to the people themselves, at times it likewise refers to the gathered assembly of the people, as it does always in the Greek Old Testament. But we are quite in the dark about these gatherings. Even the language in 1 Corinthians 14:23 referring to the “whole church” assembling is ambiguous, whether that means the whole of a given house church or the whole of the believers in Corinth — presumably from several house churches — assembling in a larger place of some kind. If it refers to given house churches, then each gathering is relatively small by our standards, since archaeology has yet to discover a villa in Corinth that could house more than 50 people comfortably in the atrium. If it refers to all the house churches meeting together, the question remains as to where and how.
In terms of participation we learn that men and women participated equally, since this is said specifically in 1 Corinthians 11:4-5 and implied in the repeated “all speak in tongues” in 14:22-23 and “all may prophesy one by one” in v. 29. Furthermore, there appears to have been a great deal of Spirit-led spontaneity on the part of the whole community. This is certainly implied in the description in 14:26, and made certain by the description of prophecy and discernment in w. 29-32 with the admonition that the “S/spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.”
While we might guess that there were one or several giving leadership to this spontaneity, we don’t have a clue as to who or what form this may have taken. Paul’s emphasis is on the (at least potential) participation of the whole body. What this also means, to anticipate the next section, is that the role of the Spirit, who gifted women and men alike to speak to the community, makes it especially tenuous for us to look to the Jewish synagogue for help in these matters. Not only did they worship in anticipation of the coming Spirit, and therefore without him, but also there was no place or any kind for women to participate.
What we are left with, therefore, are references to various “activities,” for want of a better term, which cover a broad range — from the eating of the Lord’s Table together, to singing, to various forms of speech (prayer, prophecy and discerning prophecies, tongues and interpretation, and teaching, including the reading of Paul’s letters). But there is just enough ambiguity in each of these areas to cause us to be especially cautious about our own pronouncements.
Most difficult for us to know is (1) whether these various references give us all we need to know about their worship, and (2) whether the two very different kinds of activity involved in eating the Lord’s Supper and in speaking and singing occurred at the same gatherings, or in gatherings of two different kinds. In light of the passing reference to “praying and prophesying” in 1 Cor 11:4-5, followed immediately by the correction of the Lord’s Table, which are held together by the twin introductions in w. 2 and 17, I am inclined to think that these two (prophesying and the Table) occurred at the same gatherings; but such inclination falls far short of certainty. 52
What does seem clear from these various references is that the “activities” of worship were double directional — toward God, on the one hand, and toward the community, on the other. This is almost certainly how we are to understand the reference to “praying and prophesying” in 1 Corinthians 11:4-5, where prayer represents speech that is directed toward God and prophecy represents speech directed toward the community. Similarly, the singing in Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:18-20 involves “teaching and admonishing one another” while also “offering thanksgiving to God.” Likewise, the fellowship at the Lord’s Meal, according to 1 Corinthians 10:16- 22, involves participation in the Lord and participation in the body of Christ, which Paul interprets as the church.
What all of this seems to indicate, therefore, is that worship in the Pauline churches was much more varied, with a much greater combination of spontaneity and set activities than most of us know in the later church. The singing, which included “psalms, hymns, and Spirit songs,” probably refers to the singing of both spontane-ous songs under Spirit inspiration by an individual (“each one of you has a psalm”) as well as to songs previously composed and sung by the whole. The speaking included prayer directed toward God, including tongues and their interpretation which in the public assembly Paul understands to be praise or thanksgiving directed toward God and interpreted for the people. It also included all kinds of speech directed toward the people, including inspired utterances such as prophecy or revelation, or a message of wisdom or knowledge, or spontaneous teaching, as well as the reading of Paul’s letters, which would also imply the reading of the Old Testament Scriptures.
It is very likely, we should add finally, given that the context of all of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 is the community at worship, that the gatherings of the people in the presence of the Spirit also included in an ongoing way a variety of non-verbal supernatural phenomena such as healings, miracles, and moments of special faith. This is made certain not only by how Paul sets forth the Spirit manifestations in 12:7-11 (where each one is given a manifestation for the common good) but also by the fact that in Gal 3:5 Paul specifically says that in supplying the Galatian believers with the Spirit in an ongoing way, God performs miracles among them. This does not imply that “worship” was the only context for such Spirit activity, but that it certainly served as one significant context for such.
When we add all these observations together, we must admit that we don’t really know very much, but we know just enough to be intrigued to the full. Wouldn’t one love to be the proverbial fly on the wall in the gathering of God’s people in one of the early Gentile churches under Paul’s jurisdiction? My guess is that most of us would not be quite sure where we were, since the Lord’s Table took place in the context of a meal together and the worship included so much Spirit-led spontaneity. I have often wondered, if the roles could be reversed (i.e., if Paul could be the proverbial fly on the wall in one of our gatherings, either of the more liturgical variety or more Baptist/Presbyterian variety), whether Paul would recognize himself as in a Christian gathering for the worship of God. But I refuse to do more than wonder, because we simply do not know enough.
But that does leads me, then, to the matter of the role of the Holy Spirit in all of these activities, which is probably the factor that separates us more than any other from worship in the Pauline churches.