III. In Response to the Corinthian Letter (7:1–16:12)
With the words “Now for the matters you wrote about,” Paul moves on to the second part of the letter, his response to the letter from Corinth. For the perspective on that letter from which this commentary proceeds, see the introduction (pp. 6–10). Rather than a friendly exchange, in which the new believers in Corinth are asking spiritual advice of their mentor in the Lord, their letter was much more likely a response to Paul’s previous letter mentioned earlier (5:9), in which they were taking exception to his position on point after point. In light of their own theology of “S/spirit,” with heavy emphasis on “wisdom” and “knowledge,” they apparently have answered Paul with a kind of “Why can’t we?” attitude, in which they are looking for his response.
So he takes up the items in their letter one by one, most of them introduced by peri de (“now about”; 7:1, 25; 8:1 [cf. 8:4]; 12:1; 16:1, 12), and at an appropriate place inserts one more item about which he had been informed (11:17–34). Since there is a certain logic to the whole presentation, the present sequencing is probably Paul’s own and is not dictated by their letter. The matters regarding marriage with which the section begins (chap. 7) follow directly from the concerns over sexual immorality that preceded (5:1–13 and 6:12–20); chapters 8–10 return to the matter of “idolatry,” specifically that of eating meals in the pagan temples, which has a large number of affinities to the issue of “sexual immorality” that immediately precedes (6:12–20; see on 5:10–11). This matter of “false worship” is followed by a series of items dealing with Christian worship (11:2–16, which sets up 11:17–34, followed by the issue of tongues in worship in 12–14). This in turn is followed by the matter of their denying the resurrection of believers (chap. 15), which is a key theological issue lying behind what has immediately preceded (chaps. 12–14), as well as much in the earlier parts of the letter. The final chapter (16) then takes up a number of “house cleaning” items, some of which also come from their letter. Not every item is equally combative (e.g., chaps. 8–10 are much more so than 7:1–24 or 7:25–40); nonetheless in every case Paul takes exception to their position, or at least to the position of some among them who have influenced the whole.
At this point a final, seldom-noted observation needs to be voiced regarding all of this material, which in turn should considerably affect the way it is handled in the academy. Contrary to what appears to be the common (but unspoken) assumption of many, our present access to Paul’s conversation with the Corinthian believers in the rest of the letter actually diminishes rather than increases from here on. And this is because he is now responding directly to their letter to him, which in turn means that he and they are on a considerably higher wavelength of understanding than would be true for the first third of the letter. That is, Paul heretofore has had to report back to them what he had learned, apparently by oral report; and therefore since he needed to tell them what he already “knows,” we also get in on the conversation at a higher level than would ordinarily be available to us. A helpful analogy here might be that of listening to one end of a telephone conversation without knowing who is on the other end. The words and sentences are understandable enough; nonetheless one can be quite in the dark until the conversation partner is actually revealed. And so here; in effect we know just enough from Paul’s end of the conversation to make us think we know more than we do. Thus a great deal more caution with regard to our degree of certainty should probably now come into play as one attempts to reconstruct the situation(s) into which Paul is speaking.