PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

It may be then that there is a discernible likeness here to the general pattern of Pauline ethics
explored so far, although the pattern is less apparent here than in the earlier letters.
A Pauline Pattern
It has repeatedly been seen that the grasping desire for basic appetitive taboos is generally
dealt with first in ethical sections, especially involving the themes of sexual immorality,
impurity, and greedy desire (πορνεία, ἀκαθαρσία, ἀσέλγεια, ἐπιθυμία, πλεονεξία).
“Sexual immorality” (πορνεία, πόρνος) is used in the Pauline literature almost exclusively in
the sections examined above (with the one addition being 1 Timothy 1:10), and almost always
appears as the primary vice. 35
Porneia, well translated by the encompassing notion of immorality, seems to be a
focal term with which Paul associates vices and improper conduct (1 Thess. 4:3). 36
“Impurity” (ἀκαθαρσία) is likewise used in Paul only in the catechetical lists and
“sin/sanctification” sections that have been cited above, except for one instance, in which the
context suggests the NRSV’s translation “impure motives” (1 Thessalonians 2:3). 37
Contextually it is hard to determine a clear difference in meaning between ἀκαθαρσία and
πορνεία in these sections.
35
The word occurs in some textual variants in Romans 1:29 (followed in the Textus Receptus),
notably in connection with “greed”, and occurs in 1 Corinthians 5:1, 5:9, 5:10, 5:11, 6:9, 6:13,
6:18, 7:2; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3, 5:5; Colossians 3:5; 1
Thessalonians 4:3. In the latter five passages of this list, the term occurs first in a string of
related injunctions or vices. The word is also used in 1 Timothy 1:10, in a vice list that
appears to follow the ordering of the Decalogue.
36
J. Paul Sampley, Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning (Minneapolis, Minn.:
Fortress Press, 1991), 57.
37
This word occurs in Romans 1:24, 6:19; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians
4:19, 5:3; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Thessalonians 4:7.
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