PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

Chapters 5–7: Glorify God in Your Body
Themes of Chapters 5–7
The themes of chapters 5–7 seem to fit the pattern that I have been arguing exists in Paul’s
ethics: the church at Corinth is here called to surrender their bold claims to bodily self-
ownership implied in issues of sexual immorality, impurity, and greed.
Thus in each section, Paul depicts the Corinthians in a way that is continuous with the critique
of the Corinthian church that was developed in chapters 1–4. They are depicted as boldly
parading their assumed self-ownership. In each section Paul challenges the various
expressions of this puffed up self-assertion, alluding to the cross as that which demands
humble submission to divine ownership: 51
In 5:1-13, the community is warned to turn their pride in a man of immorality 52 into a
willingness to be rid of impurity (here pictured as leaven), in view of Christ’s sacrifice:
5:1-2: Actually it is said that among you there is sexual immorality [πορνεία]…And
you are puffed up [πεφυσιωμένοι]!
5:6-7: Your boasting [καύχημα ὑμῶν] is not good…. Clean out [purify: ἐκκαθάρατε]
the old yeast, in order that you might be new dough… For our Passover lamb, Christ,
has been sacrificed [ἐτύθη].
In 6:1-11, the church is called to turn their acceptance of unrestrained greed into a
commitment to judge greed and to forgo personal gain: every item in the closing vice list may
51 This does not sum up the full complexity of Paul’s argumentation in each of these
subsections; it rather notes a general pattern that appears to be common to each.
52 It seems reasonable that, if the man at fault here is a rich benefactor, the resistance of the
church to condemning his open sin represents conventional goodwill in response to continued
patronage. See chapter 6 in Clarke, Secular and Christian. See also John K. Chow,
Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992);
especially 139. My suggestion is that Paul interprets this goodwill as evidence of (to use
Chrysostom’s terminology) the “disease” of puffed-up pride that effectively downplays
dependence on God in Christ.
217