PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

must therefore be reminded of the necessity of sharing in Christ’s death – and hiddenness
– before sharing publicly the manifestation of Christ’s resurrected glory. The main body
of 1 Corinthians ends up exhibiting what might be called kerygmatic rhetoric, moving
from a corrective summons to identify with the cross in chapters 1–4 through to a
corrective summons to await the fullness of resurrection in chapter 15:
1 Corinthians 1–4: Divisive boasting is set against inhabitation of Christ’s cross
1 Corinthians 5–14: The cross applied
1 Corinthians 15: Disregard for the dead is set against the expected manifest inhabitation
of Christ’s resurrection 51
I will examine this in more detail after briefly considering Paul’s other letters.
Paul’s Other Letters
As 1 Corinthians is the only New Testament letter to come from Paul and Sosthenes as co-
senders, it should not be surprising if it has distinctive features. However, what I have
described as kerygmatic rhetoric may be seen to arise flexibly to some degree in other
letters of Paul.
2 Corinthians
Paul’s subsequent (canonical) letter to the Corinthians begins by summing up his apostolic
ministry as one of death in hope of resurrection. Indeed, God is defined there as the one
“who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9). Paul Barnett opines that Paul has drawn on a
51 I use the terminology of “inhabitation” here, even though such imagery is seldom
explicit in 1 Corinthians itself (although see 10:16). Such terminology is an attempt to
capture the letter’s insistence on human indebtedness to God-in-Christ for status (1:2),
present calling (1:5-7), and future hope (1:8). The Corinthians are summoned not only to
emulate Christ as a great example, but to recognise that their very life and identity comes
from union with him (1:30); and they are thus to subject their conceptions of their own
status, life, and conduct to an acknowledgement of his (crucified and exalted) identity.
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