PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

humble crucified, who are awaiting vindication. Paul draws this contrast to a sharp climax
in chapter 4:
Already you have become satisfied! Already you have become wealthy!
Without us [apostles] you have begun to reign! And I wish that you really had
begun to reign, in order that we might be reigning with you. For it seems to me
that God has flaunted us apostles as last, as those condemned to die, making us a
spectacle to the world before angels and humans. (4:8-9)
Paul is calling the Corinthians to give up the position of the boastful ruler, and assume the
position of the crucified. He concludes these opening chapters by urging them:
Chapters 5–14
Become imitators of me. (4:16)
The following ten chapters of the letter spell out what this will mean in relation to further
culturally-driven problems in the Corinthian community. They spell out how the
Corinthians are to imitate Paul in assuming the position of the crucified, both as
individuals and as a church body.
In chapters 5–7 this corrective of the cross is applied to issues concerning the
congregation’s presumptuous entertainment of sins related to the personal body:
Your boasting [related to the allowance of a man’s sexual immorality] is not
good. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole dough? Clean out
the old yeast, in order that you might be new dough, as in fact you are
unleavened. For our Passover lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. (5:6-7)
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