An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
Welcome to another Author Interview here on Books At a Glance! I’m Fred Zaspel, and I’m very happy to have Dr. Tom Schreiner with us today to talk about his brand new commentary on 1 Corinthians.
Tom, welcome, and congratulations on this new commentary!
Schreiner:
Thanks, Fred, it’s great to be with you again.
Zaspel:
This commentary is part of the Tyndale New Testament Commentary series. The previous volume on 1 Corinthians was written by Leon Morris. That’s quite a pair of shoes to fill – I’ve heard you refer to Morris as one of your heroes! Did you relish the opportunity to replace his work or dread it … or both?!
Schreiner:
That’s a good question. Maybe a little of both. There’s no way that I feel that I could ever fill Leon Morris’s shoes. And you’re right he is one of my heroes, one of the first scholars that I read. I don’t think I’ve read everything by Morris, that’s probably impossible, but I read almost everything, and I read a biography of his life. You know, we just need new commentaries as time passes on, but we should never forget the contribution of Leon Morris and we need to keep reading him today.
Zaspel:
This series has been around for a while, and if I understand correctly this is its third go around – is that right?
Schreiner:
Yes, I think so. I think that’s right. I don’t know your history, Fred, but the Tyndale series were among the earliest commentaries I read even before I started seminary. So, I just have a fondness for those from my earliest days as a Christian.
Zaspel:
Highlight for us the niche these commentaries, and your 1 Corinthians commentary in particular, are intended to fill. Who is the intended audience? And what are some of the leading features?
Schreiner:
The Tyndale commentaries are intended to be read by anyone interested in studying the Bible. They are not Greek and Hebrew commentaries, so they are accessible to people who don’t know the languages. Of course, the commentaries are informed by the languages and comments on the languages, but not extensively. The purpose is to give clear expositions for students, for pastors, maybe scholars, too, if they are interested in the books of the Old and New Testaments. We also think of these commentaries as commentaries that could be read around the world by people from different cultures who know English. I think they have a real pastoral slant, although they don’t focus on application. The focus of the commentaries is clear and brief exegesis. They’re not technical commentaries.
Zaspel:
They’re brief, but they are substantive.
Schreiner:
Yes, I think so. I think that’s their advantage – you get to the point quickly.
Zaspel:
Practically everyone who’s been to church has heard that the church at Corinth was Paul’s “troubled church.” Highlight for us just why it has that reputation.
Schreiner:
Yes, it was a troubled church. We see that there are divisions and factions in the church, factions and divisions over Paul and Apollos and Cephas, that is Peter. There is incest going on in the church, lawsuits, questions about marriage and singleness, disputes about food offered to idols, and the people I called the ‘knowers,’ not loving, those who are weak. And then there’s issues about the adornment of women; there are people even getting drunk at the Lord’s supper. I’ve never heard of that happening in the church today. Maybe that has happened, but I’ve never heard of that happening. Then there’s controversies over the spiritual gifts; and there are even people questioning the resurrection of the dead. So, those are a lot of troubles.
Zaspel:
Give us a quick fly-over of 1 Corinthians. Can you trace it out in just broad strokes? And tell us about Paul’s gospel-focus as he addresses the various issues at hand.
Schreiner:
You know, in a way, it’s just revisiting the issues we just talked about. But, I think what’s fascinating about the letter is if we were presented today with those problems as pastors or ministers or just ordinary Christians, how would we respond? There are divisions in the church and I think the divisions were especially over Paul and Apollos, probably Peter as well; but over their speaking ability (this is chapters 1 through 4, essentially), and the Corinthians are taking sides and apparently assessing the spiritual effectiveness of Paul or Apollos based on how good of speakers they were. The way Paul responds to that is by saying… What would we say? I just pause for a moment and ask, what would we say? We would probably just say, “Stop that, don’t do that!” But Paul says to them, “You don’t understand the Cross,” because the Cross scuttles human pride. The Cross shows us that the Lord saves through those who are weak. So, Paul’s thing is that the fundamental problem there is pride, and such pride over assessing the ministers. The problem is not with Paul and Apollos, the problem is all with the Corinthians. It’s as if, today, you are arguing: do you like John Piper or Tim Keller better? Or something like that. The problem isn’t with Piper or Keller, the problem is with people who are creating such divisions. And they have forgotten the foolishness of the Cross.
So, we come to chapter 5 to the issue of incest and the church is tolerating such incest, unbelievably enough, in the congregation. And Paul says there, the Cross, again. “Christ is our Passover lamb, don’t you know that you need to remove the unclean leaven, the sin of committing incest, from your community. Don’t you know a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Don’t you know that tolerating a little sin will cause it to spread through the congregation.” So there we see the Cross again.
Chapter 6, with the lawsuits, he doesn’t specifically mention the Cross, but I think it’s there, implicitly. Because engaging in such lawsuits, which I think were civil not criminal lawsuits, they are behaving selfishly, and the Cross calls us to live for the sake of others. Then in 6:12-20 there’s sexual sin in the congregation, perhaps even going to prostitutes. Paul, again, calls them to glorify God in their bodies and to live in light of… and here he focuses on the resurrection, the resurrection of the body. But again, I think there’s an implicit message of the Cross there as well, living for the sake of others instead of satisfying our selfish concerns.
In Chapter 7 he talks about marriage. It’s a very fascinating chapter, maybe we can come back to that. All kinds of good advice there.
Chapters 8 through10 on food offered to idols – here, clearly the ‘knowers,’ and I call them the ‘knowers,’ those are so convinced that they know the best thing to do who are actually eating food offered to idols in the idols’ temple. They are clearly not living in love, the love manifested in Christ’s Cross, and they are just pursuing their own desires. Paul rebukes them for that and uses himself for an example of living according to the Cross.
Then, Chapter 11, we see the adornment of women – a very fascinating passage as well. Then we see the drunkenness and lack of concern by the rich for the poor at the Lord’s Supper. And there Paul brings up the Lord’s words at the Last Supper specifically, “this is my body, this is my blood of the new covenant.” Clearly, he is bringing up these words to say you are forgetting the very purpose of the Supper in celebrating the Supper, by living selfishly. The Supper is about Jesus’ self-giving for the sake of others and you’ve forgotten that.
Chapters 12 through 14 on spiritual gifts is really kind of the same story over and over, again, isn’t it, Fred? Here they are concerned about their own gifts; probably they are especially impressed that they speak in tongues. Chapter 13 is placed right in the middle of the discussion and here Paul says what it means to be a mature Christian is to love one another. It’s not fundamentally about your gifts, and of course, the supreme expression of that love is Christ’s Cross.
In Chapter 15 we see some denying the resurrection. Paul explains the Gospel at the beginning of Chapter 15 and the absolute essential nature of believing in the physical resurrection of the body.
Then Chapter 16 – some final issues in the church are addressed.
Zaspel:
What would you say are some of the leading contributions of 1 Corinthians?
Schreiner:
I think one way I would want to suggest for those of us in ministry to read it is when we read the letter, I think it’s really helpful to say, “What’s the problem?” Isolate the problem – divisions, I brought that one up, incest, whatever it is – and then say, “How does Paul handle that?” To reflect on how I would handle it and then look at how Paul handles it. I think that’s a very practical pastoral way to deal with it. Then I would say, secondly, clearly the Cross and the resurrection of Jesus is the very foundation of our salvation. I think he runs that through the whole letter. And then, thirdly, I’d say the importance of the church being holy and pure. God calls upon the church – of course the church can’t be perfect – but the church is to live in holiness. And the Corinthians were clearly on the antinomian side of things.
Zaspel:
I have to say, in regard to your first observation, that’s what struck me most when I first preached through 1 Corinthians many years ago. It just struck me how Paul was able to view all of these issues that he has to address, from a Gospel perspective and how they impinge on the Gospel and how the Gospel brings the answer to each of these situations, whether it is division in the church or incest in the church or immorality, or whatever. It was just fascinating to me and it was eye-opening to me.
Schreiner:
Yes, we see Paul the Pastor at work and that’s immensely valuable.
Zaspel:
First Corinthians obviously holds some interest for you – why is that? Or how did that come about? And is there a favorite passage(s)?
Schreiner:
You know, at my first job at Azusa Pacific, the way we taught students how to study the Bible was we didn’t actually have a hermeneutics class, we would use different books of the Bible to teach them to study. In the New Testament department, we would use Luke and 1 Corinthians. So, in my three years at Azusa Pacific, I taught 1 Corinthians fifteen times.
Zaspel:
Wow!
Schreiner:
I mean I always loved the letter, but I never got tired of teaching it. And, of course, I was steeped in it by teaching it over and over and I think it’s such an encouraging letter. First of all, we see a church struggling with sin. Paul gives them severe warnings, but he doesn’t write them off. He does still say, at the beginning, “You are saints, you’re sanctified.” He’s hopeful. And I think that’s true of our own lives and those to whom we minister. We are always to have hope.
What’s a favorite passage? I suppose if I were to choose one, I think I would choose the one right off the bat – the divisions in the church. What a practical matter that is where there’s factions. I think Paul’s argument is: yes, you’ve forgotten the Cross; you’ve forgotten the foolishness of the Cross. And I think another way of putting it – in chapter 3 he says, “All things are yours. You have Peter, you have Paul, you have Apollos, you have the world, you have the things present, you have the things to come.” I mean, isn’t that astonishing that you would say to these people who are struggling with factions. I don’t think Paul says, just stop that, he says you know, you’re going way too low. You’re setting your faction on me or Apollos, but you have the world! You have Christ! You have God! You guys are pitching your affections and your desires not too high, but too low. You’re settling for so little, I think Paul is saying. You have such a secular and worldly perspective and that’s a perspective that always ends up minimizing and hurting our own lives.
Zaspel:
Before I let you go, maybe I should ask a couple quick “What’s your interpretation of this passage?” questions, but we’ll leave our listeners to get the commentary to learn the supporting arguments. First, what is the “superior speech” that Paul says in chapter 2 we should reject in preaching? Surely, he’s not saying we must avoid speaking well!
Schreiner:
That is such an excellent question. I think that the Corinthians were estimating Paul and Apollos on their rhetorical abilities. We know in the Greco-Roman world that there were many itinerant speakers, and these itinerant speakers were evaluated and prized for their rhetorical brilliance. Apollos from Acts 18 and 19 was very gifted, particularly as a speaker, probably more gifted than Paul. I think you’re right, Fred, Paul is not against being a good speaker. I don’t think Paul is saying we ought to be as boring as we can possibly be; but I think it’s a matter of wisdom. I think Paul is saying we ought not to speak in such a way that we call attention to our brilliance. The Puritans talked about this as well. Our focus in preaching should be to explain as clearly and simply as possible the message of the text. And, especially if one is gifted, you could call attention to yourself through your humor. And humor is fine in the pulpit; I think it’s good, but are you calling attention to yourself or your brilliance? There is a way of preaching, if you are intellectually gifted, that begins to call attention to the fact that you are very smart. And I think that’s what Paul is calling upon us to avoid. He says the preaching should be well done, it should be interesting, it can have humor, it obviously can display intellect, but the audience should be attracted by the message, not the messenger. That’s a good warning for those of us who preach.
Zaspel:
Does the term “carnal” in chapter 3 define a distinct class of Christians?
Schreiner:
That’s such a popular view. I was at a sermon in a certain venue where a person was preaching and he put three chairs up front and labeled them: Spiritual Christians, the first chair, the second chair, Carnal Christians, and third chair, Non-Christians. The audience was basically Christians so he had an invitation at the end because he basically said most of you are carnal Christians. He had an invitation at the end and invited all those who were carnal Christians to come up and commit their lives to Christ and become spiritual Christians. By the way, he was a great speaker and most of the people came up. But I think that’s a radical misunderstanding of what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians 3. I think Paul is shocking them in 1 Corinthians 3, because when he says they are fleshly (that’s another word for carnal) that is as if to say you are not Christians. You are behaving as if you are not believers. So, this passage is very badly appropriated if we read it to say you can permanently occupy this position of being fleshly. If I can use a big word, Paul is not reifying that category. That is to say it’s not a static, permanent category. You’re either spiritual or you’re unspiritual. You’re saved or unsaved. Paul did not envision that there’s this middle category which most Christians occupy. That is a very common mistake in our understanding of the Christian life.
Zaspel:
In chapter 6 Paul says we, believers, will judge angels. What’s that all about?
Schreiner:
I don’t know (Laughing). That’s a tough question. We just get a few hints from Daniel, Revelation, Hebrews 2; but it seems, from reading all of the biblical revelation, human beings will be exalted over angels. I think the word judge can have the idea of ruling, so it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll assess angels, although that might be involved. But it may just mean that we’re going to rule the world, in an administrative function, in some way where we’ll have higher responsibilities than angels. And after that I have nothing more to say. (Laughing)
Zaspel:
This question is filled with thorns and “what ifs,” but maybe you can answer just in broad categories: What are the allowable grounds for divorce in chapter 7?
Schreiner:
That’s such a controversial issue. I’m a pretty traditional Protestant, there. I think, from Matthew 5:31-32, and Matthew 19, that divorce is permissible for sexual infidelity. And I understand 1 Corinthians 7 to be saying divorce is permissible for desertion. The next thing I say is a bit more controversial, and we all need to use pastoral wisdom and I never first recommend divorce. Even if there’s been an affair, I always recommend that you try to keep a marriage together; but I don’t think that’s always the best, finally, practically, in particular situations. I think if there’s physical abuse there also can be grounds for divorce. I mean that’s where we need pastoral wisdom.
Zaspel:
I think that’s probably under the broader umbrella of desertion in 1 Corinthians 7, not fulfilling the marriage requirement and role.
Schreiner:
Yes, I think so too; and of course, that’s why we need pastors and elders, because there are so many specifics to look at, and what constitutes desertion?
Zaspel:
What does Paul mean in chapter 9 when he says, “lest I become adokimos – disqualified”?
Schreiner:
At the end of the chapter where he says he runs to win the prize, he boxes so as not to beat the air, many interpreters, Leon Morris, whom I love, interprets that to say that Paul doesn’t want to lose his reward which is above and beyond eternal life. I hate to disagree with Leon Morris, but I think Paul is talking about final judgment, being destroyed, going to hell. I don’t think Paul therefore didn’t have assurance of salvation, but I think Paul realized that we have warnings that are the means God uses to keep us on the right track, and Paul sends those himself. No human illustration is perfect, but when I drive my car, I don’t drive my car with paralyzing fear. I do drive it with caution, because I decided that before I turn right, I’m going to look and see if a car is coming. Paul says, look, I need these warnings too, as a means by which God preserves it.
Zaspel:
The Bible teaches the preservation of the believer, but it also teaches the perseverance of the believer, right?
Schreiner:
Absolutely.
Zaspel:
It was not long ago we interviewed you about your new book on Spiritual Gifts, so I’ll refer our listeners to that post for questions on tongues and the miraculous gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14. But tell us just briefly how Paul’s famous “love chapter,” chapter 13, fits in that “spiritual gifts” context.
Schreiner:
We have the discussion of spiritual gifts in chapters 12 through 14. And chapter 13, strategically placed right in the middle, demonstrates that the fundamental criterion of Christian maturity is not one’s gifts, but love. One of the dangers at least we would have as interpreters is failing to see that, when we interpret the passage. That it’s the fundamental mark of what it means to be a Christian because the Corinthians were impressed by that which was exciting and flashy; and love isn’t always flashy. I think it’s always exciting, but it may not appear to be exciting.
Zaspel:
There are dozens more questions like this I’d love to ask, but this is a great note to end on. We’re talking to Dr. Tom Schreiner of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary about his new commentary on 1 Corinthians. I’m not just saying this because he’s listening but because it’s true: he’s one of those scholars whose works you just have to have. If you’re studying 1 Corinthians, you’ll not want to miss this new commentary.
Tom, thanks so much for your faithful ministry and for talking to us today.
Schreiner:
Thanks, Fred, it’s great to be with you, as always.
