Problems in the Corinthian Church and Christian Identity
“Not for every man is the voyage to Korinthos.” - Strabo
Last week we compared racial and national identity markers with having an identity based on following Jesus.
The former factors are still real, but they come under the authority of Christ. Jesus followers put off our old ways of living and thinking and live into a brand new identity with Him at the center.
A New Identity in Christ
In that manner, we are no longer responsible for bearing the burden of creating and protecting our own sense of self. The cultural norm in Western society of crafting our own unique sense of self doesn’t need apply to the Jesus follower.
Instead, it’s a total rebirth. Old things have passed away. All things become new in Jesus.
It’s the same idea that Jesus taught to Nicodemus, a high ranking member of the Jewish religious establishment. Jesus tells Nicodemus that no one can live in the new life He came to bring (what he called the “kingdom of God”) unless they are “born again.”
That might sound opaque and mysterious (it certainly did to Nicodemus), and I think it can be mysterious for us today as well. Even for those of us who aim to follow Jesus. Old ways of thinking and living die hard, especially when it’s so out of step with what the culture says.
Learning to live in a new way means putting off the “old man,” which is our old sense of sense and manner of living. And in it’s place we put on the “new man” where we find our new identity in Christ.
For some people, this identity switch is radical, deep, and instantaneous.
For the rest of us, it’s a process.
The latter situation was the case with the early Corinthian church, and the occasion for some rather pointed letters from the Apostle Paul in the mid 50’s AD.
Those early Jesus followers in Corinth were having an identity crisis. Their new identity in Jesus was wrestling with their old identity rooted in Corinthian cultural traditions and the self-love natural to all of us.
The Background for the Church at Corinth
Paul founded the church at Corinth during his second missionary journey. It was around 50 AD, a bit less than 20 years following the crucifixion of Jesus.
He stayed for a couple of years and then moved on to Ephesus for his next stop on his missionary journeys.
But after leaving Corinth, Paul hears reports that there are some real problems with the community of new believers. Historians estimate he wrote his first remaining letter (1 Corinthians) from Ephesus sometime around 53 or 54 AD. And he wrote his second letter (2 Corinthians) around 55 or 56 AD from Macedonia.
There’s a lot of ground to cover in those two epistles.
Problems in the Corinthian Church
Here are a few of the problems that Paul calls the Corinthians on:
Dishonoring the Eucharist: 1 Corinthians 11: 17-34 addresses how some believers did not have access to the bread and the wine, while others feasted and even got drunk
Doubting the central claim of the Christian faith: 1 Corinthians 15: 12-58 deals with whether or not Christ was actually resurrected from the dead. Paul says Christianity is a giant time waster if He wasn’t
Lawsuits against each other: Paul chides the church in 1 Corinthians 6: 1-8 for not being able to work out there differences and instead dragging each other to court
Factionalism: 1 Corinthians 1: 10 - 13 and 3: 1 - 9 address how different church members were causing divisions by aligning themselves with different leaders rather than all being in submission to Christ
Eating food sacrificed to foreign idols: In 1 Corinthians 11: 2 - 16 and 14: 26 - 40 Paul urges the Corinthians to refrain from this practice to avoid causing confusion among themselves
Sex also comes up. A lot. And that’s not surprising when you recognize the cultural norms and expectations in Corinth in those days.
A Corinthian Cultural Identity
Corinth was a large and wealthy city. Much larger back then than it is today. Boasting a population of hundreds of thousands, it was one of the biggest in the Roman empire.
It was situated in a strategic location between northern and southern Greece, through which trade and travelers (money) perpetually funneled.
A central focus of the money spent in the city was related to the religious practices of the Greeks. Sex tourism, essentially.
The Greek geographer and historian Strabo reported that the temple, and the city as a whole, was largely funded by temple prostitution dedicated to Aphrodite, the chief goddess of the city. The goddess of sexuality and desire.
Here’s a fun fact: the word aphrodisiac comes from the Greek aphrodisios, meaning “pertaining to Aphrodite.”
And here is one of Strabo’s descriptions about the earlier days of Corinth:
The temple of Aphrodite [in Korinthos in the days of the tyrant Kypselos] was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple slaves, courtesans, whom both men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was also on account of these women that the city was crowded with people and grew rich… [Source, Temple of Aphrodite]
So many travelers squandered their money at the temple that Strabo reports an ancient Greek proverb, “Not for every man is the voyage to Korinthos.”
A Corinthian Cultural Identity of Money and Sex
Given the reputation, the pervasive sexual immorality (including incest) was not exactly a surprise in Corinth. Embracing a hedonistic lifestyle was the cultural norm. Living a more conservative sexual ethic would have been odd.
But the Apostle urges them to resist the practices of the surrounding culture. He calls them to a higher moral and ethical standard.
It’s the manner in which Paul does it that is most noteworthy. He doesn’t just say, “you know guys, incest is bad, don’t do that any more.” Instead of a call for moral reform, Paul reminds them that they have a brand new identity in Christ.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. [1 Corinthians 6: 15 - 17]
This new identity is mysterious. There is a spiritual union that results in Jesus followers somehow becoming “members of Christ himself.” And this means that some habits and practices common to the “old man” are no longer on the table for Jesus followers if they truly believe.
It’s not about following some set of rules in order for Jesus to accept you. It’s about realizing the new identity and living a new lifestyle that is mysteriously joined with Christ.
This is the life of following Jesus. Old things die off to make way for the new.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. [2 Corinthians 5:17]
Paul uses different language to express a similar idea about identity in other letters to his churches. He had founded Christian churches in Galatia during his first missionary journey around 46 - 48 AD, and historians believe he wrote the epistle to the Galatians in 48 or 49 AD.
Identity Problems in Galatia
Unlike the hedonism in the Corinthian church, Paul chastised the Galatian church for its legalism.
He isn’t upset that the Galatians seem to want to live by upright moral standards, but rather that they seem to have lost sight of the center of their faith. Instead of living out of a new identity freely given by Jesus which promotes freedom and grace, they are fighting over dietary laws and seemingly trying to “earn” their status.
The Christian life should be based on a new identity founded on what Jesus has done, which Paul calls being “justified by faith in Christ” in the passage below. It is not something our religious performance—what he calls the “works of the law”—earns for us.
…know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. [Galatians 2:16]
But once again, he doesn’t simply tell them to reform their behavior and stop being so darn legalistic.
Instead, he he reminds them that all who have been baptized into Christ “have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
He reminds them of who they are.
They have a new identity that is not based on their religious performance. It is a free gift of grace that they cannot earn by their virtue, but can accept and be radically changed by the gift.
But they must put on those new Jesus clothes.
Perhaps humans are prone more towards a Corinthian type error where we abuse the idea of grace, or a Galatian type error where we slide into a lifestyle where we work to try and earn grace.
They seem different, yet they are fundamentally the same problem. Neither the Corinthians nor the Galatians were putting on those new Jesus clothes. The Corinthians left theirs in the closet while they went out and lived however they wanted. The Galatians, on the other hand, set out to try and earn new garments that were already theirs if only they understood the grace that had been given to them.
Instead, the more we grasp what Jesus did, the more we’ll see we could never earn it and we’ll want to obey out of gratitude.
Some of us get it faster than others. But even for us slow learners, this is the center that we’ll repeatedly come back on the journey of the Christian faith.
Next week: Yoked to Jesus?
Last week: National identity, racial identity, and Christian identity