First let's get something clear about erroneous notions of Paul and his founding a new religion, which he didn't. True, the halakhah of his Judaism switched from the Pharisaic oral law to the Ruach Hakodesh, but his religion was still one of the Judaisms of the time, not a new non-Judaism Gentile religion.

MOSHIACH'S LETTER THROUGH THE SHLIACH SHA'UL TO THE BRIT CHADASHA KEHILLAH IN CORINTH (I)

Shliach Sha'ul writes I Corinthians roughly C.E. 55 from Ephesus.

While on his second emissary of Moshiach's shlichut journey (C.E.

50-52) Shliach Sha'ul had spent some time with Aquila and

Priscilla in Corinth. An important synagogue leader named Crispus

and his household had surprised the local Jewish congregation by

becoming believers. A rather substantial messianic congregation

came into existence during Rav Sha'ul's year and a half stay

there in Corinth starting around C.E. 50-51 (at which time he

wrote I and II Thessalonians).

We are told he set up a rival messianic synagogue in the house of

a regenerated G-d-fearer (formerly a Gentile follower of Judaism

but uncircumcised) named Titius Justus right next door to where

the unbelieving Jews were meeting in their synagogue (Acts 18:7).

Shliach Sha'ul was very weak and fearful at this time (I Cor.

2:3) but Silas and Timothy arrived with good news about the

Thessalonian congregation (I Thes. 3:6) and Shliach Sha'ul

received a vision assuring him of protection and of many souls

(Acts 18:9-11), so Shliach Sha'ul began to preach with great

power and an impressive revival began.

Then, after Aquila and Priscilla moved their base of operations

to Ephesus, the capital of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), Apollos

(the probable author of Hebrews) joined Aquila and Priscilla for

a time and then left for Corinth. Meanwhile, Shliach Sha'ul

arrived in Ephesus and established a Messianic yeshiva for

raising up new Messianic ministries all over the area. During

this two-year period (ca. C.E. 53-55), as he held his discussions

daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus, he sent a letter (now

lost) to the Brit Chadasha kehillah in Corinth by the hands of

Timothy urging the Corinthians not to associate with immoral men

(I Cor. 5:9-11). A reply to his letter was delivered to Rav

Sha'ul at Ephesus by a group from Corinth including Stephanas,

Fortunatus, and Achaicus. This letter apparently took exception

to Rav Sha'ul's teachings and posed certain questions to Shliach

Sha'ul regarding marriage and singleness, food sacrificed to

idols, spiritual gifts, and the special Moshiach's shlichut

offering (cf. Gal. 2:10) for the Messianic Jews in Israel that

Shliach Sha'ul was collecting. Shliach Sha'ul then dictated this

letter known as I Corinthians sometime between 54 and 56 C.E.

Shliach Sha'ul had been alerted from travellers (the household of

a woman named Chloe) between Corinth and Ephesus that there were

religious divisions or factions in the Brit Chadasha kehillah

based on the prideful tendency to make heroes of men. These

personality cults threatened to destroy the community itself

(chs. 1-4). One clique championed Apollos, another Shliach Kefa,

another Shliach Sha'ul, and one seemed to turn its nose up at any

preacher and place Moshiach (as they defined him) at the head of

their schismatic party. The Corinthians seemed to consider

themselves gifts to their teachers; they did not see that the

teachers were in fact gifts to them. Comparing teacher to

teacher, they did not realize that it is the Moshiach, not any

mere human, who is "wisdom from G-d" (and much else--see 1:30).

Shliach Sha'ul also heard something else that disturbed him--a

case of incest was going on unchallenged (ch. 5). Also there were

court cases between believers (6:1-8) bringing scandal on the

Brit Chadasha kehillah in the eyes of outsiders. Not only that,

certain libertines were abusing the freedom of believers by

indulging in fornication 6:9-20), and there was charismatic chaos

in the Brit Chadasha kehillah which had even disrupted the

reverent decorum demanded by the Moshiach's Tish (chs. 11-15).

Women were apparently at fault in this, too, manifesting

insubordination, and shouting out questions to their husbands and

lacking modesty and proper respect in their dress.

There were some who thought themselves prophets and therefore saw

no need to be concerned about whatever authority, as Shliach to

the Gentiles, that Shliach Sha'ul might try to assert. Some

wanted to speak in tongues all the time in the services and some

lacked all fear of G-d when they came to the Moshiach's Tish, not

bothering to make teshuva beforehand of sensual disobedience and

self-important rebellion. Some were only too quick to downgrade

Shliach Sha'ul and look with awe on certain "super-shluchim" from

Jerusalem who, unlike Shliach Sha'ul, made stiff financial

demands and didn't work with their hands but were "brilliant"

rhetoricians and seemed on the verge of taking advantage of Rav

Sha'ul's absence to "camp out" on his ministry and disconnect him

from the affections of the Corinthians (9:1-7 and see II Cor.

11:5-6).

Among this hodge-podge of rebels were some who taught an

over-realized eschatology where they were already reigning (not

suffering like Rav Sha'ul) as kings with immortal souls (4:8).

Therefore, such mundane and materialistic considerations as

poverty, illness, hardship, and tribulation were things not to be

reckoned with by such charismatic "kings" as themselves (nor a

future bodily resurrection either--15:12)! What mattered was the

charismatic now of ecstasy,and the rapturous escape from mundane

suffering, and the hype of awesome teachers who swept these

Corinthians off their hyper-charismatic feet. The foolish idea

(1:18) that true believers are suffering servants of the

Suffering Servant (if we suffer with him now we will reign with

him later--Phil. 1:29; II Tim. 2:11-12; II Cor. 1:5) seems to

have been unimpressive to these Corinthians, as was Shliach

Sha'ul himself. And the idea that we will be vindicated only at

the future resurrection of the dead was not a palatable idea for

preaching to Greek audiences. Much more attractive was the notion

that true believers were already transformed and even now living

in a new age which allows no place for suffering now and no need

for a future resurrection of the body later.

Notice, however, Shliach Sha'ul anticipated an overly

enthusiastic anti-charismatic backlash because he specifically

warns against forbidding (either tacitly or bluntly) speaking in

tongues and quenching the Spirit in the area of prophesying (I

Cor. 11:39-40). Therefore, Shliach Sha'ul is saying, you

rebellious super-charismatics and also you anti-charismatics,

both of you stay together in unity and make sure you find the

balance in heeding the authority of the Scriptures! Is the L-rd's

house nothing but giving a message in tongues? Is the L-rd's

house nothing but giving the interpretation? Is the L-rd's house

nothing but people getting healed? Allow diversity of the gifts,

Shliach Sha'ul is saying (see 12:29-31); he is not arguing that

these gifts are impossible for some to attain, as I Cor. 14:26

shows.

There seems to have been a large host of teachers (4:15) living

off the fat of this large congregation, including a few "sabra

snobs" (men whom Shliach Sha'ul sarcastically calls

"super-Shluchim" in II Cor. 11) who presumed on the fact that

they were ethnically Jewish, and were coming in to attempt to

mutineer Rav Sha'ul's mission field away from him in his absence,

making subtle and not so subtle innuendos undercutting Rav

Sha'ul's perogatives as a shliach and attempting to establish

their own (see I Cor. 9 and II Cor. 11).

There was a tendency toward intellectual pretension in Corinth,

though the people themselves were hardly philosophers. A certain

incipient Gnostic tendency to see salvation as something acquired

by knowledge was already in the Brit Chadasha kehillah. The

people were being puffed up by a merely human wisdom that was not

from the Spirit. The later Gnostics taught that matter was evil,

and this premise led some to a life of forced celibacy while

others became promiscuous sexually, seeing the body, as opposed

to the spirit, as an indifferent issue, the undefiled spirit

alone being considered important. Against such antinomian

amorality, Shliach Sha'ul warns if someone claims to be a

believer and is immoral or an idolater or greedy or drunken

(5:9-11), he or she must be expelled from the congregation (I

Cor. 5:2). Note the sins of 6:9-10 and the fearful wage they earn

and are paid: Gehinnom!

Some in Corinth reasoned that since an idol is "nothing" (I Cor.

8:4), believers have the freedom to join the heathen in using

pagan forms of idol worship with an easy conscience. But Shliach

Sha'ul warns about the brother who is ruined by watching such a

bad example (I Cor. 8:10-11). Shliach Sha'ul also views the body

as made for the L-rd and for the resurrection, and these twin

ideas lead to the Rav Sha'uline teaching on liberty and holiness.

The whole epistle of I Corinthians is a wonderful exposition of

divine wisdom on the difference between freedom and license as

these impinge on koinonia (fellowship) between brethren and the

Moshiach in all areas of life.

The advantage of celibacy--for those who need not marry to avoid

burning with inward desire (7:9)--is not in the superiority of

asceticism over marriage, but in the greater freedom the single

person has to please the L-rd (without the often conflicting

demand to please the spouse). Notice also that married people

will have trouble in this life (7:28) whereas the widow who does

not remarry is happier in Rav Sha'ul's opinion (7:40). He is

basing this assessment on eschatological reality: the new Adam is

already alive from the dead and in him the new humanity of the

new holy age (where ultimately people are neither married nor

given in marriage-Mk. 12:25) is already spiritually alive from

the dead and is ready to appear at any moment; therefore, since

the form of this age is passing away (7:31), even those who have

wives should come up to speed with reality and live as though

they had none (7:29), which means serving the L-rd with

singleminded passion, and not in denying conjugal rights (7:3-5).

The great crisis that is coming on the world, especially the

Great Tribulation, makes the unmarried person's lot seem

especially attractive to Shliach Sha'ul (7:26; see Mt. 24:19).

This book was written to correct the false doctrine of

super-charismatics and anti-charismatic reactionaries and also

those who are ignorantly overawed by anyone with the 1st century

equivalent of a Ph.D. in Philosophy or Rhetoric, especially a

philosopher who says "the dead are not raised" (see 15:12).

There was jealousy and strife and quarreling in the congregation

and schisms based on hero worship and the narrow-minded tendency

to divide into factions. There were puffed-up, arrogant "eloquent

teachers" who had a rebellious and independent attitude toward

Shliach Sha'ul (see end of chapter 4).

The eschatological perspective that colors the whole epistle is

10:11. Has "the end of the ages" dawned on your life? Does that

time perspective color all your thinking and priorities? If it

doesn't you are an "infant" in Moshiach, a carnal believer,

according to Shliach Sha'ul, and you will not agree with him when

he gets down to the touchy business of divorce and remarriage and

other matters--see I Cor. 7:11.

The charismatic "word" (1:5) and "knowledge" (1:5) gifts are part

of the way the testimony of Rav Sha'ul's Besuras Hageulah was

confirmed in the Corinthian congregation. Rav Sha'ul's preaching

was with the demonstration of the Ruach Hakodesh--2:4. Shliach

Sha'ul signals in 1:5, at the very beginning of the iggeret, that

the gifts of the Ruach Hakodesh have been an enrichment (1:5) to

the congregation and that Shliach Sha'ul is for and not again at

the charismatic gifts (1:7). We will see later that he insists on

intelligibility and order in the use of the gifts, but he

commands that they not be quenched or outlawed or despised by the

anti-charismatic reactionaries. Rav

Sha'ul's remarks on the Moshiach being the only ground of

boasting because He is the only true wisdom are based on the

Hebrew Bible. Proverbs 8:30 and 30:4 and Psalm 107:20 and 33:6

are important pictures of G-d's wisdom and its saving activity.

The saving, creative primordial Wisdom at G-d's side, Wisdom the

Ben HaElohim (Proverbs 30:4) of the Tanakh, the chochmah of the

Biblical Wisdom Literature (Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ya'akov)

Shliach Sha'ul sees as none other than Moshiach Yehoshua. Shliach

Sha'ul is saying, "Stop the quarreling and boasting in mere human

rhetorical and worldly, carnal wisdom and stop forming schisms or

divisions (1:10,11:18) around these infantile considerations, and

consider this: that the so-called wisdom of Greek philosophers

and Jewish rabbis has been brought to nothing by the folly of

G-d's wisdom, which is the death and resurrection of the Moshiach

and the turning point of the ages at His Aitz and empty tomb,

where G-d decisively judges and brings to an end the present age

(see on this Gordon Fee's commentary on I Corinthians, Eerdmans

Publishers, 1987). In view of this act of G-d, everyone is in

one of two categories--the "perishing" or "those being saved."

The message may be a scandal or an offense to Jews ("What? Our

President executed in the electric chair by a foreign government

at the request of our wisest leaders?"). The message may be folly

or madness to Greeks ("What? a G-d who came to earth and

inadvertently got himself nailed up by his worshippers?") but you

have to be called to get the message, Shliach Sha'ul is saying in

1:23-24, and the message you get is the power of G-d confirmed

even by charismatic gifts in operation in the body (1:5-6; 12:8),

though all things must be done decently and in order, and in the

interest of intelligibility lest outsiders say "you are mad."

(Deliverance Brit Chadasha kehillot that want to turn the whole

worship service into an exorcism could also learn something from

I Cor. 14:23.)

G-d intends to make fools out of everyone on earth and even the

"fools" G-d chose for salvation have to become fools for Moshiach

in order to become wise, because Moshiach resurrected from a

foolish Aitz is the only real wisdom and righteousness and

sanctification and redemption. One spiritual gift in I

Corinthians is the gift of Shliach (12:28). The Shliach lays the

foundation of the new kehillah. The Shliach plants the

congregation (4:15), the navi waters the new planting, the

spiritual leader oversees or inspects its growth, the kiruv

outreach minister builds it up with new-born growth from the

world, and the teacher edifies the new planting in the Word.

Actually G-d does all these things but he uses his gifts to

accomplish his work.

Shliach Sha'ul believed in a millenium. See 6:2 and compare with

Rev. 20:4, Mt. 19:28; Lu 22:30.

The kohen-like "ritual eating" of the L-rd's Supper requires

teshuva (see Lv. 7:20-21). Relate this to "eating and

drinking condemnation of yourself" in I Cor. 11:29.

I Cor. 15 says that the Besuras Hageulah is that the Moshiach

died, was buried, and was raised on the third day, according to

the Scriptures. What Scriptures? Leviticus 9 promises the

glorious Presence of the L-rd will appear to you if the enjoined

sacrifice is accepted (9:1,5-7, 23); Yehoshua is the Word of

G-d's Presence appearing among us as Immanuel (G-d-with-us). This

promise pertains to "the eighth day," symbolizing the first day

of the B'ria Chadasha, the day after the Seventh Day or Shabbos.

For more specific references to the Third Day as the time of

eschatologlcal theophany, see Ex. 19:11,18 and eschatological

Techiyas HaMesim (see Hosea 6:2). There are according to the

Bible three types of people: a person who is not devoid of the

Holy Spirit and is therefore a believer, in fact a mature

believer--I Cor. 2:6--capable of assimilating holy wisdom); a

person devoid of the Holy Spirit who is a mere "natural man" and

therefore "does not receive the things of the Spirit"--I Cor.

2:14); a person who has the Holy Spirit but acts like a natural

man because he is stunted in growth and is a mere infant in the

L-rd and can only imbibe the milk of the Word.

There were some aberrant teachers in Corinth who tried to assert

another (inadmissible) category of person, the pneumatiki, the

Spiritual ones. These Greeks were among those causing, reproach

among outsiders by splitting the congregation into philosophical

factions and settling Brit Chadasha kehillah disputes in secular

courts and also creating disorder in the charismatic

congregational meetings. These Greek teachers were against Rav

Sha'ul's doctrines. They denied the future resurrection of the

body (I Cor. 15:12) and claimed on the basis of their Spiritual

gifts to have arrived at the Eschaton or Future Age already (I

Cor. 4:8), already to have possessed all wisdom (I Cor. 4:l0),

denigrating present physical existence, not becoming at all

perturbed by the presence of an incestuous man in their

membership (I Cor. 5), and including among their numbers certain

eschatological "women who refused relations with their

husbands...in effect sending them either to get a divorce or to

go to the prostitutes (I Cor. 6-7). Rav Sha'ul's letter is meant

to set these independent-minded and arrogant people straight and

to reassert Rav Sha'ul's authority as Moshiach's Shliach to build

up the Kehillah.

GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (I Cor.12:8-l0)

-word of wisdom: see Acts 16:7;

-word of knowledge: see Acts 5:1-10;

-faith: see Luke 7:7-9, for an example of mountain-moving

(Mt.17:20) faith; -gifts of healings: see Acts 3:6-16;

-workings of miraculous powers: see Yochanan 11:42-43;

-prophecy: see I Kings 17:1;

-discerning of spirits: see I Kings 22:22;

-gift of tongues: see I Cor. 14:6;

-interpretation of tongues: see I Cor. 14:13;