1:4-9 — 4I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge—6God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. 7Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. T
It is an amazing testimony to Paul's apprehension of who Christ is and what it is that He had accomplished on the cross that he could begin his letter to the Corinthians with thanksgiving. He did not need to—it is not a customary part of ancient Hellenistic letter-writing—and his letters don't always open with one. Given all the grief they had caused most of us would have consigned the church to the nether regions of our heart where we keep our unwanted memories. But the church in Corinth is "the church of God" (v2). That they were "in Corinth" is a matter of historical accident; that they are "of God" is a fact even an aggrieved Paul is not ready to demur, and as long as he is aware of this fact there is hope that they would eventually be found fully "in Christ" as well as being merely "in Corinth." There is, therefore, always room for giving thanks.
We once saw a little plaque in a guest room which said, "We always give thanks for you. Some for your coming and some for your going." If Paul could not give thanks to the Lord in this case as he did so fulsomely to the Philippians (to whom he said, "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me") he could still give thanks "for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus" (v4). "Grace" (charis here is a carry-over of the thought from the greeting of the previous verse, but very likely also anticipates the charismata "spiritual gift" of v7. As long as God has not stopped being "gracious" and, therefore, not surrendered the case on the Corinthian church, there is room to give thanks. And what is the evidence that He has not? "[Because] in him you have been enriched in him, with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge" (v5).1 It is possible, as Gordon Fee suggests, that Paul may have chosen the verb ("enrich", "made rich," eploutisthete) because it was a word that the Corinthians had themselves used as they boasted in their pride of having "arrived" without Paul (see, e.g., Paul's sarcasm in 4:8). It is particularly sad that these very gifts with which they have been enriched (by Christ becoming poor, 2 Cor 8:9) would lead to the terrible impoverishment of the church in Corinth by their divisions and abuse. It is a custom in many churches to blame the devil for all the troubles they face. The truth is that Christians often do just as fine a job of tearing apart the church without any help or encouragement from the devil.
V6 adds emphasis to Paul's assertion about the grace of God; those gifts that God had bestowed on the church serves, in fact, to confirm that God was working out his power and purpose through Paul's (and his companions', cf.,"our testimony") preaching among the Corinthians. (More on this below.)
V7 adds no new information but restates in a negative way and in historical terms what has been asserted in v5, so that the thrust of vv5-7 may be summed up like this: "I thank God he bestowed 'grace' on you (v.4), in that he 'enriched' you with specific spiritual gifts (v.5), just as historically it worked out in your midst by God's confirming our testimony about Christ (v.6) so that you came short in no spiritual gift (v.7)."2
Paul's shift of attention to the revelation of Christ on "the day of the Lord" is unexpected. But we see revealed here also the theological framework that informs Paul view of the problem he is facing with the church in Corinth. First, the words "as you eagerly wait for our Lord to be revealed" may be a jab at the Corinthians; they were in fact not living as if they were so eagerly waiting for the Lord to be revealed. If they were, they would not be quarreling and fighting one another. Anyone waiting for the Lord to be revealed would also be looking forwards to the resurrection. But the Corinthians (or, at least, enough of them for Paul to have to address the issue in a long discourse later in the letter, Chap 15) were questioning the resurrection itself, a fact of the gospel which if false would render the entire Christian faith vain (15:2 & 58). What Paul is facing is, therefore, not a problem that needs to be resolved only for the moment; it is a matter with eternal consequences. In Chap 15 he will call on the Corinthians to stand firm in the gospel (also in v2 & v58); here Paul affirms that, in the end, it is only God who can "keep you firm to the end." For Paul, it is this theology of divine faithfulness that gives him the grounds and strength to labour on. If the endowment of the gifts on the church is God's confirmation of what Paul (and his companions) has already done, it is, therefore, only God's faithfulness that can confirm the testimony he is about to put before the church in this letter. These last two verses of this thanksgiving serves, therefore, to provide Paul with a window on the task ahead as much as it was written to encourage his intended audience.
Paul's thanksgiving is thus pretty straightforward as such. A closer examination, however, suggests that the above reading misses an important aspect of these verses. As pointed out by Kenneth Bailey (Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes), Paul was a scholar well-versed in the ancient documents of the Old Testament and their style, and could not have been uninfluenced by them. Here we can detect a possible adaptation of that style to make a point, for these five verses may be understood as structured like this:
A. Introduction: Paul gives thanks to God because of His grace to the church in Corinth, v4
B. The Corinthian Christians have been enriched in every way, v5.
C. This is God's confirmation of "our testimony about Christ among you," v6.
B'. The Corinthian Christians do not lack in any spiritual gifts, v7
'A. Conclusion: Paul affirms that God will keep the church in Corinth blameless because He is faithful, v8-9.
This view of Paul's thanksgiving helps us to understand the theology that permits Paul to give thanks; it is an act grounded not in circumstances but in the character of God whose grace enriches the church in Corinth and who faithfulness alone can keep them blameless (A-A'). So whatever the problem was that was now giving Paul such a hard time, it arose out of (a foolish understanding and abuse of) God's largess (B-B') that so enriched the church. This largess, however, also serves to confirm that God was acting in the preaching of the gospel by Paul and his companions among the Corinthians (C). By placing this last point at the center of a concentric argument (a chiasmus) Paul emphasizes it. It is, of course, very likely that this would have escaped the attention of the Corinthians. This emphasis, however, would have been important to Paul as he ruminated on his relationship with the Corinthian church and how he would respond to the situation at hand. As God's minister, whose work is being so well attested to by the divine gifts to the church, Paul can say to the church without the slightest shadow of immodesty, as he does in 4:15, that "even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me." It is one of the oft-ignored facts of writing that we choose our words as much for ourselves as we do for our readers. These words—even if their nuances are missed by the audience—help to shape our view of ourselves in the speaking. This is particular significant here in the letter as Paul's authority as an apostle is being challenged.
Low C. H.
©Alberith, 2020