The Epistles

One of the reasons for starting with the Epistles is that they appear to be so easy to interpret. After all, who needs any special help to understand that "all have sinned" (Romans 3:23), that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), and that "by grace you have been saved, through faith" (Ephesians 2:8)?

On the other hand, the "ease" of interpreting the Epistles can be quite deceptive, especially in a Book like 1 Corinthians. For example, "How is Paul's opinion (7:25) to be taken as God's Word?", especially when some would dislike some of the implications of that opinion.

How does the excommunication of the brother in chapter 5 relate to the contemporary church, especially when he can simply go down the street to another church? What is the point of chapters 12 - 14, if one is in a local church where charismatic gifts are not accepted as valid for our century? And how do we get around the clear implication in chapter 11:2-16 that women should wear head covering when praying and prophesying?

It becomes clear that the Epistles are not as easy to interpret as is often thought.

A. The Nature of the Epistles

Before we look specifically at 1 Corinthians, some general words are in order about all Epistles (all the New Testament except the four Gospels, Acts, and Revelation).

There is one thing that all of the Epistles have in common, and this is the crucial thing to note in reading and interpreting them: they are all what are technically called occasional documents (arising out of and intended for a specific occasion), and they are from the first century. Although inspired by the Holy Spirit and thus belonging to all time, they were first written out of the context of the author to the context of the original recipients. It is precisely these factors - that they are occasional and that they belong to the first century - that make their interpretation difficult at times.

Their occasional nature must be taken seriously. This means that they were called forth by some special circumstance, either from the reader's side or the author's. Usually the occasion was some kind of behavior that needed correcting, or a doctrinal error that needed setting right.

Most of our problems in interpreting the Epistles are due to the fact that they are occasional. We have the answers, but we do not always know what the questions or problems were, or even if there was a problem. It is much like listening to one end of a telephone conversation and trying to figure out who is on the other end and what the unseen party is saying.

The occasional nature of the Epistles also means that they are not first of all theological treatises. There is theology implied, but it is always "task theology," theology being written to bear on the task at hand.

NEXT POST: The Historical Context