Reading Scripture As A Group Activity   (June 26, 2016)

 

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.”

(1 Corinthians 12:12)

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          There has been in recent years a recognition that much of the New Testament was written, not so much to individual believers but to churches, as a whole. This has become obvious as many have been investigating the language of the New Testament more closely—for it is there that we see plural pronouns in the letters of Paul as well as singular. What this means is, in many places where we have read the text as written to individuals, we find on closer inspection, the texts were actually addressing the church as a whole, as a body, as a unit.

          This realization has changed (if not transformed) the way we read (or should read) our New Testaments; not that it hasn’t been there all along. One of the more obvious cases is a passage found in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. These verses read in the King James version: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” [1 Corinthians 3:16-17] 

          In the past, these verses have been used to discourage everything from overeating to smoking with the warning that if we “defile the temple of God” [i.e., harm our physical bodies] we would be destroyed by God. This passage, however, does not address individual Christians and their personal habits but is instead, in its context, best understood as a warning against division, sectarianism, in the body of Christ [the church]. God will, in fact, destroy anyone who destroys the unity and health of the local church by introducing divisions.

          This understanding of Paul’s intent was obvious to many—excepting those of us who do not understand Elizabethan English, for the little pronoun “ye,” in the KJV, is a plural pronoun. The New International version has more recently translated these verses: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” The NIV uses “you yourselves” and “you together” as indicators that Paul is talking plural [the church as a whole] not singular [individual Christians]. This is just one instance where our understanding of the text is transformed by the knowledge that our lives as a part of the whole are far more important in God’s plans than the long-held tradition that our value is as individuals standing alone in our faithfulness. It is past time that we begin to understand that our role in the body, our mutual support of one another through our various gifts, is at least as important—and probably more so—than developing a close “personal” relationship with God.