Bodies and Disputes That Belong to Christ

“Dare” is tolmao, to have the nerve. “Go to law” is literally “be judged”. Jewish communities in the Greek cities were allowed to settle suits among themselves; Josephus records such a grant to the Jews of Sardis (Antiquities 14.235). Roman civil courts also tended to favour the wealthier and better connected party.

Daniel 7:22 says “judgment was given to the saints of the most High”, and Wisdom 3:8 that the righteous “shall judge the nations”. “Smallest matters” uses kriterion, which can mean a court or tribunal, the word James 2:6 renders “judgment seats”: are you unfit for the pettiest of courts?

“Angels” has no article in Greek: angels, not the angels. Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 speak of angels kept for judgment. “Things that pertain to this life” is biotika, matters of livelihood, from bios, the word for daily living and property in Luke 8:14.

The Greek can be read as a command, as the King James does, or as an indignant question: “do you set as judges those who are of no account in the church?”, meaning pagan magistrates. “Least esteemed” is exoutheneo, the “despise” of Romans 14:3.

The church that boasted of wisdom apparently cannot produce one sophos, one wise man. “Judge between his brethren” echoes Moses’ charge to Israel’s first judges in Deuteronomy 1:16: “judge righteously between every man and his brother”.

In a Roman colony such as Corinth, civil cases were heard by the city’s magistrates, often in the open forum, so a lawsuit was a public show. “Unbelievers” is apistoi. The repetition, brother against brother, makes the scene sound as unnatural as it is.

“Fault” is hettema, a defeat, the loss suffered in battle or in court, and “utterly” is holos, altogether. Jesus had said, “if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also” (Matthew 5:40).

“Defraud” is apostereo, to rob or withhold what is owed. Paul uses it in 7:5 of husbands and wives, “Defraud ye not one the other”, and in Mark 10:19 Jesus adds “Defraud not” to the commandments he lists for the rich man.

“Be not deceived” is planao, to be led astray; Paul uses the same warning at 15:33 before quoting a proverb. “Inherit” is the language of an heir receiving an estate. The term behind “abusers of themselves with mankind” is first found here in surviving Greek, and its two parts stand side by side in the Greek of Leviticus 20:13.

Verses 9 and 10 name ten kinds of wrongdoer. All six of 5:10–11 are here again, fornicators, idolaters, covetous, drunkards, revilers and extortioners, with four added: adulterers, the two sexual terms, and thieves. Theft fits a chapter about believers defrauding one another.

“Such” is neuter plural in Greek, “these things”, a blunt way to say what some of them had been. “Washed” is middle voice, you had yourselves washed, the verb of Acts 22:16, “be baptized, and wash away thy sins”. Three times the Greek repeats “but”.

The Greek plays on a root: exestin, “it is lawful”, and exousiazo, “to be brought under the power”. Everything is in my power, but I will not come under the power of anything. “Expedient” is sympherei, advantageous. The same slogan returns in 10:23.

“Destroy” is katargeo, the verb of 1:28 and of death being destroyed in 15:26. Paul changes one word in the pattern: meats for the belly, but the body, soma, for the Lord. The belly passes away; the body is headed for resurrection.

“Raise up” here is exegeiro, a compound that appears in the New Testament only here and at Romans 9:17, of God raising up Pharaoh. The manuscripts differ on the tense of the second verb: “will raise”, “raises”, or “raised”.

“Members” is mele, limbs. “Take” is airo, to take away: to remove a limb from Christ and attach it to a harlot. Strabo wrote that Aphrodite’s temple at Corinth once kept a thousand sacred prostitutes (Geography 8.6.20), but he was describing the Greek city before 146 BC, and many historians doubt the figure.

“Joined” is kollao, to glue, the root of the verb in Genesis 2:24, “shall cleave unto his wife”. “Saith he” may mean God or simply “it says”, Scripture speaking. “Harlot” is porne, the woman whose body is hired.

“Joined” is kollao again, the verb of Deuteronomy 10:20 in the Greek: “to him shalt thou cleave”, Israel cleaving to the LORD. The same verb serves for union with a prostitute and union with the Lord, and Paul sets the two side by side as rival bonds.

“Flee” is present tense: keep fleeing. It is one of the letter’s two commands to flee; the other, in 10:14, is “flee from idolatry”. Some read “Every sin that a man doeth is without the body” as another Corinthian saying that Paul answers in the second half; that is an interpretation, since Greek has no quotation marks.

Corinth had a famous sanctuary of Asclepius, the healing god, where excavators found clay models of hands, feet, limbs and genitals, dedicated by worshippers seeking cures. Paul says each believer’s body is itself a sanctuary, where the Holy Ghost lives. “Ye are not your own” prepares the market language of verse 20.

“Bought” is agorazo, to buy in the agora, the marketplace, where slaves were sold; Paul repeats “Ye are bought with a price” in 7:23. The words “and in your spirit, which are God’s” are missing from the oldest manuscripts, which end on “glorify God in your body”.