Review in: Theology Today 2000 57: 402
Review door: Charles B. CousarGevonden op: http://ttj.sagepub.com/content/57/3/402.full.pdf+html
The Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians
By
Victor Paul FurnishCambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
167 pp. $49.95.
Of his
generation Victor Furnish has come to be recognized as one of the most
respected interpreters of the Pauline letters to Corinth. In addition to his
many articles on the correspondence, he has written the magisterial commentary
on 2 Corinthians in the Anchor Bible. Now he has added to the list with this
fine study of the theology of 1 Corinthians in the Cambridge series “New
Testament Theology.”
Furnish
begins with a sketch of Paul’s relationship to the Christians at Corinth and a
brief statement of the aims and structure of the letter. His conclusions follow
those taken in his commentary. He then basically walks the reader through the
letter and comments on its theology under four major categories: knowing God and
belonging to Christ (1 Cor 14), belonging to Christ in an unbelieving
society (1 Cor 5: 1-1 1 : l), belonging to Christ in a believing
community (1 Cor 11:2-14:40), and hoping in God, the “all in all” (1 Cor 15). A
concluding chapter raises the issue of the significance of 1 Corinthians for
Christian thought, with a final page or two on its relevancy to the church
today.
The
advantage of Furnish’s method is a neat reading of the letter, one in which
theology is highlighted above a mere survey of the problems facing the church.
The reader is able to appreciate the fact that Paul in addressing the many
pastoral and moral issues troubling the Corinthians does so by writing about
the cross, or the nature of the eucharist, or the resurrection. One good
example occurs in the warnings against porneia in 6:12-20. Furnish calls
attention to the significance of the “body” as much more than the physical body
that one has. It becomes the place “where the claim of the
resurrected-crucified Lord is received and where his lordship is to be manifest.
”
Furnish
isolates three “authentically theological discourses” in the letter (1:18-2:16;
12:12-13:13; 15:l-58) and in their place he gives special attention to each. He
contends that they each reflect the basic soteriological, christological,
eschatological, and ecclesiological thrusts of the letter. And yet in many ways
the strongest chapter of Furnish’s book deals with the portion of 1 Corinthians
that does not contain one of these theological discourses-5: 1-1 1 : 1.
Seeing Paul at work as a pastor-theologian, drawing on the gospel in dealing
with issues on living in a pagan environment but without long reflective
sections, is remarkably instructive and provides a model for contemporary
pastor-theologians.
Though
Furnish tends to be very descriptive and not to say much about the contemporary
church and what a modern reader might find theologically instructive in 1
Corinthians, he lays the groundwork time and again for such a possibility. In
facing the problems of living in an unbelieving society, Paul appears
preoccupied with drawing boundaries between the church and its social
environment (for example, incidents of incest and taking one another to court).
At times, believers even are beginning to resemble unbelievers in Corinth. And
yet, as Furnish makes clear, the identity of the Christian community is given
in and with the gospel: “Belonging to Christ is not mainly about drawing
boundaries and keeping them inviolate, but about holding fast to the gospel
(10:12; 15:l-2).” One cannot help but discover here a word for the mainline
North American church and its struggle to find its identity in a secular
society.
This
is a thoughtful, carefully written book. I plan to have it on my reading list
for next semester’s course on Paul.
CHARLES B. COUSAR
Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur. GA
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