Last week we were very excited when we read a paper by Richard B. Hays, Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School. In Ecclesiology and Ethics In 1 Corinthians, Professor Hays shows that Paul’s exhortations and teachings in 1 Corinthians, and indeed in all of his letters, “should be read primarily as instruments of community formation.” In other words, Paul is not teaching a systematic course on Christian ethics directed to individual Christians. Rather, “his exhortations are aimed at defining and maintaining a corporate identity for his young churches, which are emphatically countercultural communities.”
Professor Hays goes on to say that Paul’s emphasis on community is not, “merely a matter of practical expediency, nor is it to be understood solely in terms of sociological models. Rather, Paul develops his account of the new community in Christ as a fundamental theological theme in his proclamation of the gospel. Indeed, the focus on community is a part of the gospel itself.”
Often, people will ask us, “What do you do?” or, “What kind of ministries do you have?” as if being God’s people is a kind of lesser vision. Professor Hays addresses this issue, “If we ask, ‘What is God doing in the world in the interval between resurrection and parousia?’ the answer must be given, for Paul, primarily in ecclesial terms: God is at work through the Spirit to create communities that prefigure and embody the reconciliation and healing of the world.”
Our mission is to be one of those communities. Living out the Gospel of the Kingdom means unreservedly committing to one another in mutual liability so that we are a “palpable [sign] of God’s reconciliation of the world.”
It is inaccurate to view Paul’s letters as ethical truths aimed at individuals. Quoting again from the paper, “Thus, to do ‘ethics’ apart from ecclesiology is utterly unthinkable for Paul. Ethics is ecclesiology. Ethics is simply the church’s imaginative outworking of its identity as the Israel of God.”