LESSON 10 • Text and Context in Scripture

THINKING ABOUT CULTURE AND REVELATION

The fact that Jesus wore sandals, entered Jerusalem on a donkey, and died by crucifixion points to the various ways to which the material of Scripture is rooted in particular cultures. Jesus wore sandals because he lived in a region with a warm climate, entered Jerusalem on a donkey because he lived in the religious setting created by Jewish messianic images and expectations, and died by crucifixion because he lived within the legal culture of the Roman Empire.

Recognizing that virtually all of the New Testament has roots in the surrounding cultures need not diminish the inspiration and authority of Scripture. After all, citizens of a particular nation need not reject the authority of their Constitution just because its ideas and wording emerged in a particular context and cultural setting. When Bible interpreters say things like, “That verse is only cultural” or “That practice in the Bible was just cultural” they belie the nature of Scripture and its interpretation in two ways. First, they leave the impression that the Apostles put footnotes or some other markings in the original Greek texts to indicate which verses or practices were “cultural.” Any use of the term “cultural” in this sense reveals more about the modern interpreter than about the ancient Apostles and Christians. Second, this use of the term “cultural” can leave the impression that large parts of the Bible are insulated from contact with their surrounding settings and are therefore “a-cultural.” To be sure there is the need to distinguish between those parts of Scripture that are eternally “binding” on Christians and those parts that are not. It is doubtful, though, whether asking if something is “cultural” is the way to pursue that issue.

There are literally hundreds of topics and verses in the New Testament which are best understood, illuminated, and illustrated by a better knowledge of the culture and world surrounding the early church. It is self-defeating to try to understand the issues discussed in the New Testament if all the while one is remiss to the world from which the converts to the Gospel came. The following information regarding the Lord’s Supper at Corinth and its cultural setting is but one brief example to show the helpfulness of insights from the Graeco-Roman world, the world into which God placed the church.

THE LORD’S SUPPER

Many debates have arisen over the centuries about the meaning and significance of the Lord’s Supper that believers partake of on Sundays. What happens when Christians eat of the bread and drink of the cup? Even though many theories, some ridiculous others sublime, have been associated with the Lord’s Supper, many of them have little in common with what Paul was addressing in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. The original readers of 1 Corinthians certainly were not corrected because they misunderstood “how and when” Christ was present in the elements, or because they were confused about who could bless and administer the Lord’s Supper, or because they were not focusing their thoughts intensely enough upon “Christ on the Cross.” Just what, then, were the problems and how did the young churches in Corinth develop the issues and problems about the Lord’s Supper that Paul had to respond to? 

The two phrases “divisions among you” and “factions among you” stand out in 1 Cor. 11:18-19 to reveal that the problems are principally manifested in horizontal relationships among the believers and not in their vertical relationship with the Lord. The violation of common dining thoughtfulness and etiquette in 1 Cor. 11:21 (“for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk.”) and the classism and elitism highlighted in 1 Cor. 11:22 (“Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?”) support this conclusion. Why would these issues have arisen among the saints at Corinth?

Since some of the Christians at Corinth were drinking enough wine to become drunk (11:21) and since the institution (Luke 22; John 13) and keeping of the Lord’s Supper at Corinth were in the context of a dinner (11:21-23, 33), we should not imagine that the early churches were merely passing around small bits of bread and juice for their “Communion Service.” Rather, the widespread Graeco-Roman social custom of the evening banquet provides a more appropriate setting for discerning the origins of the sins that the Christians at Corinth were having at the Lord’s Supper. It certainly makes more sense that the first century believers would have problems arising from the world and cultures in which they lived than from later cultures of Mediaeval Europe or North America. Since pagan authors as well as pagan religious associations contemporary with Paul and the early Church likewise had to address problems concerning banquet practices, we should look there for help in understanding the problems in the largely Gentile Church in Roman Corinth.

The Roman author Pliny the Younger (ca. A.D. 61-113) knew well the kind of hierarchy and social stratification that characterized the Roman world and that intruded into the meals and banquets of his world. In one of his personal letters he complains about a meal he attended where the social hierarchy that existed in the Roman world was foisted upon the arrangements at a banquet. The food and wine were distributed on the basis of social prestige and rank in contrast to Pliny’s own practices at banquets where he is the host. At his own meals, Pliny distributed all food and wine equally and without regard to whether the guests were rich or not. “Every man” Pliny writes, “whom I have placed on an equality with myself by admitting him to my table, I treat as an equal in all particulars” (Letters II, 6). Equally negative assessments about social stratification at meals are found in the contemporary writings of Latin authors such as Marcus Valerius Martialis (ca. A. D. 40-104) and Juvenal (ca. A. D. 50-130) and Greek authors like Luke (Gospel of Luke 14:7-11) and Plutarch (ca. A. D. 45-125). 

The concerns of the Apostle Paul about the Corinthian selfishness at the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:21-22, 33-34) were shared in part by a non-Christian banquet host mentioned by Plutarch (Dinner Questions II, 10, 1). This host stated “we invite each other not for the sake of eating and drinking, but for drinking together and eating together, and this division of meat into [separate] shares kills fellowship” (koinonia, Greek). This problem was so pervasive that it occurred both in the banquets hosted by individuals and banquets hosted by pagan religious congregations. A Greek inscription discovered at Athens dating from the 2nd century A. D. contains the “Rules of Order” for a congregation of worshippers of the god Bacchus. In addition to demanding that worship be done in a way that was “decent and orderly,” these religious regulations prohibited rowdy behavior, taking one another before the courts, and presupposed the recognition of hierarchy in both seating arrangements and allocation of sacrificial food to eat. 

To be sure, Paul provided a solution to these banqueting sins that was different from his pagan peers. Nevertheless, we should not miss the obvious point that the same cultural forces that nurtured these harmful actions in pagan settings also nurtured them in the churches in pagan Corinth. In light of the above information, we are now better able to understand and appreciate the fact that the Apostle stated that this letter was written to the church “in Corinth.” In some ways the issues at Corinth about the Lord’s Supper are very different from ours. We don’t typically serve the Lord’s Supper in the context of a meal and we certainly don’t serve enough wine, if at all, to get anyone drunk. In other ways the issues at Corinth about the Lord’s Supper are very similar to ours. There is fragmentation and division among Christians today and we, like the Corinthians, are in need of having our errors corrected by re-visiting the scene of Jesus’ institution of this meal at the Last Supper. I would suggest that we are turning the Bible on its head if we try to hear what Paul is saying to us, before we try to hear what he was saying to the original audience. (By the way, turning the Bible on its head always leads to unpleasant consequences for the church.) In bringing this brief presentation to a close, it is hoped that we modern believers are better informed, perhaps enlightened, and better equipped to read the Apostle’s directions and corrections about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Cor. 11:17-34. Perhaps this will enhance our own appreciation for the nature of the Lord’s Supper and hopefully bring additional insights and meaning to us today.

Prof. Richard E. Oster, Jr.
Harding University Graduate School of Religion
1000 Cherry Road
Memphis, TN 38117
901-432-7718
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