Dr Keith Dyer (Whitley College, Melbourne, Australia)

In Romans 16:23, Paul sends greetings to the ‘saints’ in Rome on behalf of Gaius of Corinth, in whose house ‘the whole church’ gathers. Given what we read of the diversity of the various factions at Corinth, this must have been something like the first century equivalent of an ecumenical or inter-denominational event. Ultimately, as we shall see, it was for such practical expressions of ecclesial unity in diversity that Paul dies. Against all warnings and prophecies (Acts 20:22-23), Paul insists on personally accompanying the ‘fellowship offering’ from the Gentile ‘churches’ back to Jerusalem, where he is arrested and then finally ends up as a prisoner in Rome (Acts 21-28). Whatever else we may think about Paul, it is clear from his letters and the stories in Acts that he is passionate about the ‘church’ and about maintaining connections between all its branches.

Before we read too much of our own context back onto Paul, however, we should remind ourselves that strictly speaking, Paul says absolutely nothing about the ‘Christian church’! For a start, Paul never uses the word ‘Christian’. Not once. Not in any of his letters. If he was aware of this nickname that apparently was first used in Antioch, he chooses not to use it. In fact, it occurs only three times in the whole New Testament (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Peter 4:14). So we should be very careful not to make glib statements like: ‘Paul became a Christian on the road to Damascus’ or ‘Paul was the greatest Christian missionary’. Such statements assume a separate Christian identity much too early. Paul would not be happy at all with the great schism between Judaism and Christianity that occurred later on, as Romans 9-11 makes abundantly clear. For Paul there were Jewish followers of Jesus and there were Gentile (or ‘ethnic’) followers of Jesus, and it was important that the ethnic followers did not have to become Jews in order to follow Jesus. The nickname ‘Christian’ was apparently not yet part of the discussion in Paul’s day.

Similarly, though perhaps a little less straightforwardly, Paul never used the term ‘church’ — well at least not in the sense that ‘church’ is defined in our dictionaries today. Every dictionary I have consulted gives the primary meaning of ‘church’ as something like: ‘noun. 1. Building for public Christian worship.’ Paul never speaks of such buildings. The closest reference to a building might be the house of Gaius we mentioned earlier, or the synagogues, houses and lecture halls that Acts mentions when telling Paul’s story. I’m deliberately labouring the point here somewhat, but we do need reminding that Paul’s preferred term, ekklesia (or gathering/assembly), refers explicitly to people, not to buildings. We are the ‘church’; we don’t ‘go to church.’

1. What does Paul say about the ‘church’ (ekklesia)?

1.1 The ‘church’ as gatherings of God

Ekklesia is not a particularly religious term at all, but Paul consistently chooses to use it in his letters when he refers to those who gather in the name of Jesus Christ. Interestingly, and again this is in continuity with his Jewish heritage, these groups are known (overwhelmingly) as the ‘gatherings of God’ rather than of Jesus Christ, in Paul’s letters. In fact, if we were to announce the results of the first inter-denominational Cup based on Paul’s letters, it would be Assemblies of God 8 d. Churches of Christ 1 — with none of us Catholics, Anglicans, Uniting Church or Baptists even making the play-offs! [1]

Presbyterians (‘elders’) might just claim a spot in the draw, but they seem to be associated more with the Jerusalem church networks than the Pauline circle. [2]

Paul never once uses the word ‘synagogue’ in his letters. [3] But we shouldn’t interpret this as evidence that Paul was anti-Jewish or that he had turned his back on his fellow Jews, because Acts makes it very clear that Paul continued to visit synagogues whenever he could to evangelise the ‘God-fearers’ (Gentile ‘hangers-on’ who had not yet converted to Judaism). Rather, Paul avoids addressing synagogues directly in his letters because he understands himself as called to be the apostle to the Gentiles. The synagogues were part of Peter’s mandate (Gal. 2:7-9), and even though Paul never tired of trying to persuade his kinsfolk that in Christ Jesus the Gentiles were now also part of the covenant people, he was not asking Jews to forsake the synagogue or their traditions. [4]

We should be careful not to overemphasise only the ‘gathering’ as defining ‘church’, as obviously it was the ‘gatherings’ that also did the ‘sending out’ (apostello) that Paul affirms and identifies with so strongly. For Paul, ‘churches’ are gathering and sending communities.

1.2 The ‘church’ as the ‘different ones’ (hagioi) in Christ

Like other New Testament writers, Paul refers to the followers of Jesus as the hagioi (the holy ones, the set-apart and different ones — later on translated by the Latin word ‘saints’). Significantly and distinctively, Paul also uses hagiasmos (the related noun meaning holiness, sanctification) as a description of these groups. [5]

Unfortunately today these words can give us the impression of stuffy ‘holier-than-thou’ elitism, as if an arrogant moral superiority was the major hallmark of the earliest Jesus people. If we had time to read 1 Corinthians together (chapters 5 and 6!) we would see that nothing could be further from the truth.

Living the Way of love (agape, a favourite Pauline term) certainly led to different values, ethics and hopes, but it did not magically remove the Pauline communities from the squalid world of slavery, sexual abuse, and prostitution so common in larger cities like Rome and Corinth. There is ongoing scholarly debate about the social profile of the Pauline communities (how many were wealthy, wise and free? See 1 Cor. 1:26), but the recent work of Justin Meggitt, Rodney Stark, Jennifer Glancy, Robert Jewett and others has given us a much more realistic picture of conditions in first century cities. Life for the vast majority was ‘nasty, brutish and short’ — there was no ‘middle class’ — but being part of the body of Christ had immediate practical and ethical implications. There was no chance of abolishing slavery at that time, but the hagioi were still able to live differently. They practiced ‘the more excellent way’ of love (agape, 1 Cor. 12:31), and despite all their many failures, they were given a new identity, a new hope, and a new ‘family’.

1.3 The ‘church’ as the body of Christ

Paul’s ‘body language’ is very interesting in the context of the Greco-Roman world, where it was common to see naked statues on every street corner of the big cities, naked competitors in Olympic and other games, and mixed nude bathing. Paul doesn’t seem to be too concerned with nakedness as such, but is emphatically opposed to the exploitation and abuse of ‘the body’ (especially of ‘slave bodies’, regarded by the free as ‘talking tools’) so prevalent in his day (see 1 Cor. 6 and Paul’s frequent attacks on immorality/porneia). But rather than let the widespread nakedness and abuse of ‘bodies’ put him off using the word altogether, Paul repeatedly makes the extraordinary claim that those who are ‘in Christ’ are indeed the very ‘body of Christ’. This is not just a nice metaphor, a desirable goal, but a present reality for Paul: “You (plural!) are the body of Christ . . .” (1 Cor. 12:27). [6]

The word ‘body’ (soma) is of particular significance for Paul, especially in the Corinthian correspondence, where it is used of the individual human body and the corporate body of believers in close proximity (1 Cor. 6); of the eucharistic body of Christ (1 Cor. 10–11); of the ecclesial body of Christ (1 Cor. 12–14); of cosmic and other natural bodies (1 Cor. 15:40); of ‘soulish’ and spiritual bodies (1 Cor. 15:44); and of the resurrection body (1 Cor. 15). All of these references imply a corporate dimension (even when we don’t hear it in English), with the exception of those few (of the forty-six occurrences in 1 Corinthians!) that are explicitly singular (1 Cor. 5:3; 7:4; 9:27; 13:3) or refer to a collection of individual bodies (1 Cor. 6:15). We should not make neat distinctions between these various meanings of soma — Paul had the vocabulary if he had wished so to do. Rather, we are left to ponder the mystery of how (not whether, but to what extent) the ‘body of Christ’ is the corporate, eucharistic, ecclesial, cosmic and resurrected body — and as Paul affirms, that body is us!

Alongside the fascination for fit, young, athletic bodies in Greco-Roman (and Australian!?) culture there was a widespread understanding that the old, grey, wrinkled body would one day be discarded as irrelevant as the liberated soul (psyche) ascended through the heavens to the Divine. Paul will have nothing of this. His holistic Jewish traditions do not permit the disembodiment of God’s creation in this way. Indeed, rather than affirm the popular Greek epigram that the body is the prison of the soul (the soma is the sema of the psyche), Paul affirms that the soma is the shrine of the Spirit!

1.4 The ‘church’ as the temple of the Holy Spirit

This is a remarkable statement for Paul to make. At the very time when the re-building of the Jerusalem Temple was nearing completion as one of the wonders of the first century world (after a 70 year building project begun by Herod the Great), Paul has the temerity to suggest that the Spirit of God resides instead in the communal body of believers (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19). Note carefully that the correct translation (if not the correct grammar!) of 6:19 is: ‘The body of youse is the temple of the Holy Spirit.’ Paul is not emphasising here the individual indwelling of the Spirit — we need to go to other texts for that. This is not a call to personal bodily sanctification and privatised ethics. The ‘you’ is unmistakably plural in Greek: “the body of you all is the temple of the Holy Spirit” — but unfortunately this gets lost in our English translations. Paul is stating emphatically that the very Spirit of God revealed in Jesus is present and honoured (‘en-shrined’ and ‘worth-shipped’) within the inter-relatedness of our gathering and sending out.

Again, this is not ‘just a metaphor’, a future hope, or a nice goal for an idealized community — it is a present reality: the faith community embodies the Trinitarian life of God through the Spirit. If Paul even makes this claim about the Corinthian community with all its obvious failures, then we must not shrink from claiming it still today and living out its consequences.

1.5 The ‘church’ as the extended household of God

Paul does not adopt uncritically the Greco-Roman family language and metaphors of his day when he speaks of the ‘church’. To do so would be to affirm a patriarchal structure where the father (pater familias) had absolute power and all ownership rights over every member of the household. Paul occasionally speaks ironically of himself as ‘father’ of ‘his churches’ (1 Cor. 4:15; 1 Thess. 2:11), but overwhelmingly he reserves use of the word ‘father’ for God (as also in the Jesus tradition, Matt. 23:9!). So when looking for ‘family language’ that is consistent with his understanding of the gatherings of God, Paul repeatedly uses sibling language (brother/sister), reflecting the most stable and mutual relationships of the first century Mediterranean world.

For Paul then, the ‘church’ cannot be described as a ‘family’ (or what the sociologists might call a ‘fictive kinship group’) in any ‘normal’ sense (whether the first-century patriarchal model, or the modern ‘nuclear’ family), but only insofar as God is ‘Father’, Jesus is ‘firstborn’ (Rom. 8:29) and we are all sisters and brothers. This is an open, extended family, where we may well have differing functions and roles, but where all are valued equally and all contribute to the well-being of the gathering.

2. How does Paul describe the way the ‘churches’ (ekklesiai) work?

2.1 The ‘church’ is a gifted body (charismata for all)

We can easily overlook how radical some of Paul’s teachings are. When Paul states: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7), we should try to hear it as if we were the lowest slave in a big household. Even if it could be affirmed then that a slave had gifts, they would be seen as serving the interests of the head of the household and his patron above him. But Paul speaks of each of us having gifts (charismata) for the benefit of all of us (common good), to bring us together and to build us up. We have sometimes turned this idea of ‘giftedness’ into another form of elitism, or into a life-long quest for some mysterious spiritual charism. Paul states flatly that we are all gifted, not for our own benefit but for others. Whether it be stacking chairs, washing dishes, sitting with the dying, playing music or preaching sermons — surely we can find something that each of us can do to ‘build up’ the community.

2.2 The ‘church’ is a built-up body (oikodome)

And that is precisely the awkward word that Paul uses over and over again: ‘house-building’ or ‘up-building’. It is awkward, because we have said that Paul doesn’t talk about ‘church’ buildings at all, and yet here he is using (some 24 times in the Pauline letters) this very practical word that is all about ‘building’. He uses it, of course, in contexts entirely to do with people (1 Cor. 8:1), or ‘one-another’ (1 Th. 5:11), or the ekklesia (1 Cor. 14:4). Does it mean to build each other up in character, in knowledge, in confidence, in love, in numbers, perhaps even in more practical ways still — food and clothing for the needy, comfort for the grieving, housing for the destitute? Yes, I think it does. All of the above. How do we know we have a ‘gift of the Spirit’? First test: it will achieve exactly these sorts of things, and ‘up-build’ the community.

2.3 The ‘church’ is an inclusive body (Gal. 3:28)

Every time Paul speaks of his ‘call experience’ (which is a more accurate way to describe what some have called his ‘conversion’, see Gal. 1:15-16), he refers to himself as being sent by God to the Gentiles. Paul’s mission is inseparably linked to his encounter with Christ and his understanding of the ‘church’ — the new communities of Christ believers. Thus cross-cultural ‘mission’ (although Paul never uses this particular Latin term himself) is an inseparable part of who Christ is, who Paul is, and what the gatherings embody. So this is a bedrock statement for Paul: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

This is all about erasing boundaries of privilege — not about erasing differences. Our ‘oneness’ (‘at-one-ment’) is not limited to any particular ethnic, social or sexual identity. It does not mean that in the ‘church’ our identity is swallowed up in the dominant culture, so that we all speak Latin, or Spanish, or English (as various stages of Christian mission have sometimes mistakenly thought). God delights in diversity (as a walk in any garden will testify!), and so if we can’t cope with the inconveniences of cultural hybridity, diverse music styles, and multi-lingual worship, we’d better find ourselves a more exclusive club that reaffirms our particular prejudices and keeps alive our myth of superiority. For Paul, the ‘church’ is multi-cultural (in ethnicity, status and gender) by nature or it is not the ‘church’ at all.

2.4 The ‘church’ is a transformed and transforming community

Just after one of Paul’s lists of all that goes wrong in the lives of humans divorced from God (1 Cor. 6:9-10, and the translation of this list is very tricky!) he says of the gathered ‘saints’: “And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). ‘In Christ’ this motley collection of human beings has been given a new identity, a new start — they are no longer defined by what they once were! And this applies, as far as Paul is concerned, even to the many slaves amongst them who would return from the gathering to whatever physical and sexual abuse their masters might visit upon them. The ultimate reality of their new identity still needed to be worked through in everyday life. It had immediate traction in the gatherings of God (1 Cor. 6:12-20), but the transformation of the wider society would take some time yet (both then and now)!

We may be more cynical than Paul. What’s the point of telling a prostitute that God loves them if they can’t escape from the brothel; an alcoholic, if they can’t leave behind the bottle; an addict, if they’re hopelessly addicted? Probably not much point at all, if it’s just words. But if they are already an accepted part of a daily gathering, loved and valued for their new identity and not judged for their old one . . . what kinds of transformation might emerge? Who belongs to our faith communities? Do our wayward sons and daughters still find a loving welcome? What elaborate rituals and membership rules have we devised to keep the ‘impure’ at bay? Are we enlivened by the Spirit of transformation or slowly being pickled in the spirit of preservation?

2.5 The ‘church’ is a suffering community

This is not really what we want to hear. The gospel of prosperous, triumphant Christianity seems to sell so much better and generate far larger gatherings. Yet Paul does not shy away from the grim realities of life, whether of his own experiences or of his communities: “If one member suffers, all suffer with it; if one is honoured, all rejoice with it” (1 Cor. 12:26). I have already mentioned some of the realities of life then, particularly in the towns and cities. Very few 30 year-olds in the first century had living parents; very few couples had all their children surviving. Many in the ancient world were terrified of death, and of the dead, and of the consequences of not performing the rituals of dying correctly. Funeral clubs existed for rich and poor to ensure that these things would be carried out properly, so that their spirits would not be left wandering homelessly and hopelessly into eternity.

The early gatherings of God were into palliative care. They sat with the dying and the grieving; they even lived fearlessly with the dead (remember the catacombs?) — not in cheap triumphalism, but in the conviction that death was not without hope (1 Th. 4:13); not with a resurrection belief that denied grief, but one that recognised the deep joy and hope of suffering shared. Will the growing army of grey nomads in our wider community find such a welcoming presence in their suffering years?

2.6 The ‘church’ is a united community

So we return to where we began: Paul dying for the unity of the ‘church’ — but not as a second Messiah! I think Acts stops short of telling us about Paul’s death for that very reason — to avoid any suggestion that Paul is like a second Jesus. Yet Paul also confronts his destiny with Christ-like resolution. Both his letters and Acts make it plain that he knew that returning to Jerusalem with the fellowship offering was not a wise move, humanly speaking (Rom. 15:30-32; Acts 20:22-23 and following). Yet he persisted. Whether the Jerusalem ‘church’ accepted the offering, or asked him to spend (some of) it on purifying himself and others in the Temple before they would touch it (Acts 21:17 and following) is not clear. Ultimately, we hear no more of their support. Paul ends up in Rome and is beheaded for his troubles — traditionally on the site outside Rome where St Paul’s now stands. ‘Church’ unity: a forlorn hope? A spiritual reality despite our differences? Something still worth dying for? Maybe our experience suggests it is impossible at the local level, let alone the national and international levels.

Many scholars have emphasised Paul’s apocalyptic world view — that he expected the imminent return of Jesus Christ when all things would be fixed up and fulfilled. Certainly there are texts in some of Paul’s letters that can be cited in support of such a view, although I think they are motivated more by particular questions, such as those coming from the Thessalonians about sisters and brothers who have already died, for example (1 Th. 4). I think Paul’s alleged apocalypticism has been greatly overemphasised. Paul has far more to say about the ‘church’ in his letters than about the ‘End Times’. For Paul the ‘church’ is evidence of an inaugurated, if not realised, eschatology — it is nothing less than a foretaste of the reign of God, the body of Christ in a struggling world.

Since we now live in the shadows of Christendom-past, we may well have lost sight of how much the transformed and transforming people of God have contributed over the centuries to the wider culture we take for granted. Some respond to the realisation that we are entering a post-Christian age by leaping to defend the last bastions of Christian influence against the perceived threats of secular humanism, Islamic fundamentalism, ‘scientific’ atheism or family breakdown and immorality. That would not be Paul’s response. He was not a fan of defending fading glories (2 Cor. 3:13-16). Rather, he saw the tremendous power of the Spirit unleashed in the agapic gatherings of God, and looked forward to the ongoing fulfillment of that transforming reality amongst all people and within all God’s creation (Rom. 8).

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This paper was presented to the Canterbury Council of Churches Lenten Series at Canterbury Baptist (Melbourne, Victoria) on Sunday 15th March, 2009.

[1] The ecclesia/i tou Theou (gathering/s or assemblies of God) is Paul’s usual expression (1Cor. 1:2; 10:32; 11:16, 22; 15:9; 2Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:13; 1Th. 2:14; and later also in 2Th. 1:4; 1Tim. 3:5; 1Tim. 3:15), with the exception of the occasional ekklesia/i tou Christou (church/es of Christ: Rom. 16:16, and maybe also Gal. 1:22; 1Th. 2:14).

[2] Only the later deutero-Pauline letters refer to Elders in church leadership (1Tim. 4:14; 5:17; 19; Titus 1:5; 2:2), and in Acts they are associated with Jewish and church leaders in Jerusalem (Acts 4:5, 8, 23; 6:12; 11:30; 15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23; 16:4; 21:18; 22:5; 23:14; 24:1; 25:15), with the notable exceptions of 14:23 and 20:17!

[3] Paul does use the verb form of ‘synagogue’ (to gather together)

twice (Rom. 15:30; 1Cor. 5:4).

[4] OK, maybe he did finally give up with some (Acts 28:23-31).

[5] Hagiasmos occurs in Rom. 6:19, 22; 1Cor. 1:30; 1Th. 4:3, 4, 7; 2Th. 2:13; 1Tim. 2:15; and elsewhere in the NT only in Heb. 12:14 and 1Pet. 1:2. The related terms hagiosune (holiness) occur in Rom. 1:4; 2Cor. 7:1; 1Th. 3:13, and hagiotes (holiness) only in Heb. 12:10.

[6] Note the range of meanings behind ‘body of Christ’ in the following texts: Rom. 7:4; 12:5; 1Cor. 10:16; 12:12, 27; Eph. 4:12; 5:23; Col. 1:24; 2:17; 3:15.