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LHIM Classes episodes

April 23, 20255. Disciples, Healings, and Conflict
Download: Disciples, Healings, and Conflict
Calling The First Disciples (1:16-20)
Depicts the radical commitment of the people that Jesus called and they way that they abandoned their occupation to follow him. It vividly portrays the authority and power that Jesus had, and which people apparently recognized.
Four Healings (1:21-2:5)
Jesus Casts Out An Unclean Spirit (1:21-28)
Jesus Heals Many In Capernaum (1:29-34)
Jesus Heals A Man With A Skin Disease (1:35-45)
Jesus Heals A Paralyzed Man (2:1-5)
Five Conflicts (2:6-3:6)
Jesus Is Questioned About Forgiving Sins (2:6-12)
Jesus Is Questioned About Eating With Sinners (2:13-17)
Jesus Is Questioned About Fasting (2:18-22)
Jesus Is Questioned About the Sabbath (2:23-28)
Jesus Questions And Defies The Pharisees (3:1-6)
The post 5. Disciples, Healings, and Conflict first appeared on Living Hope.
38 min
April 18, 20254. Kingdom Inauguration
Download: Kingdom Inauguration
Mark 1:14-15 (REV)
After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the good news of God, 15saying, “The time has been fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and believe the good news.”
The Kingdom of God
Modern understanding of “kingdom” is a fixed, geographical territory ruled by a king, queen, or monarch.
Example: The Roman Empire (show map)
The “kingdom” of God in the Bible is not focused on territorial borders, but on the authority, rule, and reign of God. An associated word that might help get the nuance right is the word “dominion.” The “dominion” of God is less about a place and more about God’s power and authority at work within a certain context or sphere of influence.
When Will the Kingdom of God Arrive?
·         Realized Eschatology
·         Futurist Eschatology
·         Inaugurated Eschatology
What is the Kingdom of God?
George Ladd defines the “kingdom of God” as:
“…the redemptive reign of God dynamically active to establish his rule among men, and that this Kingdom, which will appear as an apocalyptic act at the end of the age, has already come into human history in the person and mission of Jesus to overcome evil, to deliver men from its power, and to bring them into the blessings of God’s reign. The Kingdom of God involves two great moments: fulfillment within history, and consummation at the end of history.”1
Two-Age View of History
The Present Age
It’s a time where God’s rule is not fully established, and evil powers are at work bringing pain and suffering in the world.
The Age to Come
It will involve:
The restoration of God’s people
Judgment of the wicked
Vindication of the righteous
A transformed or renewed creation
“The Time Has Been Fulfilled” (v. 15a)
France comments, “The idea is not simply that an allotted time has elapsed (that would have been better expressed by chronos, as in Acts 7:23), but that the decisive moment (kairos) has now arrived.”2
To reiterate more fully, as Ladd eloquently states:
“Exegesis can do justice to this saying only when the Kingdom of God is interpreted in terms of its dynamic meaning: the reign or rule of God. God’s Kingdom, his reign, will come at the end of the age in a mighty irruption into history inaugurating the perfect order of the age to come. But God’s Kingdom, his reign, has already come into history in the person and mission of Jesus. The presence of God’s Kingdom means the dynamic presence of his reign. It means that God is no longer waiting for men to submit to his reign but has taken the initiative and has invaded history in a new and unexpected way. The Kingdom of God is not merely an abstract concept that God is the eternal King and rules over all; it is also a dynamic concept of the acting of God. God’s reign which will come at the end of the age to accomplish God’s redemptive purpose in the world has also come into the midst of human history in the person and mission of Jesus. God the heavenly King, who will act mightily tomorrow is also acting today in Jesus. It is the same God, the same rule, the same Kingdom dynamically at work among men.”3
George E. Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 218.
R. T. France, Divine Government: God’s Kingship in the Gospel of Mark (London: SPCK, 1990), 91.
Ladd, The Presence of the Future, 144.
The post 4. Kingdom Inauguration first appeared on Living Hope.
29 min
April 16, 20253. And so it Begins: John and Jesus
Download: The Beginning – John & Jesus
Mark 1:2-13 (REV)
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Look! I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare the road for you. 3A voice of one calling out in the desert, ‘Make the road ready for the Lord! Make the paths straight for him!’”
4John came baptizing in the desert and preaching a baptism that was a sign of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And the whole region of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, openly confessing their sins.
6John was clothed with camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7And he was preaching, saying, “After me there is one coming who is mightier than I am—I am not even worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals! 8I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with holy spirit.”
The Baptism of Jesus
9And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And immediately as he was stepping up out of the water, he saw the heavens being split open and the spirit descending upon him like a dove, 11and a voice came out of the heavens, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”
The Temptation in the Desert
12And immediately the spirit drove him out into the desert. 13And he was in the desert 40 days being tempted by the Adversary. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
Mark 1:2-13 presents Jesus as the fulfillment of OT prophecy, the Son of God infused with the power of holy spirit, able to resist the temptations of Satan, and worthy to be served by angels.
Old Testament Prophetic Fulfillment
The Prophecy of Malachi: The Forerunner Who Prepares the Way
Malachi 3:1
“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.”
Malachi 4:5–6
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of Yahweh comes. 5And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers…”
The Prophecy of Isaiah: A Voice in the Wilderness
Isaiah 40:3
“A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”
Jesus’ Baptism by John the Baptist
The spirit descending upon Jesus alludes to the anointing of kings and prophets in the Old Testament, marking Jesus out as God’s chosen one—Messiah.
The “voice from heaven” echoes Psalm 2:7 (“You are my Son”) and Isaiah 42:1 (“my chosen one in whom my soul delights”), tying the beginning of Jesus’ ministry to royal and servant motifs in the Old Testament.
Driven into the Wilderness
God’s spirit presses Jesus to depart into the wilderness for 40 days, echoing the journey of Israel in the wilderness for 40 years.
Jesus encounters his first antagonist and conflict—temptations by Satan
To help clarify, Lane comments,
“But as soon as it is recognized that the dominant motif of the prologue is the wilderness, Mark’s distinctive reference to the wild beasts becomes intelligible. In the OT blessing is associated with inhabited and cultivated land; the wilderness is the place of the curse. So in the wilderness there is neither seed nor fruit, water nor growth. Man cannot live there. Only frightening and unwanted kinds of animals dwell there. Significantly, when the wilderness is transformed into a paradise no ravenous beast will be in it (Isa. 35:9; Ezek. 34:23-28). Mark’s reference to the wild beasts in Ch. 1:13 serves to stress the character of the wilderness. Jesus confronts the horror, the loneliness and the danger with which the wilderness is fraught when he meets the wild beasts Their affinity in this context is not with paradise, but with the realm of Satan.”1
William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 61.
The post 3. And so it Begins: John and Jesus first appeared on Living Hope.
22 min
April 11, 20252. The “Gospel”
Download: The ‘Gospel’
Gospel Meanings
Many idiomatic expressions using the term “gospel.”
Take it as gospel
It’s the gospel truth
Preaching the gospel
Spreading the gospel
According to the gospel of [so-and-so]
What Does “Gospel” Mean?
The word “gospel” is from the Old English gōdspell
Gōdspell means a “good spell” (i.e., “good story”)
The Old English word spell comes from the Proto-Germanic spellan, meaning “to tell.” Spellan then became spellian, and then eventually simply spell
In the New Testament, “gospel” is translated from the Greek word euangelion.
Euangelion comes from eu- meaning “good” and angelion meaning “message”
Hence, it conveys the meaning “good message”
Or more simply…“good news”
Gospel (Good News) in the OT
The death of King Saul by the Philistines (1 Sam 31:9; 2 Sam 4:10)
David’s victory and Absalom’s defeat (2 Sam 18:25-27)
Solomon crowned king (1 Kgs 1:42)
The Arameans abandoning camp after attacking Samaria (2 Kgs 7:9)
Isaiah 52:7-10
The Good News of Isaiah…
God still reigns and will return and restore the fortunes of Zion (God’s people)
God will bring “salvation” to His people
“Salvation” = rescue, deliverance
This good news is an occasion for happiness and to shout with joy
Good News in the NT Era
“It seemed good to the Greeks of Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: “Since Providence, which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life, has set in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things, and since he, Caesar, by his appearance (excelled even our anticipations), surpassing all previous benefactors, and not even leaving to posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done, and since the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good news [euangelion] for the world that came by reason of him,” which Asia resolved in Smyrna. [Priene 150.40-41, c. 9 B.C.]
Good News in Gospel of Mark
Mark 1:1, 14-15
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the good news of God and saying, “The time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and believe the good news.”
What is the “Good News”?
“We will say more about both elements of this good news in a little while. But it’s important to emphasize right away that what Paul was talking about was not what most people today imagine. If you mention the Christian good news, most people today imagine that you’re talking about an option you might like to take up if you feel so inclined. A piece of advice. For some, it’s a new kind of spirituality: here is a Jesus-focused interior life for those who want that kind of thing. For others, it’s a new way of living: here is a Jesus-based morality you, or indeed your community, might like to follow. For others again, it’s about taking out an option on your future—a kind of retirement plan, except that the retirement in question takes place after your death rather than before it. It’s a way of making sure that you at least will be safe and sound, even if the rest of the world isn’t. Some people, as we will see, highlight this last element, and when they talk about the good news or the gospel, they focus almost exclusively on this aspect. Some people do the same with the idea of reestablishing our present relationship with God after being cut off through sin. None of these ways of looking at things are, as they stand, totally wrong. The message of Jesus and the message about Jesus do include something about spirituality, something about morality, something about the ultimate future, something not least about our relationship with God. But all these miss the main point. The good news brought by Paul (and before him, by Jesus, though we will come to that presently) was not about an option you might wish to take up. It wasn’t a piece of advice about something you might or might not wish to do. It was news. They claimed it was good news. When Paul told people his good news, he didn’t mean for them to say, “Well, that’s interesting. I’ll see if that’s going to suit me or not.” He wasn’t inviting them to try on a new way of thinking or living that would enable them to live differently or think differently. He was telling them that something had happened which had changed the world, that the world was now a different place, and that he was summoning them to be part of that new, different reality. He was telling them about an event that would cause them to adjust their entire lives in order to come into line with the way things now were.”
~N. T. Wright, Simply Good News, pp. 19-20
The good news is…
That God’s kingdom has arrived, calling people to repentance, faith, and a new way of life under God’s reign.
The post 2. The “Gospel” first appeared on Living Hope.
29 min
April 09, 20251. Four Gospels, One Jesus
Download: Four Gospels, One Jesus
The Gospels
The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) form the first four books of the New Testament.
Purposes for the Gospels
Historical—the need for a faithful and authoritative record of the words and deeds of Jesus.
Catechetical—the need to instruct converts in the Christian faith.
Liturgical—the need for worship material in the church.
Exhortatory—to encourage and assure believers in their faith.
Theological—the need to settle internal disputes.
Apologetic—the need to respond to external attacks on the church.
Evangelistic—the need to call people to faith in Jesus.
Why Four Gospels?
With different emphasizes, different portrayals, and different vantage points a historical record deepens and becomes richer and more dynamic.
Why not synthesize into one Gospel?
Diatessaron (Tatian c. 170 AD)
What is Unique about Each Gospel?
Matthew
Portrait of Jesus: The King
Audience: Primarily Jewish
Mark
Portrait of Jesus: The Servant
Audience: Likely Gentile
Luke
Portrait of Jesus: The Savior
Audience: Gentile, especially Greek-speaking
John
Portrait of Jesus: The Son of God
Audience: Mixed, Jewish and Gentile
The Synoptic Gospels and Gospel of John
Synoptic Gospels
Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Luke
“Synoptics” means “to see together”
Contain overlapping content.
Share a significant literary connection.
Have generally the same narrative development.
Have an episodic narrative structure.
Synoptic Gospel Distinctives
Jesus’ ministry can fit into a single year time frame.
Focuses on Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish messianic prophecy.
Salvation is described as entrance into the “kingdom of God.”
Gospel of John
Lots of geographic movement
Jesus’ ministry seems to extend beyond 1 year
Jesus’ miracles (“signs”) are a thematic focus
Development of confrontations with Jewish religious leaders.
Jesus as the Son of God who reveals the Father.
Salvation is described as “life in the age to come.”
The Gospels as Literature
· The ‘Gospel’ Genre
NT Gospels have some resemblance to ancient biographies Bioi (“Lives”)
·       The Gospels Are Historical Literature
·       The Gospels Are Narrative Literature
·       The Gospels Are Theological Literature
How to Read the Gospels
Reading “Vertically”
Advantages:
The Author’s Intent
Clarity of Message
Theological Emphasis
Literary Features
Disadvantages:
The “Full” Picture
Differences or Tensions
One Dimensional
Limited Study
Reading “Horizontally”
Advantages:
Complete Picture
Clarifying Details
Author Emphases
Diversity
Disadvantages:
Narrative Blending
Over Harmonization
Gospel Flattening
Complex and Time-Consuming
Reading the Gospels as Theological Narrative
“Theological narrative” tells a story and conveys an important point with it.
Narrator
Setting
Characters
Plot
Sequence (Causation)
Drama (Conflict/Struggle)
Climax (Resolution)
The post 1. Four Gospels, One Jesus first appeared on Living Hope.
29 min
March 15, 202518. Concluding Thoughts on 1 Corinthians
Download: Concluding Thoughts on 1 Corinthians
Major Issues in 1 Corinthians
Factions (1:10-11)
Approving sexual immorality (5:1, 11)
Lawsuits between Christians (6:1-2)
Sexual Licentiousness (6:12, 18)
Christian marriage and singleness (7:1, 10-11)
Food sacrificed to idols (8:1; 10:19-20)
Gender distinctions in worship (11:4-5)
Schisms at communion (11:17, 33-34)
Selfish spirit manifestations (12:1; 14:12)
Some disbelieved in the resurrection (15:12-13)
Collection of their offerings (16:1-2)
In addition to these eleven issues, we spent time considering how Christianity compared to ancient philosophical schools, how to translate 1 Corinthian 6:9 with reference to homosexual practices, Christology with a focus on 1 Corinthians 8:6, and good deal of time focused on divine speech in the pagan world and in the church.
After Paul Left Corinth1
51 ad Paul’s first visit to Corinth (Acts 18:1-21)
54 ad Paul wrote 1 Corinthians.
54 ad Paul’s second visit to Corinth (2 Cor 2:1; 10:10; 11:4-8; 13-15; 13:2)
54 ad Paul wrote a severe letter (2 Cor 2:4; 7:8) and sent Titus to Corinth.
55 ad After hearing back from Titus (2 Cor 2:13; 7:5; Acts 20:1), Paul wrote 2 Corinthians.
56 ad Paul’s third visit to Corinth, spending three months (Acts 20:2)
56 ad While in Corinth, he wrote Romans, after which, he left never to return.
Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians
In 96 ad, forty years later, we hear again about the church at Corinth. Clement, a pastor of the church at Rome, sent a letter to the Corinthians.
Clement went on and on about the Corinthians’ fine reputation:
“1:2 For has anyone ever visited you who did not approve your most excellent and steadfast faith? Who did not admire your sober and magnanimous piety in Christ? Who did not proclaim the magnificent character of your hospitality? Who did not congratulate you on your complete and sound knowledge? 3 For you did everything without partiality, and you lived in accordance with the laws of God, submitting yourselves to your leaders and giving to the older men among you the honor due them. You instructed the young people to think temperate and proper thoughts; you charged the women to perform all their duties with a blameless, reverent, and pure conscience, cherishing their own husbands, as is right; and you taught them to abide by the rule of obedience, and to manage the affairs of their household with dignity and all discretion. 2:1 Moreover, you were all humble and free from arrogance, submitting rather than demanding submission, more glad to give than to receive, and content with the provisions that God supplies. And giving heed to his words, you stored them up diligently in your hearts, and kept his sufferings before your eyes. 2 Thus a profound and rich peace was given to all, together with an insatiable desire to do good, and an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit fell upon everyone as well. 3 Being full of holy counsel, with excellent zeal and a devout confidence you stretched out your hands to almighty God, imploring him to be merciful if you had inadvertently committed any sin. 4 You struggled day and night on behalf of all the family of believers, that through fear and conscientiousness the number of his elect might be saved. 5 You were sincere and innocent and free from malice one toward another. 6 Every faction and every schism was abominable to you. You mourned for the transgressions of your neighbors: you considered their shortcomings to be your own. 7 You never once regretted doing good, but were ready for every good work. 8 Being adorned with a virtuous and honorable manner of life, you performed all your duties in the fear of him. The commandments and the ordinances of the Lord were written on the tablets of your hearts.”2 (1 Clement 1:2-2:8)
Something bad had happened, which greatly concerned Clement
“1 All glory and growth were given to you, and then that which is written was fulfilled: “My beloved ate and drank and was enlarged and grew fat and kicked.” 2 From this came jealousy and envy, strife and sedition, persecution and anarchy, war and captivity. 3 So people were stirred up: those without honor against the honored, those of no repute against the highly reputed, the foolish against the wise, the young against the old.” (1 Clement 3.1-3)
Factions had reemerged, organized by age.
“44:6 For we see that you have removed certain people, their good conduct notwithstanding, from the ministry that had been held in honor by them blamelessly. …46:5 Why is there strife and angry outbursts and dissension and schisms and conflict among you? 6 Do we not have one God and one Christ and one spirit of grace that was poured out upon us? And is there not one calling in Christ? 7 Why do we tear and rip apart the members of Christ, and rebel against our own body, and reach such a level of insanity that we forget that we are members of one another? Remember the words of Jesus our Lord, 8 for he said: “Woe to that person! Rather than cause one of my elect to sin, it would have been good for that one not to have been born. It would have been better for that person to have been tied to a millstone and cast into the sea, rather than pervert one of my elect.” 9 Your schism has perverted many; it has brought many to despair, plunged many into doubt, and caused all of us to sorrow. And yet your rebellion still continues!” (1 Clement 44:6; 46:5-9)
Clement wrote to the Corinthians to confront them.
“The church of God that sojourns in Rome to the church of God that sojourns in Corinth, to those who are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ: May grace and peace from almighty God through Jesus Christ be yours in abundance. 1 Because of the sudden and repeated misfortunes and reverses that have happened to us, brothers, we acknowledge that we have been somewhat slow in giving attention to the matters in dispute among you, dear friends, especially the detestable and unholy schism, so alien and strange to those chosen by God, which a few reckless and arrogant persons have kindled to such a pitch of insanity that your good name, once so renowned and loved by all, has been greatly reviled.” (1 Clement 1.1)
He appealed to them for love and unity.
“1 You see, dear friends, how great and wonderful love is; its perfection is beyond description. 2 Who is worthy to be found in it, except those whom God considers worthy? Let us therefore ask and petition his mercy, so that we may be found blameless in love, standing apart from any human factiousness.” (1 Clement 50:1-2)
He asked them to restore their old leaders.
“1 You, therefore, who laid the foundation of the revolt must submit to the presbyters and accept discipline leading to repentance, bending the knees of your heart. 2 Learn how to subordinate yourselves, laying aside the arrogant and proud stubbornness of your tongue. For it is better for you to be found small but included in the flock of Christ than to have a preeminent reputation and yet be excluded from his hope.” (1 Clement 57:1-2)
Dionysius, Overseer of Corinth
Approximately 170 ad, about 75 years later, we hear again about the church at Corinth and their overseer, Dionysius.
Jerome: “Dionysius, bishop of the church of Corinth, was of so great eloquence and industry that he taught not only the people of his own city and province but also those of other provinces and cities by his letters. Of these one is To the Lacedaemonians, another To the Athenians, a third To the Nicomedians, a fourth To the Cretans, a fifth To the church at Amastrina and to the other churches of Pontus, a sixth To the Gnosians and to Pinytus bishop of the same city, a seventh To the Romans, addressed to Soter their bishop, an eighth To Chrysophora a holy woman. He flourished in the reign of Marcus Antoninus Verus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus.”3 (Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men 27)
Eusebius the historian quoted Dionysius’s letter to Soter, the overseer at Rome: “Today we celebrated the holy day of the Lord, during which we read your letter, which we will always read for admonishment, as we do the letter sent to us before by Clement.”4 (Eusebius, Church History 23)
We learn from these sources that Corinth was doing well. They had good relations with many churches and were playing a leading role. They had preserved Clement’s letter and read it regularly as a warning.
Application
When it comes to applying the lessons of 1 Corinthians to our situation today, the following saying comes to mind: “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”
Dozens of generations of Christians have benefited immensely from these powerful epistles.
We learn much about the importance of unity, the superiority of spiritual Christianity over human wisdom, the need to recognize boundaries between saints and the world, the need for holy living, especially sexually, the necessity of consideration for a weaker brother or sister, solidarity with and elevation of those who have lower status in Christ’s body, the need for love in the assembly, how indispensable it is for us to evaluate our contributions based on whether or not they build up others in our weekly meeting, and the essentiality of belief in our future resurrection at the coming of Christ.
Challenge: read all of 1 Corinthians in as few sittings as possible.
Bibliography
The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations. Edited by Michael W. Holmes. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003.
Eusebius. The History of the Church. Translated by Jeremy M. Schott. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019.
Jerome. “On the Lives of Illustrious Men.” In Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius & Rufinus: Historical Writings. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Vol. 203. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series. New York, NY: Christian Literature Publishing, 1890.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology. 3rd ed. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002.
For this chronology I’m indebted to Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology, 3rd ed. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 173-74.
The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, ed. Michael W. Holmes (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003).
Jerome, “On the Lives of Illustrious Men,” in Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius & Rufinus: Historical Writings, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, vol. 203, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series (New York, NY: Christian Literature Publishing, 1890).
Eusebius, The History of the Church, trans. Jeremy M. Schott (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019), 210.
The post 18. Concluding Thoughts on 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
41 min
March 13, 202517. Eschatology in 1 Corinthians
Download: Eschatology of 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 1:7-8; 3:12-13; 4:5; 5:5; 6:2-3, 9-10, 14; 11:26; 15:3-8, 12-14, 20-28, 35, 58; 16:22
Eschatology: belief about the last things or end times.
1 Cor 1:7-8 There is an end: the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ
1 Cor 3:12-13 The day of judgment and reward
1 Cor 4:5 When the Lord comes, the truth will come out.
1 Cor 5:5 Salvation will be complete on the Day of the Lord.
1 Cor 6:2-3 The saints will judge the world and angels.
1 Cor 6:9-10 Sin can keep us out of God’s Kingdom.
1 Cor 6:14 As He raised the Lord, God will raise us by His power.
1 Cor 11:26 Communion memorializes the Lord’s death until he comes.
1 Cor 16:22 Maranatha: Our Lord, come!
The Corinthian Christians struggled to accept Paul’s teaching about resurrection (1 Cor 15:12, 35).
Afterlife Option 1: Non-Existence
“I, Nicomedes, am happy. I was not, and I became, I am not, and nothing hurts me.”1 (Epigrammata Graeca 595)
“I was not and I came to be; I am not; I don’t care”2 (Inscriptiones Graecae2190)
“I was not, I was, I remember, I am not, I do not care.”2 (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum530)
“I was not, I was, I am not, I don’t desire (to be)”2 (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum3463)
“I believed in overdoing nothing. I came and went away blameless. I observed everything human, but did not pry into what is forbidden, or seek to know whether I existed before or whether I ever shall again.”2 (Epigrammata Graeca 615)
Afterlife Option 2: Ascending to Heaven or Joining the Stars
Ascended among the blessed: “The good and discreet Aelianus was given this tomb by his father in concern for his mortal body; but his heart, which is immortal, has leapt up among the blessed; for the soul lives forever, it is what gives life, and it has come down from God. Stay your tears, my father, and you, mother, stay my brothers from weeping. The body is the soul’s tunic: but you must respect the god in me.”3 (Epigrammata Graeca 651)
Ascension: “The precinct of heavenly Zeus keeps me, whom Apollo…changed; for he took me immortal from the fire.”4 (Inscriptiones Graecae1.142.3-4)
Ascension not Hades: “Cease to lament the will of the gods, lest piety, ignorant that I have been received into the heavenly abode, grieve and offend the divine powers with sorrow. I will not sadly pass into the gloomy waves of Tartarus, nor will I be ferried across the waters of Acheron as a shadow, nor will I strike a dark-colored boat with an oar, nor will I fear you, Charon, with your terrible gaze. Nor will aged Minos pass judgment on me, nor will I wander through dark places or be confined by waters. Rise, and tell my mother, so that she may not weep for me night and day, like the grieving Attic mother for Itys. For holy Venus has ordered that I not know the halls of silence, but has lifted me to the bright temples of the heavens.”5 (Carmina Latina Epigraphica 16-28)
In the 7th circle: “Stand before the tomb and behold young Choro, unwedded daughter of Diognetus. Hades has set her in the seventh circle.”6 (Abhandlungen der Akademie 46)
Went to the stars: “As she approached the altar and was paying her vows, she went, respected by all, to the stars. Thus without enduring sickness she joined the demigods.”3 (Inscriptiones Graecae2.472.12-13)
Become an evening star: “Mother, do not weep for me. What is the use? You ought rather to reverence me, for I have become an evening star, among the gods.”7 (Inscriptiones Graecae 7.123.5-6)
Afterlife Option 3: Pluto (Hades) Myth
Homer described the dead: “[T]he ghost of stricken Patroclus drifted up. . .He was like the man to the life, every feature, the same tall build and the fine eyes and voice and the very robes that used to clothe his body. Hovering at his head the phantom rose and spoke: “Sleeping, Achilles? You’ve forgotten me, my friend. You never neglected me in life, only now in death. Bury me, quickly—let me pass the Gates of Hades. They hold me off at a distance, all the souls, the shades of the burn-out, breathless dead, never to let me cross the river, mingle with them. . .They leave me to wander up and down, abandoned, lost at the House of Death with the all-embracing gates. Oh give me your hand—I beg you with my tears! Never, never again shall I return from Hades once you have give me the soothing rites of fire.” …In the same breath he stretched his loving arms but could not seize him, no, the ghost slipped underground like a wisp of smoke . . .with a high thin cry. And Achilles sprang up with a start and staring wide, drove his fists together and cried in desolation, “Ah god! So even in Death’s strong house there is something left, a ghost, a phantom—true, but no real breath of life.”8 (Homer, Iliad 76-91, 117-123)
Lucian of Samosata explained the Hades myth: “The general herd, whom philosophers call the laity, trust Homer and Hesiod and the other mythmakers in these matters, and take their poetry for a law unto themselves. So they suppose that there is a place deep under the earth called Hades, which is large and roomy and murky and sunless; I don’t know how they imagine it to be lighted up so that everything in it can be seen. The king of the abyss is a brother of Zeus named Pluto…He himself has been allotted the sovereignty of the dead, whom he receives, takes in charge, and retains in close custody, permitting nobody whatsoever to go back up above, except, in all time, a very few for most important reasons. His country is surrounded by great rivers, fearful even in name; for they are called “Wailing,” “Burning Fire,” and the like. But the principal feature is Lake Acheron, which lies in front and first receives visitors; it cannot be crossed or passed without the ferryman…[B]y the descent and the portal…stands the king’s nephew, Aeacus, who is commander of the guard; and beside him is a three-headed dog, very long-fanged, who gives a friendly, peaceable glance to those who come in, but howls at those who try to run away and frightens them with his great mouth. After passing the lake on going in, one comes next to a great meadow overgrown with asphodel, and to a spring that is inimical to memory; in fact, they call it “Oblivion” for that reason. …Pluto and Persephone, as these people said, are the rulers and…receive the good, just men who have lived virtuously, and when many have been collected, send them off, as if to a colony, to the Elysian Fields to take part in the best life. But if they come upon any rascals, turning them over to the Furies, they send them to the Place of the Wicked, to be punished in proportion to their wickedness. There—ah! what punishment do they not undergo? They are racked, burned, devoured by vultures, turned upon a wheel; they roll stones uphill; and as for Tantalus, he stands on the very brink of the lake with a parched throat, like to die, poor fellow, for thirst! But those of the middle way in life, and they are many, wander about in the meadow without their bodies, in the form of shadows that vanish like smoke in your fingers. They get their nourishment, naturally, from the libations that are poured in our world and the burnt-offerings at the tomb; so that if anyone has not left a friend or kinsman behind him on earth, he goes about his business there as an unfed corpse, in a state of famine. So thoroughly are people taken in by all this that when one of the family dies, immediately they bring an obol and put it in his mouth, to pay the ferryman for setting him over.”9 (Lucian of Samosata, On Funerals 2-10)
Gone to Hades: “I have gone to the ghastly city of Hades”10 (Epigrammata Graeca4)
Gone to Tartarus: “Hermes, messenger of Persephone, why do you send him before us to Hades’ Tartarus, where there is no laughter?”10 (Epigrammata Graeca1-2)
Gone to Elysium: “The tomb keeps only the name of Micca; her soul is with the pious, it is among the Elysian fields.”11 (Epigrammata Graeca 1-2)
Gone to Elysian fields: “You did not die, Prōtē, but moved to a better place, and you dwell in the blessed islands, far from all evils, rejoicing in the flowers of the Elysian fields. No winter afflicts you, nor heat, nor disease troubles you, neither thirst nor hunger touches you, but you no longer even long for the life of men. For you live without reproach in the pure rays of Olympus, truly close by. P. Aelius Abascanthus, father of Ailia Prōtē. She lived for 7 years, 11 months, and 27 days.” (Inscriptionem Graecae 1973)
Afterlife Option 4: Reincarnation
Myth of Er from Plato: “He [Er] said that when his soul departed, it made a journey in the company of many, and they came to a certain demonic place, where there were two openings in the earth next to one another, and, again, two in the heaven, above and opposite the others. Between them sat judges who, when they had passed judgment, told the just to continue their journey to the right and upward, through the heaven; and they attached signs of the judgments in front of them. The unjust they told to continue their journey to the left and down, and they had behind them signs of everything they had done. …As to the other two openings, souls out of the earth, full of dirt and dust, came up from one of them; and down from the other came other souls, pure from heaven. And the souls that were ever arriving looked as though they had come from a long journey: and they went away with delight to the meadow…And they told their stories to one another, the ones lamenting and crying, remembering how much and what sort of things they had suffered and seen in the journey under the earth—the journey lasts a thousand years—and those from heaven, in their turn, told of the inconceivable beauty of the experiences and the sights there. …When we were near the mouth about to go up and had suffered everything else, we suddenly saw…tyrants, but there were also some private men, of those who had committed great faults. They supposed they were ready to go up, but the mouth did not admit them; it roared when one of those whose badness is incurable or who had not paid a sufficient penalty attempted to go up. There were men at that place…who took hold of some and led them away…threw them down and stripped off their skin. They dragged them along the wayside, carding them like wool on thorns…these men would be led away and thrown into Tararus. … When each group had spent seven days in the plain, on the eighth they were made to depart from there and continue their journey. In four days they arrived at a place from which they could see a straight light, like a column, stretched from above through all of heaven and earth, most of all resembling the rainbow but brighter and purer. …for this light is that which binds heaven, like the undergirders of triremes, thus holding the entire revolution together. From the extremities stretched the spindle of Necessity, by which all the revolutions are turned. …Now when they arrived…[a] certain spokesman first marsalled them at regular distances from each other; then, he took lots…Let him who gets the first lot make the first choice of a life to which he will be bound by necessity. …When he had said this, he cast the lots among them all, and each picked up the one that fell next to him…After this, in turn, he set the patterns of the lives on the ground before them; there were far more than there were souls present. There were all sorts; lives of all animals, and, in particular, all the varieties of human lives. … For the most part the choice was made according to the habituation of their former life. He said he saw a soul that once belonged to Orpheus choosing a life of a swan, out of hatred for womankind; due to his death at their hands, he wasn’t willing to be born, generated in a woman. He saw Thamyras’ soul choosing the life of a nightingale. And he also saw a swan changing to the choice of a human life; other musical animals did the same thing. The soul that got the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion; …And after him was the soul of Agamemnon; it too hated humankind as a result of its sufferings and therefore changed to the life of an eagle. …And by chance Odysseus’ soul had drawn the last lot of all and went to choose; from memory of its former labors it had recovered from love of honor; it went around for a long time looking for the life of a private man who minds his own business; and with effort it found one lying somewhere, neglected by the others. …When all the souls had chosen lives, in the same order as the lots they had drawn they went forward…all made their way through terrible stifling heat to the plain of Lethe. …Now it was a necessity for all to drink a certain measure of water, but those who were not saved by prudence drank more than the measure. As he drank, each forgot everything. And when they had gone to sleep and it was midnight, there came thunder and an earthquake; and they were suddenly carried from there, each in a different way, up to their birth, shooting like stars.”12 (Plato, The Republic614b-620d)
Bernabe and Cristobal on Orphic golden tablets: “[I]n the scheme described in the tablets, the soul, which is active, finds itself faced by a test it must overcome. This is the behavior demanded from the soul in the moment of its transition to the other world: that it should not take the wrong path. Everything depends on it, and on the fact that it remembers what it must do…If it does what it should do, it will be successful. If it makes a mistake, it will be reincarnated.”13

The Resurrection of Christ
Paul leaned on received tradition, eyewitnesses, and personal experience to establish certainty about Christ’s resurrection (1 Cor 15:3-8).
In Greek mythology, there were several accounts of returning to life.
Aeschylus (458 bc) has Apollo say: “Fetters he can undo: there is a cure for that affliction, and many a device for getting him released. But when once a man has died, and the dust has sucked up his blood, there is no rising again.”14 (Aeschylus, Eumenides 645-648)
Pausanias relates a standard myth that Asclepius raised the dead: “Presently it was reported over every land and sea that Asclepius was discovering everything he wished to heal the sick, and that he was raising dead men to life.”15 (Pausanias, Description of Greece26.6)
Diodorus explains how Asclepius brought people back to life: “And so far did he advance along the road of fame that, to the amazement of all, he healed many sick whose lives had been despaired of, and for this reason it was believed that he had brought back to life many who had died. Consequently, the myth goes on to say, Hades brough accusation against Asclepius, charging him before Zeus of acting to the detriment of his own province, for, he said, the number of the dead was steadily diminishing, now that men were being healed by Asclepius.”16 (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History 71.2-3)
Orpheus Myth from Virgil: “And now, as he [Orpheus] retraced his steps, he had avoided all mischance, and the regained Eurydice was nearing the upper world, following behind—for that condition had Proserpine [Persephone] imposed—when a sudden frenzy seized Orpheus, unwary in his love…He halted, and on the very verge of light, unmindful, alas, and vanquished in purpose, on Eurydice, now regained looked back! In that instant all his toil was spilt like water…She cried: ‘What madness, Orpheus, what dreadful madness has brought disaster alike upon you and me, poor soul? …And now farewell! I am borne away, covered in night’s vast pall.…’ She spoke, and straightway from his sight, like smoke mingling with thin air, vanished afar and saw him not again, as he vainly clutched at the shadows with so much left unsaid.…”17 (Virgil, Georgics 453-527) (see also Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.1-85)
Euripides’s Myth of Alcestis: “Adetus’s wife Alcestis died and he grieved for her. Heracles: “I must save the woman who has just died and show my gratitude to Admetus by restoring Alcestic once more to this house. I shall go and look out for the black-robed lord of the dead, Death (Θάνατον) himself, and I think I shall find him drinking from the offerings near the tomb. And if once I rush from ambush and catch him in my side-crushing grip, no one shall take him from me until he releases the woman to me. But if I fail to catch this quarry and he does not come to the blood offering, I shall go down to the sunless house of Persephone and her lord in the world below and shall ask for Alcestis, and I think I shall bring her up and put her in the hands of my friend. He welcomed me into his house and did not drive me away, thought he had suffered grievous misfortune. In his nobility he concealed it, out of respect for me.”18 (Euripides, Alcestis 840-858)
1 Cor 15:12-14 Paul linked together belief in our future resurrection with Christ’s resurrection.
Dale Martin: “Thus the idea of the resurrection of the body would indeed have struck some Greeks as ridiculous or incomprehensible. Specifically, the notion would have offended the educated-those exposed, at least minimally, to philosophical arguments and assumptions. Of course, due to the uniformity of higher education in the Greco-Roman world, all people so educated could be expected to hold similar views, at least on basic points, regardless of which philosophical school commanded their allegiance or lack thereof. And in the early Roman Empire one of those basic points was that, whatever one believed about life after death, promises of resurrected bodies were not to be given any credence. Such gullibility was reserved for the uneducated—that is, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Empire.”19
Dale Martin: “The Strong, influenced by popular philosophy to deprecate the body, opposed the idea of a resurrected body. Indeed, they heard Paul’s language about “resurrection of the dead” (nekros) as referring to the resuscitation of a “corpse,” the normal meaning of the term nekros, and they found such a view philosophically ridiculous.”20
Paul’s Mini-Apocalypse (1 Cor 15:20-28)
Christ returns (the day of our Lord Jesus).
Christ raises the faithful from the dead.
Christ reigns until he puts all his enemies under his feet.
Finally, he hands over the Kingdom to God.
Application
Because of resurrection, the Corinthians should be steadfast and excel in the work of the Lord (1 Cor 15:58).
The resurrection of the body means that our work is not in vain.
Bibliography
Aeschylus. Agamenmnon, Libation-Bearers, Eumenides. Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Vol. 2. Loeb Classical Library, edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Cristóbal, Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San. Instruction for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, edited by D. Frankfurter H. S. Versnel, and J. Hahn, vol. 162. Ledien: Brill, 2008.
Euripides. Cyclops, Alcestis, Medea. Translated by David Kovacs. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library, edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2001.
Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin Classica. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1998.
Lattimore, Richmond. Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1962.
Lucian. Anacharsis, Menippus, on Funerals, a Professor of Public Speaking, Alexander the False Prophet, Essays in Portraiture, Essays in Portraiture Defended, the Goddesse of Surrye. Translated by A. M. Harmon. Vol. 4. Loeb Classical Library, edited by T. E. Page. London, England: William Heinemann, 1925.
Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995.
Pausanias. Description of Greece. Translated by W. H. S. Jones. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Heinemann, 1918.
Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2016.
Sicily, Diodorus of. The Library of History Iv.59-Viii. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 3. Loeb Classical Library, edited by G. P. Goold. London, England: William Heinemann, 1939.
Virgil. Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid 1-6. Translated by H. Rushton Fairclough. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library, edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Wiegand, Theodor. “Sechster Vorläufiger Bericht Über Die Von Den Königlichen Museen in Milet Und Diyma Unternommenen Ausgrabungen.” In Abhandlungen Der Königlichen Preussischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften. Edited by Georg Reimer. Philosophisch-Historische Classe. Berlin: Verlag der Königlichen Akademie dier Wissenschaften, 1908.
Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1962), 84.
Lattimore, 84.
Lattimore, 34.
Lattimore, 50.
Lattimore, 39-40. Translation from ChatGPT.
Lattimore, 34. Theodor Wiegand, “Sechster Vorläufiger Bericht Über Die Von Den Königlichen Museen in Milet Und Diyma Unternommenen Ausgrabungen,” in Abhandlungen Der Königlichen Preussischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften, ed. Georg Reimer, Philosophisch-Historische Classe (Berlin: Verlag der Königlichen Akademie dier Wissenschaften, 1908), 46. Available at https://archive.org/details/abhandlungenderk1908akaduoft/page/n509/mode/2up?view=theater.
Lattimore, 35.
Homer, The Iliad, trans. Robert Fagles, Penguin Classica (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1998), 561-62.
Lucian, Anacharsis, Menippus, on Funerals, a Professor of Public Speaking, Alexander the False Prophet, Essays in Portraiture, Essays in Portraiture Defended, the Goddesse of Surrye, trans. A. M. Harmon, vol. 4, Loeb Classical Library, ed. T. E. Page (London, England: William Heinemann, 1925), 113-19.
Lattimore, 87.
Lattimore, 36.
Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans. Allan Bloom (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2016), 297-303.
Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Instruction for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets, Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, ed. D. Frankfurter H. S. Versnel, and J. Hahn, vol. 162 (Ledien: Brill, 2008), 54.
Aeschylus, Agamenmnon, Libation-Bearers, Eumenides, trans. Alan H. Sommerstein, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library, ed. Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 437.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, trans. W. H. S. Jones, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Heinemann, 1918), 387.
Diodorus of Sicily, The Library of History Iv.59-Viii, trans. C. H. Oldfather, vol. 3, Loeb Classical Library, ed. G. P. Goold (London, England: William Heinemann, 1939), 43.
Virgil, Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid 1-6, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library, ed. Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 253-55.
Euripides, Cyclops, Alcestis, Medea, trans. David Kovacs, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library, ed. Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2001), 239-41.
Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995), 114.
Martin, 107-08.
The post 17. Eschatology in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
1 hr 2 min
March 07, 202516. Love and Edification in 1 Corinthians
Download: Love and Edification in the Corinthian Assembly
1 Corinthians 12:12-29; 13:1-13; 14:1-40
The Body Analogy
1 Corinthians 12:12-14 The Christians in Corinth should think of themselves as one unity body.
Discord is like a festering disease in the body: “[I]f one were to run through the entire list of citizens, I believe he would not discover even two men in Tarsus who think alike, but on the contrary, just as with certain incurable and distressing diseases which are accustomed to pervade the whole body, exempting no member of it from their inroads, so this state of discord, this almost complete estrangement of one from another, has invaded your entire body politic.”1 (Dio Chrysostom, Discourse 34.20)
Factions are terrible and draining: “[T]hose cities are best inhabited which know how to think harmoniously. Everywhere faction is a terrible, disruptive thing, and like consumption. For having fastened itself to the body politic it drains off, sucks out, and depletes all its strength, and does not cease until it has entirely worn it away, using the sick themselves as a means for their own destruction.”2
(Aristides, Oration 23.31)
Dale Martin: “Within “deliberative” rhetoric—that is, rhetoric urging a political body toward some course of action—a popular topic was concord, or unity. Indeed, homonoia (“concord”) speeches, as they were known in Greek (the Latin was concordia), became practically a genre unto themselves, with predictable patterns, set clichés and examples, and an identifiable ideology. …The ideological purpose of homonoia speeches was to mitigate conflict by reaffirming and solidifying the hierarchy of society. To this end, certain topoi (set examples) recur with tiresome regularity. A favorite device is to show how the political hierarchy of the city mirrors the harmonious hierarchy of the cosmos. The cosmos works well because each cosmic entity knows its place in the cosmic body.”3
Body Parts Together
1 Corinthians 12:14-27 Each of the body parts is important. Those with less native honor should be clothed with greater honor.
The Asclepius Temple hung body parts from its walls and ceiling.
Murphy-O’Connor: “Paul would have seen the dismembered limbs displayed in the Asclepion as symbols of everything that Christians should not be: dead, divided, unloving, and unloved. From this it would have been an easy step to the contrasting image of the whole body in which the distinctive identity of each of the members is rooted in a shared life.”4
Speaking in Tongues as a Status Indicator
They were using the gifts of the spirit to outdo one another
Dale Martin: “It seems clear that for both Paul and the Strong at Corinth, speaking in tongues is a high-status activity, and its status significance, as we will see, is precisely what, in Paul’s opinion, makes it problematic in the Corinthian church. …[M]any modern scholars have assumed, like most modern intellectuals, that speaking in tongues is an activity of uneducated, marginal people.”5
Dale Martin: “In 13:4 …Paul again uses the term “puffed up,” suggesting that it is the “wise” or “strong” in Corinth who value—too much, in Paul’s opinion—both knowledge and the esoteric language of the angels. He himself normally places a high-status valuation on speaking in tongues. He claims the gift for himself, even going so far as to claim a greater share of it than any of the Corinthians (14:18). In 14:2 Paul says that the person who speaks in tongues speaks not to human beings but to God. “For no one hears, but in the spirit [pneuma] he speaks mysteries.” Glossolalia is divine discourse; it deals in “mysteries,” which for Paul is a highly valued epistemological category.6
Three times Paul listed various spirit activities (1 Cor 12:8-10, 28, 29). In each case he puts tongues last or second to last.
Dale Martin: “[W]e must recognize that those who, on the surface, occupy positions of lower status are actually more essential than those of higher status and therefore should be accorded more honor. …The lower is made higher, and the higher lower. …Paul first accepts the high status of glossolalia as a given and then questions the expected attribution of honor to those of high status. Greater honor, he says, should be given to those normally considered to be low status. …To us, this sounds like simple, just equality. But to a person of ancient times imbued with upper-class ideology, to say that a slave and a master should work in tandem or that a patron should not expect his client to give way to him would have sounded revolutionary.”7
Love as the Key to Manifesting the Spirit in the Assembly
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 The Greeks and Romans had lots of divine speech, but nowhere do we read about love as a consideration. Paul introduced something that must have felt brand new. Your high-status divine speech is nothing if you don’t do it in love.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Taking the opposites, we get impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, insistent, irritable, resentful, rejoicing in wrongdoing, unwilling to bear anything, believe anything, have hope, or endure. This sounds like a description of the Corinthian Christians’ behavior. Paul challenged them to behave differently, especially when they gather.
1 Corinthians 13:8-13 Paul urged humility. Since we only know in part, we should be open to correction.
Practical Instruction for Spirit Manifestations in the Assembly
1 Corinthians 14:1-5 The key term for this chapter is “building up.” Does speaking in tongues build others up? What about prophecy?
1 Corinthians 14:6-12 Uninterpreted tongues do not build others up.
1 Corinthians 14:13-20 The same person who speaks in tongues can interpret. In this way others will be built up. Prophecy is preferred.
1 Corinthians 14:21-25 Tongues were a sign of judgment.
Anthony Thiselton: “[T]ongue-speaking in public worship is inappropriate in the first place because it places many of God’s own people in the situation of feeling like foreigners in a foreign land and “not at home” in their own home; (ii) second, tongue-speaking…will not bring the message of the gospel of Christ home to unbelievers. …Unbelievers do not produce prophetic speech which communicates gospel truth. Hence on one side prophetic speech characterizes the believing church at worship; tongues, on the other side, constitute negative signs (at least in public and in their effect) generating barriers and alienation inappropriate for believers. …Paul portrays speaking in tongues as a sign which inexpert unbelievers (rightly or wrongly) associate with, and interpret as, pagan μανιά, and thereby are pushed yet further away into judgment. On the other hand, prophetic speech brings genuine conviction (ἔλγχος) of truth, and hence faith.”8
Thomas Schreiner: “Judgment, of course, is not the only function of tongues since interpreted tongues edify the church (14:5).”9
Tongues also build up the speaker (14:4) and give God praise and thanks (14:15-17).
1 Corinthians 14:26-33 Here Paul limited the number of tongues speakers and prophets to two or three each. In v27, someone other than the speaker interprets the tongue. Putting this together with v13, we see that either the same person can interpret or another can. Prophesying Christians can control when to stop, and they can resist the urge to start.
1 Corinthians 14:34-36 We covered these verses in session 12 “Women in 1 Corinthians”.
1 Corinthians 14:37-40 Paul left them with three final instructions: (1) strive to prophesy, (2) do not forbid speaking in tongues, (3) everything is to be done decently and in order.
Application
Anthony Thiselton: “Paul now makes utterly explicit what had lain implicitly in his earlier rhetoric. Not only does the rhetoric of the body reassure those with supposedly “inferior” or “dispensable” gifts that they do indeed belong fully to the body as essential limbs and organs, but this rhetoric now explicitly rebukes those who think that they and their “superior” gifts are self-sufficient for the whole body, or that others are scarcely “authentic” parts of the body, as they themselves are. It is hardly mere speculation to imagine that those who perceived themselves as possessing the “high-status” gifts of knowledge and wisdom, or of the power to heal or to speak in tongues, could be tempted to think of themselves as the inner circle on whom the identity and function of the church really depended. In modern times, the tendency to select either one or more of the “gifts” in 12:8–10, or to interpret the baptism by or in the Spirit in 12:13 as the sign of “advanced” status, comes perilously near to the Corinthian heresy which Paul explicitly attacks.”10
Don’t think you’re better than others because you go to a continuationist church that makes time for divine speech on Sundays. That doesn’t make us advanced or superior to other Christians. Even so, the opposite problem is quite prevalent in Christianity today.
N. T. Wright: “Paul’s overriding concern…is for order, peace and mutual upbuilding when the congregation comes together for worship, rather than for chaos, interruption and dissension. Of course, there are many churches today where there is so much order and peace that Paul might have wondered if everyone had gone to sleep.”11
Bibliography
Aristides, Publius Aelius. Orations 27-53. Translated by Charles A. Behr. Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 1981.
Chrysostom, Dio. Discourses 31-36. Translated by Lam J. W. Cohoon. Vol. 3. Loeb Classical Library, edited by T. E. Page. London, England: William Heinemann, 1940.
Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology. 3rd ed. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002.
Schreiner, Thomas R. 1 Corinthians. Vol. 7. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, edited by Eckhard J. Schnabel. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018.
Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Vol. 13. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
Wright, N. T. Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.
Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 31-36, trans. Lam J. W. Cohoon, vol. 3, Loeb Classical Library, ed. T. E. Page (London, England: William Heinemann, 1940), 355-7.
Publius Aelius Aristides, Orations 27-53, trans. Charles A. Behr, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 32.
Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995), 40.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology, 3rd ed. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 190-1.
Martin, 87-8.
Martin, 87.
Martin, 95-6, 101-2.
Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, vol. 13, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 1121-23, 26.
Thomas R. Schreiner, 1 Corinthians, vol. 7, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, ed. Eckhard J. Schnabel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018), 291.
Thiselton, 1005.
N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 200.
The post 16. Love and Edification in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
52 min
March 05, 202515. Speaking in Tongues in 1 Corinthians
Download: Speaking in Tongues in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 12:7, 10; 13:1, 8-12; 14:2, 4, 6, 11, 13-19, 27-28
Acts 2:1-11; 10:44-46; 11:15-17; 19:6-7
Greco-Roman Background for Speaking in Tongues
We’ve looked at Corybantic male dancers, Bacchic female revelers, Sibyls, and oracles. The closest description to speaking in tongues we encountered was Lucan’s.
Oracle in a frenzy: “When she found it, first the wild frenzy overflowed through her foaming lips; she groaned and uttered loud inarticulate cries with panting breath; next, a dismal wailing filled the vast cave; and at last, when she was mastered, came the sound of articulate speech: “Roman, thou shalt have no part in the mighty ordeal and shalt escape the awful threats of war; and thou alone shalt stay at peace in a broad hollow of the Euboean coast.” Then Apollo closed up her throat and cut short her tale.”1 (Lucan, Civil War 5.190-197)
This doesn’t sound like she was speaking a foreign language. Rather she was groaning, crying, and panting.
Christopher Forbes: “[N]o convincing parallels whatsoever have been found within the traditions of Graeco-Roman religion, as they were known in the environment of the New Testament, whether it be at the level of terminology, phenomena or concept. …Revelatory speech in those periods was believed to take an archaic poetic form, not, as I have shown, a form analogous to foreign languages. The “interpretation” that some oracles were believed to need was at the level of metaphor and imagery, not the linguistic level.”2
Magic papyrus: “And take the mild with the honey and drink it before the rising of the sun, and there will be something divine in your heart. And take the falcon and set it up as a statue in a shrine made of juniper wood. And after you have crowned the shrine itself, make an offering of non-animal foods and have on hand some old wine. And before you recline, speak directly to the bird itself after you have made sacrifice to it, as you usually do, and say the prescribed spell: “A EE EEE IIII OOOOO YYYYYY OOOOOOO, come to me, Good Husbandman, Good Daimon, HARPON KNOUPHI BRINTANTEN SIPHRI BRISKYLMA AROUAZAR KRIPHI NIPOUMICHMOUMAOPH. Come to me, O holy Orion.…”3
(Papyri Graecae Magicae I.27-29)
Craig Keener: “[T]he magical papyri may offer the most concrete parallels for unintelligible speech. Yet the strings of nonsense syllables found in magical papyri are mostly from the third century or later; more decisively, they are incantations and invocations, not understood as genuine language, not revelatory, and not inviting “interpretations.” Appeal to gnostic and Montanist “tongues” would be anachronistic, but there are no clear parallels there anyway. Greco-Roman religion thus offers no sufficient explanation for “tongues”—as a phenomenon understood as inspired “languages”—such as we find it in our earliest Christian sources.”4
What Is Speaking in Tongues? (1 Corinthians 12:7, 10)
Speaking in tongues is a gift (1 Cor 12:4, 31).
Tongues are languages (cf. Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon).
These languages can be interpreted or translated.
Someone can have more than one language for speaking in tongues.
Thomas Schreiner: “Most scholars think that the gift in 1 Corinthians 12-14 differs from what we find in Acts, and many think that ‘ecstatic utterances’ are in view. Certainty is impossible, but I suggest that the gift is foreign languages, just as we see in Acts. …Tongues must be in some discernible code or language, even if the language is not known to humans. Since ecstatic speech cannot be interpreted or translated inasmuch as it consists of meaningless babbling and there is no discernible code, the word glossa points to some kind of language. Different kinds of tongues, then, points to the variety of languages.”5
Tongues in the Acts of the Apostles
Acts 2:1-11 Tongues were human languages. Foreigners understood them even though they were untranslated. The content of the speech was about God’s deeds of power. It was not a miracle of hearing but of speaking.
Acts 10:44-46; 11:15-17 Peter was surprised to see Gentiles speaking in tongues. He recognized what they were doing as the same phenomenon he had experienced on Pentecost and concluded that meant God had accepted them as members of the Church.
Acts 19:6-7 Luke employed the same Greek terminology here as on Pentecost or Cornelius’s house, which undermines the NRSV’s translation “speak in other languages” for Acts 2 while “speaking in tongues” for Acts 10 and 19. In other words, speaking in tongues is speaking in other languages.
If Luke described Paul’s missionary activity in Ephesus (Acts 19) as involving glossa (γλῶσσα), then we would expect different terminology in 1 Corinthians 12-14 if it was a different phenomenon.
Craig Keener: “[It] is virtually inconceivable that the two writers [Luke and Paul] would independently coin the same obscure phrase for two entirely different phenomena.”6
Thus, we’re on solid grounds to link the activity of tongues in Acts with that of 1 Corinthians while noting the change in context. Whereas in Acts tongues speaking happened at conversion, in 1 Corinthians it occurred as part of the weekly worship gathering.
Tongues of Angels
1 Corinthians 13:1 Paul mentions tongues of humans and of angels.
The gods spoke a different language: “Tell me, do you think Apollo speaks Attic or Doric? Or that men and gods have the same language? Yet the difference is so great that the Scamander river in Troy is called Xanthus by the gods …And after telling us that the river is called not Scamander but Xanthus by the gods, Homer himself proceeds to call it by this latter name in his verses, as though it were his privilege not only to mix the various dialectic forms of the Greeks freely, using now an Aeolic, now a Dorian, and now an Ionic form, but to employ even the Zeus dialect in the bargain.”7 (Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 10.23, 11.23)
In Jewish apocalyptic literature, we find two intriguing examples of speaking the language of angels.
Example 1: “Thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads of angels gave praise before me. I, myself, put on an angelic garment. I saw all of those angels praying. I, myself, prayed together with them, I knew their language, which they spoke with me.”8 (Apocalypse of Zephaniah 8.2-4)
Example 2: “48.1 Thus, when the one called Hemera arose, she wrapped around her own string just as her father said. 2 And she took on another heart— no longer minded toward earthly things— 3 but she spoke ecstatically in the angelic dialect, sending up a hymn to God in accord with the hymnic style of the angels. And as she spoke ecstatically, she allowed “The Spirit” to be inscribed on her garment. 49.1 Then Kasia bound hers on and had her heart changed so that she no longer regarded worldly things. 2 And her mouth took on the dialect of the archons and she praised God for the creation of the heights. 3 So, if anyone wishes to know “The Creation of the Heavens,” he will be able to find it in “The Hymns of Kasia.” 50.1 Then the other one also, named Amaltheia’s Horn, bound on her cord. And her mouth spoke ecstatically in the dialect of those on high, 2 since her heart also was changed, keeping aloof from worldly things. For she spoke in the dialect of the cherubim, glorifying the Master of virtues by exhibiting their splendor. 3 And finally whoever wishes to grasp a trace of “The Paternal Splendor” will find it written down in “The Prayers of Amaltheia’s Horn.”9 (Testament of Job 48.1-50.3)
Christopher Forbes: “What the Testament [of Job] does provide, however, is clear evidence that the concept of angelic languages as a mode of praise to God was an acceptable one within certain circles. As such it is our nearest parallel to glossolalia. …We have, then, within Judaism, only two substantial parallels for the concept that humans might, under inspiration, learn and use the languages of the angels for prayer. Neither of them is of demonstrably pre-Christian date.”10
In light of the parallels in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah and the Testament of Job as well as the commonsense argument of Dio Chrysostom that the gods presumably have their own language, it’s certainly plausible that at least some speaking in tongues is in the languages of the angels.
Tongues in the Assembly (1 Cor 14)
1 Corinthians 14:2, 4 Tongues are to God—prayer. No one understands them though they build up the speaker.
1 Corinthians 14:6, 11 Tongues sound like a foreign language, though they are not a learned foreign language.
1 Corinthians 14:13-19 While speaking in tongues, the speakers do not understand what they are saying. Speaking in tongues is primarily done in private (Jude 1:19-20; Eph 6:18-19).
1 Corinthians 14:27-28 Uninterpreted spoken tongues have no place in the weekly worship gathering though they are fine to be done silently.
Gordon Fee: “The following seem certain: (a) It is Spirit-inspired utterance; that is made explicit both in the present listing (vv. 7 and 11) and later (14:2). (b) The coming regulations for its use (14:27–28) make it clear that the speaker is not in “ecstasy” or “out of control.” Quite the opposite; the speakers must speak in turn, and they must remain silent if there is no one to interpret. (c) It is speech essentially unintelligible both to the speaker (14:14) and to other hearers (14:16). (d) It is speech directed basically toward God (14:2, 14–15, 28); one may assume, therefore, that what is “interpreted” is not speech directed toward others, but the “mysteries” spoken to God.
What is less certain is whether Paul also understood the phenomenon to be an actual language. In favor of such a view are (a) the term itself, (b) the need for “interpretation,” and (c) the evidence from the early narrative in Acts (2:5–11). In the final analysis, however, this question seems irrelevant. Paul’s whole argument is predicated on its unintelligibility to both speaker and hearer; he certainly does not envisage someone’s being present who would be able to understand it because it was also an earthly language. Moreover, his later use of earthly languages as an analogy (14:10–12) implies that it is not a known earthly language, since a thing is not usually identical with that to which it is analogous. Most likely, therefore, the key to Paul’s—and their—understanding lies in the term “the language of angels” to come (13:1, q.v.).”11
N. T. Wright: “Paul assumes that none of these gifts are given to everybody. ‘Do all speak in tongues?’, like the other questions, expects the answer ‘No.’ And, though Paul is always eager for God to do new things in the lives of people and communities, he sees no need to suggest that the ‘not all’ categories of verses 29 and 30 should be challenged, that everyone should, after all, be prophets, or teachers, or tongue-speakers, or whatever.”12
Tongues Ceased After the Apostolic Age
1 Corinthians 13:8-12 Paul says that tongues will end when the complete or perfect comes. Some argue that this has already happened.
John MacArthur: “In 1 Corinthians 13:8, Paul explained that “whether there are tongues, they will cease.” The Greek verb used in that verse (pauo) means “to cease permanently,” indicating that the gift of tongues would come to an end once and for all. … [W]hatever modern charismatics are doing, it is not the gift of languages. …The New Testament gift ceased after the apostolic age ended and has never returned. In 1 Corinthians 13:10, Paul noted that partial knowledge and partial prophecy would be done away with “when that which is perfect has come.” …[T]he believer’s entrance into the Lord’s presence best fits Paul’s use of “perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10. …[Paul] was making a point that specifically pertained to his first-century audience: when you Corinthian believers enter the glorified perfection of eternity in heaven, the spiritual gifts you now prize so highly will no longer be necessary.”13
Tongues Continued After the Apostolic Age
Irenaeus: “[T]he Apostle declares: We speak wisdom among the perfect. He calls those perfect who have received God’s Spirit and who speak with all the tongues through the Spirit, as he himself spoke. We, too, hear many brothers in the Church who possess the prophetic charisms, and speak with all the tongues through the Spirit, and bring out into the open secrets of men for the benefit of others, and declare the mysteries of God.”14 (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.6.1)
Tertullian (208-212 ad): “Let Marcion then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God, such as have both predicted things to come, and have made manifest the secrets of the heart; let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer—only let it be by the Spirit, in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture, whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him; let him show to me also, that any woman of boastful tongue in his community has ever prophesied from amongst those specially holy sisters of his. Now all these signs (of spiritual gifts) are forthcoming from my side without any difficulty….” (Tertullian, Against Marcion 5.8)15
Novatian (250-255 ad): “This is He who places prophets in the Church, instructs teachers, directs tongues, gives powers and healings, does wonderful works, often discrimination of spirits, affords powers of government, suggests counsels, and orders and arranges whatever other gifts there are of charismata; and thus make the Lord’s Church everywhere, and in all, perfected and completed.”16 (Novation, On the Trinity 29)
Hilary of Poitiers (356-360 ad)
“For God hath set the same in the Church, first apostles, in whom is the word of wisdom; secondly prophets, in whom is the gift of knowledge thirdly teachers, in whom is the doctrine of faith; next mighty works, among which are the healing of diseases, the power to help, governments by the prophets, and gifts of either speaking or interpreting divers kinds of tongues. Clearly these are the Church’s agents of ministry and work of whom the body of Christ consists; and God has ordained them.”17 (Hilary, On the Trinity 8.33)
Apostolic Constitutions (375-380 ad)
“It is not therefore necessary that every one of the faithful should cast out demons, or raise the dead, or speak with tongues; but such a one only who is vouchsafed this gift, for some cause which may be advantage to the salvation of the unbelievers… God is pleased, as a wise steward of a family, to appoint miracles to be wrought, not by the power of men, but by His own will. Now we say these things, that those who have received such gifts may not exalt themselves against those who have not received them; such gifts, we mean, as are for the working of miracles. For otherwise there is no man who has believed in God through Christ, that has not received some spiritual gift….”18 (Apostolic Constitutions 8.1-2)
Ambrose (writing 381-382 ad): “See, God set apostles, and set prophets and teachers, gave the gift of healings, which you find above to be given by the Holy Spirit; gave divers kinds of tongues. But yet all are not apostles, all are not prophets, all are not teachers. Not all, says he, have the gift of healings, nor do all, says he, speak with tongues. For the whole of the divine gifts cannot exist in each several man; each, according to his capacity, receives that which he either desires or deserves.”19 (Ambrose, The Holy Spirit 2.150)
Tongues Ceased After the Fourth Century
John Chrysostom (late 4th cent.) “This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why look now, the cause too of the obscurity hath produced us again another question: namely, why did they then happen, and now do so no more?”20 (John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians 29)
Christopher Forbes: “From the end of the fourth century onwards I have been able to find no clear suggestion of the continued practice of glossolalia within the church. Chrysostom’s view, which is also Augustine’s, becomes standard, and little more can be said. What we have seen, however, is that glossolalia appears to have been known in three widely separated areas over a period of more than three hundred and fifty years of the church’s life. In the light of this evidence, it becomes impossible to argue that glossolalia was a limited, anomalous phenomenon within the Apostolic generation. It was, on the contrary, a widespread and lasting (though far from universal) spiritual experience in the early formative centuries of Christianity.”21
Although the tracks run cold for a few centuries, we find scattered reports about speaking in tongues starting in the time of the Moravians (15th c.), Anabaptists (16th c.), the French Prophets (17th c.), early Quakers (17th c.), Mormons (19th c.). Then at the dawn of the 20th c., the Pentecostal movement began with William Seymour’s Azusa Street Revival. The movement steadily grew such that today more than one in every four Christians is charismatic (an estimated 644 million Christians).22
Bibliography
Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, Homily, and Liturgies. Translated by William Whiston. Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Robertson and James Donaldson, vol. 7. Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1885.
“Global Pentecostalism.” Gordon Conwell. Accessed March 4, 2025. https://www.gordonconwell.edu/center-for-global-christianity/research/global-pentecostalism.
“Have Pentecostals Outgrown Their Name?”, Christianity Today, May 29, 2020. Accessed March 4, 2025. https://www.christianitytoday.com/2020/05/holy-spirit-empowered-christian-global-pentecostal-study/.
Ambrose. Selected Works and Letters. Translated by Henri de Romestin. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (2nd Series), edited by Philip Schaff, vol. 10. Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1890.
Betz, Hans Dieter. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Charlesworth, James H. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volumes 1 and 2. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.
Chrysostom, Dio. Discourses 1-11. Translated by J. W. Cohoon. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library, edited by E. H. Warmington. London, England: William Henemann, 1932.
Chrysostom, John. Homilies on First and Second Corinthians. Translated by T. W. Chambers. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff, vol. 12. Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1886.
Fee, Gordon D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Revised Edition. New International Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Joel B. Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014.
Forbes, Christopher. Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and Its Hellenistic Environment. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997.
Irenaeus. St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against Heresies (Books 4 and 5). Translated by Scott D. Moringiello. Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press, 2024.
Keener, Craig S. Acts: An Exegetical Commentary. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014.
Lucan. The Civil War 1-10 (Pharsalia). Translated by J. D. Duff. Loeb Classical Library, edited by T. E. Page. London, England: William Heinemann, 1962.
MacArthur, John. Strange Fire: The Dangers of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship. Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2013.
Novatian. Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix. Translated by Robert Ernest Wallis. Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Robertson and James Donaldson, vol. 5. Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1885.
Potiers, Hilary of. Hilary of Potiers and John of Damascus. Translated by E. W. Watson. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (2nd Series), edited by Philip Schaff, vol. 9. Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1890.
Schreiner, Thomas R. 1 Corinthians. Vol. 7. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, edited by Eckhard J. Schnabel. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018.
Tertullian. Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. Translated by S. Thelwall. Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Robertson and James Donaldson, vol. 3. Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1885.
Wright, N. T. Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.
Lucan, The Civil War 1-10 (Pharsalia), trans. J. D. Duff, Loeb Classical Library, ed. T. E. Page (London, England: William Heinemann, 1962), 253.
Christopher Forbes, Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and Its Hellenistic Environment (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997), 316-17.
Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 3-4.
Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014), 810-11.
Thomas R. Schreiner, 1 Corinthians, vol. 7, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, ed. Eckhard J. Schnabel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018), 261-2.
Keener, 813.
Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 1-11, trans. J. W. Cohoon, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library, ed. E. H. Warmington (London, England: William Henemann, 1932), 435, 63.
James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volumes 1 and 2 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985).
Charlesworth.
Forbes, 185-87.
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Revised Edition, New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 662-3.
N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 169.
John MacArthur, Strange Fire: The Dangers of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2013), 148-9.
Irenaeus, St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against Heresies (Books 4 and 5), trans. Scott D. Moringiello (Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press, 2024), 138-9.
Tertullian, Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, trans. S. Thelwall, Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Robertson and James Donaldson, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1885).
Novatian, Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Robertson and James Donaldson, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1885).
Hilary of Potiers, Hilary of Potiers and John of Damascus, trans. E. W. Watson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (2nd Series), ed. Philip Schaff, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1890).
Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, Homily, and Liturgies, trans. William Whiston, Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Robertson and James Donaldson, vol. 7 (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1885).
Ambrose, Selected Works and Letters, trans. Henri de Romestin, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (2nd Series), ed. Philip Schaff, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1890).
John Chrysostom, Homilies on First and Second Corinthians, trans. T. W. Chambers, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1886).
Forbes, 84.
“Global Pentecostalism,” Gordon Conwell, accessed March 4, 2025, https://www.gordonconwell.edu/center-for-global-christianity/research/global-pentecostalism. See also “Have Pentecostals Outgrown Their Name?,” Christianity Today, May 29, 2020, accessed March 4, 2025, https://www.christianitytoday.com/2020/05/holy-spirit-empowered-christian-global-pentecostal-study/.
The post 15. Speaking in Tongues in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
53 min
March 01, 202514. Inspiration and Divine Speech in 1 Corinthians
Download: Inspiration and Divine Speech in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 12:4-11; 13:1-2; 14:2-4, 27-33
Divine Speech in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 12:4-11 This list is a Christian perspective on how God’s spirit miraculously shows up (manifests) through those who are in Christ. Speech acts include utterances of wisdom, utterances of knowledge, prophecies, various kinds of speaking in tongues, interpretations of tongues, and, arguably, discerning of spirits.
In what follows, we’ll contrast the biblical understanding of inspiration and divine speech against the background of the Greco-Roman world.
Inspiration in the Greco-Roman World
The organ of divination: “For they who constructed us, remembering the injunction of their Father, when He enjoined upon them to make the mortal kind as good as they possibly could, rectified the vile part of us by thus establishing therein the organ of divination, that it might in some degree lay hold on truth. And that God gave unto man’s foolishness the gift of divination a sufficient token is this: no man achieves true and inspired divination when in his rational mind, but only when the power of his intelligence is fettered in sleep or when it is distraught by disease or by reason of some divine inspiration. …[T]he liver is such as we have stated and situated in the region we have described, for the sake of divination.”1 (Plato, Timaeus 71D-72B)
Gods speaking indirectly: “Do we wait for the immortal gods to converse with us in the forum, on the street, and in our homes? While they do not, of course, present themselves in person, they do diffuse their power far and wide—sometimes enclosing it in caverns of the earth and sometimes imparting it to human beings. The Pythian priestess at Delphi was inspired by the power of the earth and the Sibyl by that of nature.”2 (Cicero, On Divination36.79)
Muses inspiring great poetry: “In the same manner [as a magnet] the Muse inspires men [and women] herself, and then by means of these inspired persons the inspiration spreads to others, and holds them in a connected chain. For all the good epic poets utter all those fine poems not from art, but as inspired and possessed, and the good lyric poets likewise; just as the Corybantian worshippers do not dance when in their senses, so the lyric poets do not indite those fine songs in their senses, but when they have started on the melody and rhythm they begin to be frantic, and it is under possession—as the bacchants are possessed, and not in their senses. …[E]ach is able only to compose that to which the Muse has stirred him. …God takes away the mind of these men [and women] and uses them as his ministers, just as he does soothsayers and godly seers, in order that we who hear them may know that it is not they who utter these words of great price, when they are out of their wits, but that it is God himself who speaks and addresses us through them.”3 (Plato, Ion 533E-544D)
More on Muses: “Hesiod even gives their names when he writes: ‘Cleio, Euterpe, and Thaleia, Melpomene, Terpsichore and Erato, and Polymnia, Uania, Calliope too, of them all the most comely.’ To each of the Muses men assign her special aptitude for one of the branches of the liberal arts, such as poetry, song, pantomimic dancing, the round dance with music, the study of the stars, and the other liberal arts.”4 (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 7.2-3)
Cybele and Ecstatic Dancing
Cybele’s Corybantian frenzied dancers: “They invented suitable names for the flute, and for the noise of the rattles, cymbals, and drums, and for the shouting, the Bakchic cries, and foot-stomping, as well as for the servants, choral dancers, and the attendants of the sacred rites. …Similar to these [rituals] are those among the Thracian…one holds in his hand the bombyx, the result of great effort with the turning lathe, and it fully fills the fingered melody, the call that brings on the madness. Another makes a loud sound with the bronze-bound …Because the Korybantes are ecstatic dancers, we say that those who are moved to frenzy are “korybantic.”5 (Strabo, Geography 10.3.16, 21)
Cybele’s castrated priests of Attis: “Insofar as metragyrtai were following Attis in castrating themselves, they were demonstrating their commitment to the Mother alone, in an excessive form of devotion. It is possible that this behaviour was stimulated by the experience of taking part in ecstatic rites in honour of the Mother. …Self-castration was clearly not expected of the crowds who took part in her festivals whether in Greek cities or even at Rome. The more universal experience of her worship was the music of pipes and horns and the noise of drums, tambourines and castanets.”6
Bacchus (Dionysus) and Ecstatic Prophecies
Manic prophecies: “The god [Dionysus] is also a prophet: for the ecstatic and the manic have mantic [prophetic] powers in large measure. When the god enters someone in force, he causes him in madness to predict the future.”7 (Euripides, Bacchae 298-301)
Fanatical tossings and prophecies: “Men, as if insane, with fanatical tossings of their bodies, would utter prophecies.”8 (Livy, History of Rome13)
A cult primarily for women: “Women are prominent among Dionysos’ devotees, indeed the civic cults are exclusively women’s. …The revelers forsook their homes and cities to gather at night in the wilderness, especially on mountains, to hold torches and dance to wild music, especially of the flute, drum, and cymbal. An important object of the ritual, induced through the music and dancing, was the attainment of ecstasy, which was understood in terms of coming under the power of the god himself. Not all participants, who were called “Mainades,” “Bakchai,” “Thyiades,” or similar titles, experienced this Dionysiac grace.”9
Nymphs Inspiring the Sibyls
Famous sibyls who prophesied: “There is a rock sticking up out of the earth at which the Delphians say the Sibyl Herophile stood to sing her oracles. I discovered that the earlier Sibyl was among the most ancient in the world; the Greeks say she was the daughter of Zeus and Lamia, daughter of Poseidon: they say she was the first woman to sing oracles and was named Sibyl by the Libyans. …The Delians record her Hymn to Apollo: in the verses she calls herself Artemis as well as Herophile, and then says she is Apollo’s sister, and again his daughter. She wrote all this when raving and possessed by the god; elsewhere in the oracles she said her mother was an immortal … Hyperochos of Cumae has written about the succeeding Sibyl who prophesied in the same way: how she came from Cumae in the Opician territory, and her name was Demo. …Then later than Demo there was a prophetic woman reared among the Jews beyond Palestine; her name was Sabbe. …Phaennis, daughter of the king of the Chaonians, and the Rock-pigeons at Dodona gave oracles from the god, but people never called them Sibyls. …They say Euklous was a Cypriot prophet, and Mousaios son of Antiophemos and Lykos son of Pandion were Athenians, and Bakis from Boiotia was possessed by the nymphs: I have read their prophecies.… These are the men and women down to my day who are said to have given oracles from the god; but in the long course of time there could still be as many again.”10 (Pausanias, Guide to Greece12)
A frightening account of Apollo possessing a sibyl: “Now carved out of the rocky flanks of Cumae lies an enormous cavern pierced by a hundred tunnels, a hundred mouths with as many voices rushing out, the Sibyl’s rapt replies. They had just gained the sacred sill when the virgin cries aloud: “Now is the time to ask your fate to speak! The god, look, the god!” So she cries before the entrance—suddenly all her features all her color changes, her braided hair flies loose and her breast heaves, her heart bursts with frenzy, she seem to rise in height, the ring of her voice no longer human—the breath, the power of god comes closer, closer. “Why so slow, Trojan Aeneas?” she shouts, “so slow to pray, to swear your vows? Not until you do will the great jaws of our spellbound house gape wide.” And with that command the prophetess fell silent. …[Aeneas prays to Apollo]. …But the Sibyl, still not broken in by Apollo, storms with a wild fury through her cave. And the more she tries to pitch the great god off her breast, the more his bridle exhausts her raving lips, overwhelming her untamed heart, bending her to his will. Now the hundred immense mouths of the house swing open, all on their own, and bear the Sibyl’s answers through the air.”11 (Virgil, Aeneid52-67, 93-99)
Oracles
Consulting an oracle involved approaching a temple or shrine, paying a fee, submitting your question, and awaiting an answer. Clergy took your question to the oracle who would summon an answer from a god in an inner chamber. The priests would turn that into poetry and write your answer down and give it to you.
One example comes from Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism: “[W]hen he consulted an oracle about what he should do to live the best life, the god replied that he should have intercourse with the dead. Grasping the oracle’s meaning, he read the works of the ancients.”12 (Diogenes, Lives2)
Inspiration worked through the person’s abilities: “[E]ven if these verses [of the oracle of Delphi] be inferior to Homer’s, let us not believe that the god has composed them, but that he supplies the origin of the incitement, and then the prophetic priestesses are moved each in accordance with her natural faculties. … As a matter of fact, the voice is not that of a god, nor the utterance of it, nor the diction, nor the metre, but all these are the woman’s; he puts into her mind only the visions, and creates a light in her soul in regard to the future; for inspiration is precisely this.”13 (Plutarch, Moralia 397C, The Oracles at Delphi 7)
Limitations of inspiration: “Now this power cannot move to flight that which can only walk or run, nor move a lisp to clear speaking, nor a shrill thin voice to melodious utterance. …So in the same way it is impossible for the unlettered man who has never read verse to talk like a poet.”14 (Plutarch, Moralia 405BC, The Oracles at Delphi 22)
The god does not take control of the voice: “Certainly it is foolish and childish in the extreme to imagine that the god himself after the manner of ventriloquists (who used to be called ‘Eurycleis,’ but now ‘Pythones’) enters into the bodies of his prophets and prompts their utterances, employing their mouths and voices as instruments.”15 (Plutarch, Moralia 414E, Obsolescence of Oracles 9)
Those seeking inspiration must prepare mentally and physically: “It is not true, as Euripides says, that “The best of seers is he that guesses well;” no, the best of seers is the intelligent man, following the guidance of that in his soul…brought about by a temperament and disposition of the body as it is subjected to a change which we call inspiration. …[T]he prophetic current and breath is most divine and holy, whether it issue by itself through the air or come in the company of running waters; for when it is instilled into the body, it creates in souls an unaccustomed and unusual temperament, the peculiarity of which it is hard to describe with exactness, but analogy offers many comparisons. It is likely that by warmth and diffusion it opens up certain passages through which impressions of the future are transmitted, just as wine, when its fumes rise to the head, reveals many unusual movements and also words stored away and unperceived. …But I incline most to the opinion that the soul acquires towards the prophetic spirit a close and intimate connexion of the sort that vision has towards light, which possesses similar properties. For, although the eye has the power of vision, there is no function for it to perform without light; and so the prophetic power of the soul, like an eye, has need of something kindred to help to kindle it and stimulate it further.”16 (Plutarch, Moralia 432CDE, 433D, Obsolescence of Oracles 40, 42)
Scripture Parallels Involving Music
1 Samuel 10:5-6, 10-13 A band of prophets with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre encounters Saul who prophecies
1 Samuel 19:20-24 When coming to capture Samuel, the spirit of God came upon Saul’s messengers with the result that they fell into a prophetic frenzy. Saul himself came, and he too fell into prophecy, stripping off his clothes, and lying naked all day and night.
1 Samuel 16:23 David’s lyre playing relieved Saul, causing the evil spirit to depart from him.
2 Kings 3:13-19 When the king requested a prophecy from Elisha, he requested a musician to play. While he was playing, the hand of Yahweh came upon him, and he prophesied.
The Oracle of Delphi
“Inspiration depended on both the earth exhaling a gas (ethylene?) and the oracle preparing herself: “I think, then, that the exhalation is not in the same state all the time, but that it has recurrent periods of weakness and strength. Of the proof on which I depend I have as witnesses many foreigners and all the officials and servants at the shrine. It is a fact that the room in which they seat those who would consult the god is filled, not frequently or with any regularity, but as it may chance from time to time, with a delightful fragrance coming on a current of air which bears it towards the worshippers, as if its source were in the holy of holies; [ἐκ πηγῆς τοῦ ἀδύτου = from the innermost spring] and it is like the odour which the most exquisite and costly perfumes send forth. …If this does not seem credible, you will at least all agree that the prophetic priestess herself is subjected to differing influences, varying from time to time, which affect that part of her soul with which the spirit of inspiration comes into association, and that she does not always keep one temperament, like a perfect concord, unchanged on every occasion. For many annoyances and disturbances of which she is conscious, and many more unperceived, lay hold upon her body and filter into her soul; and whenever she is replete with these, it is better that she should not go there and surrender herself to the control of the god, when she is not completely unhampered (as if she were a musical instrument, well strung and well tuned), but is in a state of emotion and instability.”17 (Plutarch, Moralia 437CD, Obsolescence of Oracles 50).
More on the mysterious breath in the cave: “They say that the oracle is in a hollow cave that is deep with a rather narrow mouth, and from which a divinely inspired breath rises up. A high tripod is placed over the mouth which the Pythia mounts and, receiving the breath, utters both metrical and unmetrical oracles, with the latter put into meter by certain poets who are in the service of the sanctuary. They say that the first Pythia was Phemonoe, and the prophetess and city were so-called from “to inquire” (pythesthai). …Greater honor resulted for the temple because of the oracle, for it obtained the reputation of being the most truthful of all.”18 (Strabo, Geography3.5-6)
Forced inspiration resulted in disastrous results: “Whenever, then, the imaginative and prophetic faculty is in a state of proper adjustment for attempering itself to the spirit as to a drug, inspiration in those who foretell the future is bound to come; and whenever the conditions are not thus, it is bound not to come, or when it does come to be misleading, abnormal, and confusing, as we know in the case of the priestess who died not so long ago. As it happened, a deputation from abroad had arrived to consult the oracle. The victim, it is said, remained unmoved and unaffected in any way by the first libations; but the priests, in their eagerness to please, went far beyond their wonted usage, and only after the victim had been subjected to a deluge and nearly drowned did it at last give in. What, then, was the result touching the priestess? She went down into the oracle unwillingly, they say, and halfheartedly; and at her first responses it was at once plain from the harshness of her voice that she was not responding properly; she was like a labouring ship and was filled with a mighty and baleful [κακοῦ] spirit. Finally she became hysterical and with a frightful shriek rushed towards the exit and threw herself down, with the result that not only the members of the deputation fled, but also the oracle-interpreter Nicander and those holy men that were present. However, after a little, they went in and took her up, still conscious; and she lived on for a few days.
It is for these reasons that they guard the chastity of the priestess, and keep her life free from all association and contact with strangers, and take the omens before the oracle, thinking that it is clear to the god when she has the temperament and disposition suitable to submit to the inspiration without harm to herself. The power of the spirit does not affect all persons nor the same persons always in the same way, but it only supplies an enkindling and an inception, as has been said, for them that are in a proper state to be affected and to undergo the change. The power comes from the gods and demigods, but, for all that, it is not unfailing nor imperishable nor ageless, lasting into that infinite time by which all things between earth and moon become wearied out, according to our reasoning.”19 (Plutarch, Moralia 438ABCD, Obsolescence of Oracles 51)
Example of the oracle seeing a vision: “And if any Greeks are present, let them approach in an order determined by lot, as is the custom; for I prophesy as the god guides me. [She goes into the temple. A moment later she comes out again, terrified, crawling on hands and knees like a baby. It is some time before she can speak.] Things truly fearful to speak of, fearful to behold with the eyes…they have taken away my strength and made me unable to stand upright, so that I run on my hands instead of making speed with my legs! …I am on my way to the inner shrine richly hung with wreaths, and there I see a man sitting at the navel-stone as a suppliant for purification, a man polluted in the eyes of the gods, his hands dripping blood, holding a newly-drawn sword.…”20 (Aeschylus, Eumenides 31-42)
Opinions about the Oracle at Delphi
Epicurus rejected all oracles: “Epicurus rejects all divination…and says, “No means of foretelling the future exists; but even if it did, we should regard what happens according to it as nothing to us.”21 (Diogenes, Lives 135)
Cicero thought the oracle at Delphi had ceased: “Why are the Delphic oracles (of which I have just given you examples) not uttered at the present time and have not been for a long time?”22 (Cicero, On Divination56.116)
Lucan was convinced it was still happening in the 60s AD: “Themis was then queen and mistress of the oracle; but, when Apollo saw that the huge chasm in the earth breathed forth divine truth, and that the ground gave out a wind that spoke, then he enshrined himself in the sacred caves, brooded over the holy place, and there became a prophet. …When this inspiration has found a harbour in a maiden’s bosom, it strikes the human soul of the priestess audibly, and unlocks her lips…For, if the god enters the bosom of any, untimely death is her penalty, or her reward, for having received him; because the human frame is broken up by the sting and surge of that frenzy, and the stroke from heaven shatters the brittle life. …Scared at last the maiden took refuge by the tripods; she drew near to the vast chasm and there stayed; and her bosom for the first time drew in the divine power, which the inspiration of the rock, still active after so many centuries forced upon her. At last Apollo mastered the breast of the Delphian priestess; as fully as ever in the past, he forced his way into her body, driving out her former thoughts, and bidding her human nature to come forth and leave her heart at his disposal. Frantic she careens about the cave, with her neck under possession; the fillets and garlands of Apollo, dislodged by her bristling hair, she whirls with tossing head through the void spaces of the temple; she scatters the tripods that impede her random course; she boils over with fierce fire, while enduring the wrath of Phoebus. …When she found it, first the wild frenzy overflowed through her foaming lips; she groaned and uttered loud inarticulate cries with panting breath; next, a dismal wailing filled the vast cave; and at last, when she was mastered, came the sound of articulate speech: “Roman, thou shalt have no part in the mighty ordeal and shalt escape the awful threats of war; and thou alone shalt stay at peace in a broad hollow of the Euboean coast.” Then Apollo closed up her throat and cut short her tale.”23 (Lucan, Civil War 81-85, 97-98, 161-174, 190-197)
Divine Speech in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 13:1-2 Love is necessary for tongues or prophecy (or other speech manifestations of the spirit). Nobody in the Greco-Roman literature talks about love in the context of divine speech.
1 Corinthians 14:2-4 Prophecy is for upbuilding, encouragement, consolation, and building up the church.
1 Corinthians 14:27-33 Not only is there no frenzy or madness, but the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. Christians can choose to start and stop when they like.

Bibliography
Aeschylus. Agamenmnon, Libation-Bearers, Eumenides. Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Vol. 2. Loeb Classical Library, edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Bowden, Hugh. Mystery Cults in the Ancient World. London, England: Thames and Hudson, 2023.
Cassidy, William. “Dionysos, Ecstasy, and the Forbidden.” Historical Reflections (Winter 1991: 23-44.
Cicero. De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione. Translated by William Armistead Falconer. Vol. 20. Loeb Classical Library, edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923.
Euripides. Bacchae, Iphigenia at Aulis, Rhesus. Translated by David Kovacs. Vol. 6. Loeb Classical Library, edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Pamela Mensch. Edited by James Miller. New York, NY: Oxford, 2020.
Livy. History of Rome 38-39. Translated by Evan T. Sage. Vol. 11. Loeb Classical Library, edited by T. E. Page. London, England: William Heinemann, 1936.
Lucan. The Civil War 1-10 (Pharsalia). Translated by J. D. Duff. Loeb Classical Library, edited by T. E. Page. London, England: William Heinemann, 1962.
Pausanias. Guide to Greece. Translated by Peter Levi. Penguin Classics. London, UK: Penguin, 1979.
Plato. The Statesman, Philebus, Ion. Translated by W. R. M. Lamb Harold N. Fowler. Vol. 8. Loeb Classical Library, edited by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925.
Plato. Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles. Translated by R. G. Bury. Vol. 9. Loeb Classical Library, edited by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929.
Plutarch. Isis and Osiris; the E at Delphi; the Oracles at Delphi; the Obsolescence of Oracles. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. Vol. 5. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1962.
Sicily, Diodorus of. Library of History. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 2. Loeb Classical Library, edited by E. H. Warmington. London, England: William Heinemann, 1935.
Strabo. The Geography. Translated by Duane W. Roller. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2020.
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Plato, Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles, trans. R. G. Bury, vol. 9, Loeb Classical Library, ed. G. P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929), 187, 89.
Cicero, De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione, trans. William Armistead Falconer, vol. 20, Loeb Classical Library, ed. Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923), 311.
Plato, The Statesman, Philebus, Ion, trans. W. R. M. Lamb Harold N. Fowler, vol. 8, Loeb Classical Library, ed. G. P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), 421-3.
Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History, trans. C. H. Oldfather, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library, ed. E. H. Warmington (London, England: William Heinemann, 1935), 363.
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Plutarch, Isis and Osiris; the E at Delphi; the Oracles at Delphi; the Obsolescence of Oracles, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, vol. 5, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1962), 397.
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