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You can find previous episodes of “The Stone Chapel Podcast” at Lanier Theological Library.
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This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
N.T. Wright
Hello. I’m Tom Wright, or you may know me as N.T. Wright, perhaps. I’m long retired, but now Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford.
David Capes
Dr. Tom Wright, good to see you. Welcome back to “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
N.T. Wright
Yes, good to be here.
David Capes
I’m looking forward to your lecture. You’re going to be in The Stone Chapel tomorrow night (June 7, 2025), giving the lecture on 1 Corinthians. It’s just a delight to welcome you and Maggie back. It’s my first time to meet Maggie.
N.T. Wright
Maggie finally made it here. I’ve been trying to persuade her to come, but she’s always worried about heat. She doesn’t do heat well.
David Capes
Well, this is a hot, hot weekend, I’m afraid. Let’s keep her comfortable in the AC. All right, so you’re going to be talking about 1 Corinthians for this lecture. You’ve talked about gospels before. You’ve talked about Paul before, and we’re back on Paul this time.
N.T. Wright
Yes, yes, back on Paul this time. And this is a particular theme which had never occurred to me and actually, I’ve got a little project I’m trying to work on at the moment, which is called “50 Things I Wish I’d Known 50 Years Ago”. Because there’s all sorts of things which seem to me enormously important now in the New Testament, which none of us were talking about when I was a keen teenage Christian, studying the Bible. When I was first ordained in my mid 20s, teaching young people to study the Bible. Things which never crossed our path, but which now seem really important.
One such thing jumped up and bit me on the nose some years ago when I was reading Bruce Winter, the Australian New Testament scholar who’s a trained ancient historian, talking about what happens in Acts 18. Paul is in Corinth, teaching in the synagogue, and they start to grumble. They don’t like it. They throw him out. So, he goes across the street to another house, and continues to teach. And then the Judeans, which is the word I now prefer to use rather than Jews, because Jews has all sorts of modern connotations. The Judeans drag him before the Roman Proconsul Gallio, and say this man is teaching us to do things which are contrary to the law. The Romans had given permission for the Judeans to worship in their own way, and equally important for the Judeans not to have to worship the
gods. The deal they struck, according to Josephus, was that the Judeans will pray to their god for Rome and Caesar, but they will not pray to Rome or Caesar. And most of the Caesars, with the notable exception of Caligula, particularly, said, fine, okay, we can live with that. But a lot of local people didn’t much like it, because if people stop worshiping the gods, then bad things are going to happen to the city. So that’s what’s behind this. The Judeans bring Paul before Galilo, and Gallio basically says, Ah, nothing to see here. This is just a little dispute about words and names in your own law, and it’s nothing to do with Roman law. Push off.
And the mob loves this because they don’t really like the Judeans, or much of them, and they beat up the ruler of the synagogue right in front of the tribunal, which is a nasty bit of local color. That’s the kind of culture they lived in. Well, for the first time Rome has said Christianity is legal because it’s a sub-branch of the Judaic way of life. In other words, the Judaic way already has Roman permission. Gallio says, as far as I’m concerned, it’s all part of the same thing. Now the Judeans in Corinth will have been furious at that, because suddenly all these Gentiles who have come into the church are now able to be free from worshiping the gods in the same way that they, the Judeans are. But Bruce Winter’s point
was, from that point on, Christianity is legal in southern Greece. Corinth is at the beginning of southern Greece when you come over the peninsula from Athens.
It means that the gospel can spread. People are not going to be put in jail. So by contrast just think where Paul’s been. He’s been stoned in southern Turkey. He’s been imprisoned with walls falling down in Philippi. He’s been chased out of Thessalonica. He’s been laughed out of court in Athens, and suddenly, now, hey guys, this thing is legal. Now fine.
I lived with that thing, which Bruce Winter argued for some years, and just thought, isn’t that splendid. At last, Rome is seeing the point. And of course, in the course of Acts, there are other Roman centurions of people who think that actually the Christians are quite good people. And Luke is naturally writing that up. But then it dawned on me, this is actually the best explanation for many, if not all, of the problems that Paul is dealing with in First Corinthians, because suddenly the church is comfortable. It’s the only set of letters—1 or 2 Corinthians—which doesn’t have any mention of the persecutions that they’re currently facing, with the exception of Philemon and the pastorals. But the others are all about
your opponents, the persecutions, the sufferings you’re having to go through, etc. Not in Corinth, they’re doing fine. Thank you very much.
And so 1 Corinthians 4, already you’re rich, already you’re kings. Gee, I wish I was with you. I could be a king too. Wouldn’t that be fun? And you get this picture of the comfortable Corinthians, where the church door is open. Hey guys, we’re having a party. Let’s see this new religious thing that’s in town, and the Roman governor seems quite happy with it. So, you get a bit of the Judaic culture, but you also get all these new fun experiences, like there are people who prophesy in there. They speak in tongues. Let’s go and see what’s going on. So a great mixed multitude floods into the church, and before you
know what’s happening, you have personality cults. You have sexual immorality. You are being careless about the poor. You have people being clueless about some of the basics of Christian worship, and particularly no idea what all this talk about resurrection would be.
You’ve got an outline of 1 Corinthians, but it makes sense in terms of, suddenly, this is popular, this is public, this is easy, this is open. This is not being persecuted.
David Capes
Not being taken seriously.
N.T. Wright
Well, in a way, not being taken seriously. So, my thesis is basically, let’s face it, we’re all Corinthians. Now, when I first thought this, my thought was, I’m a member of the Church of England. The Church of England is an established church, so obviously this is our problem. We are the Corinthians and maybe the free churches and the Baptists and whoever, they’re in a better place. But actually no. Ever since the 18th century in England, any Christian, of pretty much any variety, it’s all open season. There are no secret police at the door, counting you in, or taking photographs of you, or whatever. We’re all able to do our own thing.
And here in America, likewise, nobody’s coming after you for going to church on Sunday, whichever church it may be. And as a result, we’re not being persecuted. Although, if we take extreme positions, sometimes the newspapers will go after us and have a hippopotamus about this and that. But basically, as with the Corinthians, I think we’ve lost the art of what Paul is desperate to inculcate, which is to hold fast the way of Jesus the Messiah. To hold fast to Jesus as Lord, and to figure out, rather seriously, what that’s going to look like for a community about unity, about humility, about all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or anyone. In other words, no personality cults, please, because we’re focused on Jesus, not on these different human leaders. It’s basically then a challenge that from one point of view, a la Bruce Winter, this is great news for the early church legal. But then watch out for the downside of that, that when we get careless, people will just come in and treat it as a hobby. It’s like, I play tennis on a Wednesday night, chess on a Thursday night, and I go to this thing called church on Sunday. Isn’t that nice
David Capes
Oh, wow, I hadn’t thought about it in those particular terms. When you think about what happened in the early church, and we think about all the persecution, we think how horrible that must have been, how terrible. But there’s a sense in which persecution becomes a defining moment for the early Christians. Jesus told us there would be, and he expected you to hold this gospel to be true, and you teach it, and you preach it, and you’re going to face persecution.
N.T. Wright
The principalities and powers ain’t gonna like it?
David Capes
No. A lot of times culture is a representative of the principalities and powers. The fact is, the kind of cultural moments we enter into suggest that, when we are comfortable, maybe there is something wrong.
