This paper is what I presented at the recent Laidlaw-Carey/Otago sponsored colloquium on theological interpretation. If you've already read my thesis, there is nothing new here, but if you haven't will give you a skeletal version of my last chapter. Enjoy!
The Problem
In warning the Corinthians against πορνεία, sexual immorality, Paul does not appeal to OT law or the ruling of the Jerusalem council (Acts 15:20, 29)[1] instead he gives a stricter indictment against prostitution than anything found in the OT.[2] David Horrell argues that Paul’s argument here is based on the “presumption” that sex with a prostitute is illicit, while sex with a spouse, believing or not, is permitted. He claims that, “while Paul uses arguments about holiness and bodily union with Christ to support and promote his sexual ethics, the substantive ethical convictions themselves are not derived from these arguments but are already assumed.”[3]
In Horrell’s reading Paul is using the theological indicative only to support a previously assumed moral imperative.[4] The ethical motivation is theological but the ethical content is merely conventional. On the other hand for Karl Barth, in 1 Cor 6:18, “Paul is speaking of a sin of which only the Christian is really capable.”[5] That is, not only is the ethic not conventional, but even the sin is not conventional! Horrell and Barth cannot both be right.
My argument then is this
There were both Jewish and pagan objections to the use of prostitutes, but Paul’s argument does not resemble those nor show any concern in whatever ways prostitution might have been generally viewed as immoral. Although 1 Cor 6:12 does read in many ways like a general argument from benefit and permission, using the language of similar pagan arguments,[6] Paul expands those principles in vs13-20 in a way that could only apply to the Christian. He does not describe social, moral, or material consequences, norms, or ideals. Instead the command to flee πορνεία is located solely in the Christian’s relationship to God through Christ in the Spirit.
