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Tuesday 31 August 2010

Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food - will God destroy both?

I am wrestling through 1 Corinthians 6: 12-20 at the moment. Verse 13 states:
"Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food. And God will destroy both one and the other". Virtually all commentators agree that the first part (13a) is a Corinthian slogan Paul is quoting to make a point. The difficulty comes in with 13b: "And God will destroy both one and the other". Is this part of the Corinthian slogan, or is it Paul's response to it?
Richard B Hays comes up with the following suggestion: "[I]t is the Corinthians, not Paul, who contend that God will destroy the merely physical elements of the self . . . this has to be the correct way to interpret the passage, for the idea that the physical body is unimportant is precisely the point that Paul is trying to refute" (Richard B Hays, First Corinthians, 1997, p103). Does this make sense?

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