Having concluded our study of chapter 15, which of course is that great chapter on the resurrection, we remember that Paul also needed to discuss other matters throughout this letter. For example, early in the book Paul contrasted the wisdom of God with the wisdom of the world. Chapters 12 and 14 addressed the subject of spiritual gifts, with his famous exposition on love found between them, in chapter 13. Regarding the resurrection in chapter 15, Paul needed to give an extensive treatment of it because it was being challenged at Corinth.
After such a careful analysis of the resurrection in the preceding chapter, and the victory that is ours because of it, chapter 16 almost comes as a surprise. We see that it is a very practical chapter, which almost feels like an anticlimax to the grand and sweeping theological theme he just wrote about. He begins to talk about Christian giving, which is followed by a section that deals with personal matters and the people involved. Paul then concludes with some greetings and closing statements.
However, I do not think we should view this last chapter as out of place in any way with what he has just been discussing. When we do, we are creating an imbalance, or a kind of competition, in the Christian life between doctrine and practical matters. We have a tendency to stress the theology so much that we are left to try to fit practical areas in somewhere, or treat them as somehow less important. But the apostle Paul did not think that way. He always understood doctrine in terms of its practical application. That is why in all of his epistles, the general flow of the thought is from doctrine in the first portion of the book to the application of that doctrine in the second part.
You find this, for example, in the book of Romans. This is the most theologically comprehensive of all Paul’s writings. Early in the letter he talks at length about our sinful condition and why everyone, whether Jew or Gentile, needs the Gospel. He then describes what the Gospel is and how it creates a spiritual union with Jesus Christ by His grace through faith. Paul then goes on to talk about how the Gospel fits into God’s plan and purpose in history. All this careful theological exposition and argument occupies the first eleven chapters. But then we come to chapters 12-16, which shows how Christians should live because of these great doctrines he has been explaining.
It is significant that the last chapter of 1 Corinthians begins with this matter of a collection. Paul does not provide very much information about it, but which we know from other epistles. He was collecting money from Christians around the Roman world for the poor saints in Jerusalem. This was really a new thing; people did not do that in his day. In our day we are accustomed to what we call “Christian charity.” We have charitable organizations, including ones that claim no connection to Christianity, that collect enormous amounts of money for people in need. Because of that, we fail to see how really unique this sort of thing was in the first century Roman Empire.
Oh, it is true that people would give coins to a beggar. Certainly it was the case that charity was recognized in Judaism. But that kind of assistance was always within your own culture and your own people. Yet here in Christianity from the very beginning, you have a demonstration of the recognition Christians had that they shared a common life, regardless of what their national background, race, or geographic location might be. Therefore, the concern of one was the concern of all.
