τὸ τέλειον and the status of the πνευματικοί in 1 Corinthians 13:8-12

Abstract

Debates have persisted as to whether “the perfect” (τὸ τέλειον 1 Corinthians 13:10), as described by Paul, was a thing which, by its coming would cause the gifts of prophecy (προφητεῖαι 1 Corinthians 13:8b), tongues (γλῶσσαι 1 Corinthians 13:8b), and knowledge (γνῶσις 1 Corinthians 13:8b) to cease; or whether “the perfect” refers to something yet in the future that the Corinthians will experience which will cause these spiritual gifts to cease. According to McDougall (2003) and Houghton (1996), “the perfect” should be understood as something that will come to the Corinthians in their era, initially specific to them and then to subsequent recipients of this letter. Thus, it is a recurring experience. On the other hand, there are those like Grudem (2000), who maintain that “the perfect” is exclusively futuristic or eschatological and metaphoric with reference to the parousia event, which all believers throughout the ages will experience together. To reach the focus on the text this way and to reach these conclusions these above scholars utilise the historical-grammatical method of interpretation. Other scholars such as Smit (1991), Witherington (2005) and Biatoma (2010) have sought to analyse 1 Corinthians 13 by focusing on the rhetorical aspect of the passage in which the permanency of love (ἀγάπη) featured prominently in their analyses. In their analyses of 1 Corinthians 13 they rely on either classical or modern rhetorical models to interpret the passage. Their efforts highlight the rhetorical features of this text that are often left not addressed comprehensively by those who utilise the grammatical-historical method of interpretation. The focus of this study is to investigate an alternative approach for interpreting 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 using a text immanent approach called TGPA (Genade, 2015). The focus using this methodology is to test whether TGPA of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 may present a better understanding of Paul’s persuasive intent behind this topic of spiritual gifts and their status thereof in the Corinthian community. This methodology focuses on identifying and analysing the dominant rhetorical strategy of the text by answering the two primary questions: • How can one describe the author’s primary rhetorical objective in the particular section? • How does the author set about achieving this objective? To answer these questions this study offers a detailed analysis of Paul’s rhetorical strategy in 1 Corinthians 13, the supporting strategies, and the rhetorical techniques he uses to enhance the effectiveness of his communication.