1 Corinthians

A reviewer

According to the series preface, this commentary is aimed 'to help pastors, seminary students, and educated laity who are open to contemporary scholarship' (viii) and in Lull's preface he quotes William Beardslee (1916-2001), whose 1994 commentary on 1 Corinthians is revised and expanded here, as stating that his commentary was 'written for the general reader' (ix). At the same time this work is also aimed at making sense of 1 Corinthians for today in an understandable way, both in content (non-technical language) and form (few footnotes). Thus, this commentary joins the swelling ranks of commentaries intended for wide readership, as opposed to the technical commentaries to which seminarians and scholars might be more accustomed. I, for one, see this as an admiral undertaking and will always applaud any effort to make the Bible more understandable for 'general readers.' As far as the perspective that is different than mine with regard to this book, Lull claims that Beardslee's commentary was 'from the perspective of 'process thought'' and that he hopes to 'be consistent' with this interpretive matrix (ix). However, he never explicitly describes what he means by 'process thought' to his readers, though the series preface does describe the purpose of this series in the language of process theology without actually naming it as such. So what is 'process thought'? It has its roots in the philosophy of British thinker Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and was brought into prominence in Christian theology by John Cobb, Jr., who serves as on of the editors of this commentary series and has co-written several books with Lull. Following Whitehead, Cobb and other process thinkers generally agree that God is not unaffected by the world, that God works through persuasion not coercion, and that it is better to view God as a co-sufferer with the world rather than as an omnipotent being standing over against the world (see Grenz and Olson, 20th-Century Theology 130-44). These ideas are affirmed by the series preface in Lull's commentary: 'Although the various authors manifest a variety of interests and theological perspectives, they share a vision of God as a relational being who is passionately involved in the life of the world, whose primary feature is love, and who both affects and is affected by the world' (viii). Since the series preface does not name this as process theology (and who, besides a reviewer or a nerd, reads the series preface?!) and since Lull does not explain his perspective in any descriptive way, a little more clarity and straightforwardness would have been beneficial to the reader. As you might imagine, this theological system (process theology) is a challenge to and critique of traditional systems, which is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. Also, process thinkers tend to think of traditional categories of Christian thought in different ways. One example from Lull is his view of inspiration. After claiming that the reader of 1 Corinthians should not be quick to judge the Corinthians with whom Paul seems to disagree at points, Lulls writes that '[t]he idea that Paul was always right comes from the theological assumption that inspiration works within the individual biblical author. Most scholars now think of scriptural inspiration as arising in the interaction of people in the community' (emphasis original, 2). A few things should be said here about Lull's position on inspiration. Most scholars that I know of do not view inspiration in this way. Maybe I do not read the same authors that he does but attributing this position to 'most scholars' is misleading since I can think of no other commentator who shares this position as he has stated it (perhaps besides those who have contributed to this series). To be sure, there has been a rising tide of interpreters who insist that readers of the Bible must interpret it together inside their communities of faith (Stephen Fowl and Markus Bockmuehl come to min