Theme: Divisiveness as defilement

Exegetical note
Still addressing the issue of fractious party loyalties at Corinth, Paul here uses temple imagery for the Church. The passage provides a special opportunity for emphasizing that the Church is not for Paul a building or organization, as it generally is for twentieth-century readers, but people. When understood as pure imagery, however, the building motif does work well in treating ecclesiastical divisiveness as the equivalent of ritual defilement.

Call to W…