teaching/sermons/col-1-15-20/commentaries/peppiatt.md

Peppiatt on 1 Cor 8 + surrounding — what BP's classroom voice has

Lucy Peppiatt teaches sessions 8–11 of the BP 1 Corinthians classroom as one continuous argument unified by koinonia / participation. She does not use Tim's "Paul's Messianic Shema" terminology — that's Tim's framing in [class:ephesians:25]. Her own framing of 8:6 is different and complementary: pastoral-ethical, not Christological-grammatical.

The macro-frame: 8 / 9 / 10 / 11:17–24 are one argument

"The reason that I want to connect all of those passages, those chapters together is around the theme of what we are participating in and why, and the effect that that has on the people around us. So that's the kind of big idea, and we want to look through our texts through that idea. The key concept then is 'koinonia,' which is the Greek word which we translate as fellowship. ... fellowship is, we think of koinonia and we translate it as fellowship, but actually it has connotations of really participating in, which is kind of different, isn't it, than just sitting around eating, you know, the kind of food that Christians eat." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:8]

She traces the koinonia thesis back to 1 Cor 1:9:

"'God is faithful, who has called you into koinonia with his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.' So he starts right from the beginning that, you know, you holy ones, you've been made holy ... because you participate, you have fellowship with his son. And, and again, you know, we want to make the point, this is not just fellowship in a weak sense, this is in a strong sense of being in Christ Jesus." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:10]

The unifying question is not "what is permissible" but "what are you participating in, and what does it do to you and others?" That's the BP-distinctive read of 1 Cor 8.

How Peppiatt handles 1 Cor 8:6

She reads 8:6 as the logical pivot of the chapter — Paul drawing the Corinthians back to the God they actually worship, in order to dismantle the "I have knowledge" justification for going to pagan feasts:

"'For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father from whom all things came and from and for whom we live and there is but one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.' He's setting the scene, drawing them back, I think, to the God that we worship. You know, he's saying, 'This is the God we worship. There is only one.' So if there is only one, that means there aren't other gods. You know, there aren't other lords, you can't kind of invest anyone with that power or that status." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:8]

What she does NOT do here. She doesn't name the Deut 6:4 echo, doesn't work the prepositions out as Christological grammar, and doesn't call this a "Messianic Shema." Her interest is what 8:6 does to the Corinthian argument, not how it intensifies into Col 1:16–17.

For the Christological-grammar move, you still want Tim at [class:ephesians:25]. For the koinonia-ethical move, Peppiatt is the BP voice.

The Willis quotation-marks thesis (her single most distinctive move)

This is the interpretive move that reshapes the whole chapter. Peppiatt presents Wendell Lee Willis's Idol Meat in Corinth as a serious option:

"There's a question mark over whether the quotations from the Corinthians might extend to verses 7 and 8. ... Wendell Lee Willis has written a book, 'Idol Meat in Corinth,' and it's proposing potentially that in that whole section between 4 and 8, we have many more Corinthian views than people might think. So when we get to, 'but not everyone possesses this knowledge,' it could be that the Corinthians are saying, 'Well, we know we have it, but not everyone possesses it. ...' So it could be that Paul thinks this, that he thinks this is a matter of conscience, that it's how you receive something that brings the defilement. Or it could be that the Corinthians think this and we don't know." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:8]

And the move that flips "the weak" from Paul's category to a Corinthian slur:

"Willis ... says, 'The idea of a weak conscience was a slur at those who refused to eat idol sacrifices or who did so with troubled consciences. This means the real definition of the weak in Corinth is those not having knowledge.'" — Willis quoted in [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:8]

She also flags Mike Gorman extending the thesis to chapter 10:

"Michael Gorman thinks there might be another quotation in 10:29b. 'On the other hand, 10:29b may be the beginning of Paul's final summary, and he may be again be quoting the libertine Corinthian position, only to refute it with a string of maxims in 10:31-33.'" — Gorman cited in [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:9]

Why this is useful for Col 1:15–20. Peppiatt's methodological habit of "watch for Paul quoting his opponents back at them" is the same instinct you'll need at Col 2:8, 2:16, 2:20–23 (the "philosophy and empty deceit" / "do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" cluster). If she's right about 1 Cor 8:1–8, Paul's habit of weaving Corinthian/Colossian slogans into his rebuttal is the same rhetorical strategy in both letters. The hymn at Col 1:15–20 is then read against the Colossian plērōma-rivals' own claims — which is exactly the polemic backdrop ../expansion/05_pleroma.md already names.

John Barclay's adiaphora reading (presented but not endorsed)

"And John Barclay writes this on the phrase, 'Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat it and no better off if we do.' He says this, which I think is really interesting. 'This seems to place food in the category of indifferent things like the stoic notion of adiaphora,' which is matters of indifference, 'things that might be preferable in certain circumstances, but fundamentally don't matter either way.' Barclay thinks that that's Paul kind of saying, 'Oh, it doesn't matter, you know, it's adiaphora.' But then I think that when we get to 10, he's coming out quite strongly against food sacrificed to idols." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:8]

She declines Barclay's reading because chapter 10 won't sustain it. Useful background — the Stoic category gets named (handy if you're tracking Paul's engagement with Stoic vocabulary, which is also the territory of synistēmi in Col 1:17).

Chapter 9 in the middle — freedom restrained by koinonia

Why is the apostolic-rights chapter sandwiched between 8 and 10? Peppiatt's answer:

"The ideas that hold all of these three chapters together and then includes 11:17-24 is ideas about how we are free to do certain things, but participating in Christ restrains us in some way and constrains us. ... He needs to be free to do what he needs to do 'cause he's compelled to preach the Gospel." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:9]

A class member nails her ethic in one phrase, which she affirms:

"It's the theme that I keep seeing, is this self-limiting byproduct of freedom. ... 'No, I think that's brilliantly put. Exactly.'" — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:9]

Sermon-relevant. This is the koinonia ethic: freedom voluntarily yielded for the sake of the body. It's the practical-life face of Col 1:20's eirēnopoios — Christ as the one who gets involved at cost. The Corinthian chapters are what daily-life apokatallaxai looks like in the same Pauline ecosystem.

1 Cor 10:1–13 — "the rock was Christ" / typological participation

She reads Paul as folding the Corinthians into the wilderness narrative, not just comparing them to it:

"That rock was Christ. So that's amazing to me that Paul is reading back into these Old Testament narratives the presence of Christ. ... He's connecting the community in Corinth, the Christian community, back to the people he calls our ancestors. And what he's saying to them is, 'Don't make the same mistakes. You've got these examples, and they've been given to us as types.' That's the word he uses, 'tupos,' which is, it's more than just you look back and you can sort of say, oh, don't do that. ... but that somehow we're all participating in the same thing because we're all in Christ. They were in Christ as he brought them with Moses as the mediator." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:9]

For Col 1:17. "He is before all things" reads cleanly with this passage. Peppiatt has Paul backdating Christ's presence to the Exodus rock — the same theological move as Col 1:17's pro pantōn and Col 1:15's prōtotokos pasēs ktiseōs. The wilderness rock corroborates the cosmic-Christ claim Paul makes in the hymn.

1 Cor 10:14–22 — table-of-the-Lord vs. table-of-demons

This is the chapter-10 hard line, and where her koinonia vocabulary fully crystallizes:

"Paul uses the verb 'metecho,' which is to partake of, or to share in. ... So the cup of blessing in verse 16 is a participation in the blood of Christ, and the bread is a participation in his body. That's the koinonia theme that comes up here. ... 'You are not able to drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, nor partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons.' I think this is because, it really, it's because at the table of the Lord, that's where you're set free. So if you're gonna be set free, you can't then go back and tie yourself to the things that are gonna enslave you." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:9]

Direct parallel to Col 1:20. "Participation in the blood of Christ" (1 Cor 10:16) lands in the same vocabulary as "through the blood of his cross" (Col 1:20). The cosmic-reconciliation claim of the hymn becomes table-practice for the Corinthians a few miles away — same Pauline decade, same ecosystem.

The exclusive-koinonia move ("cup of demons" as alternative participation) sharpens what Col 2:8 ("philosophy and empty deceit") and Col 2:16 (festivals / new moons / sabbaths) are pushing back against. In both letters, the rival isn't a doctrine — it's a rival koinonia.

1 Cor 11:17–24 — the Lord's Supper as concrete justice

Peppiatt reads the Lord's-Supper passage not as ritual instruction but as Paul's anger about rich/free Corinthians eating in front of poor/enslaved members:

"There's something about how Paul believes the Lord's Supper should be conducted in this church, which is destroying all those expectations and all those categories of the heavily stratified society that all these people lived in, where a sign of honor was that you would be at the table and you would be served. ... Paul's been schooled in the way of Jesus." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:10]

And on Patten Baker's "remembrance is participation":

"Mary Patten Baker brings out, I think brilliantly, that the notion that the remembrance is a participation and I think she's so right. ... When Jesus gives these words of do this in remembrance of me, that there's something about that concept which is do this remembering that you are in me, yeah. Do this in remembrance, that this is what you are partaking of and participating in." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:10]

For Col 3:11. When the cosmic-Christ hymn cashes out at "neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free" later in the letter, Peppiatt's read of the Corinthian table is the practice-form of the same theology. She lets the room see what concrete koinonia costs the rich.

Session 21 — where Peppiatt explicitly bridges to Col 1:15–20

Late in the classroom, working from 1 Cor 15, she pivots to Colossians as the fullest Pauline statement of the Son's cosmic role. The Shema-vocabulary appears here, but framed against subordinationism, not as 8:6-grammar:

"Jesus says, well, I and the Father are one and that God is one. And all through our letter, Paul's been reiterating that. There's still actually only one God. That's the Jewish tradition, 'Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one.' So they have one God, and the oneness of God isn't compromised when the Son takes on a human nature." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:21]

Then her direct reach for Col 1:15–20:

"I would have gone to Colossians 1, which again is a text of Paul's, where he also reflects on the nature of the Son. ... 'The Son is the image of the invisible God.' You can't get this idea of the Son as the embodiment of the whole of the Godhead. The firstborn over all creation. ... 'For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.' You can't get a higher Christology than that. Of putting, equating the Son with the God who created in the beginning the whole of everything that has been created out of absolutely nothing." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:21]

And the McFarland line already in Pass 1:

"'We are the means of Christ's glory as he is the source of ours.' ... that's why I think that Paul is getting at something about that everything is for him, for Christ, is that we are the means of Christ's glory as he is the source of ours." — [class:1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt:21]

Net. Peppiatt connects 1 Cor's monotheistic-Christology to Col 1:15–20 through the Hear-O-Israel / Nicaean-creedal frame, not through a Deut-6 / split-Shema grammatical analysis. Different vector, same destination.

What Peppiatt adds, in summary

For Col 1:15–20 prep, the load-bearing Peppiatt finds are:

  1. The koinonia frame for 1 Cor 8–11 (corollary practice for the cosmic-Christology of the hymn).
  2. The Willis quotation-marks thesis (methodological — useful for Col 2's slogans).
  3. "That rock was Christ" typological participation (corroboration for Col 1:17's pro pantōn).
  4. Cup-of-Lord vs. cup-of-demons as the table-form of koinonia (vocabulary parallel to Col 1:20's "blood of his cross").
  5. The Lord's Supper as concrete justice (downstream practice of the cosmic-reconciliation claim).
  6. Session 21's anti-Arian / Hear-O-Israel + Col 1:15–20 bridge (her sole direct citation of the hymn).

For the "Messianic Shema" / split-Shema grammar specifically, the source remains Tim at [class:ephesians:25]. Peppiatt and Tim are doing complementary work on 1 Cor 8:6 — pastoral-ethical (her) and Christological-grammatical (him).

Sessions referenced

Full session list:

ls ~/Projects/corpora/bp-corpus/data/raw/class/class__1-corinthians-lucy-peppiatt__*.json