Overview

The emphasis on spiritual gifts is rapidly growing in Christianity, especially in the Global South. But, they also create confusion, not least because of Paul's ambiguous language used in discussing them in 1 Corinthians. Academic studies could in principle provide important help here. Unfortunately, for centuries, Paul's message on the subject has remained confusing. A survey of previous works on the subject reveals that, apart from interesting gains they present, many methods endeavour to interpret the text by the study of one or some of its dimensions only. This narrow spectrum of the individual methods can compromise vision of the text as whole. Paul's message in his epistles cannot be understood without examining the text holistically. As an attempt to present a holistic view of Paul's message about spiritual gifts in 1 Cor 12-14, this dissertation employs a collaborative approach called sociorhetorical interpretation. The potential with this approach is that it seeks to elucidate the whole text by a study of the social and rhetorical elements in relation to one another: how rhetoric shapes the social elements, how the social features anchor the rhetoric, and how the evaluation of the interplay of the social and rhetorical findings informs the interpretation.