Christopher Porter
9 August 2024
Scott Goode. Salvific Intentionality in 1 Corinthians: How Paul Cultivates the Missional Imagination of the Corinthian Community. Wipf and Stock, 2023.
It is often noted that for all the emphasis which the Apostle Paul places upon evangelism in the book of Acts and the narration of his own endeavours, he seems to not have the same expectations for the audiences of his epistles.
In this short and accessible volume Scott Goode draws on this apparent “riddle” of evangelistic outreach in the Pauline epistles, and places it centre stage.
Taking his cues from a close reading of 1 Corinthians Goode helpfully examines the missional hermeneutics within the letter, and ties these with the social identity of the Corinthian church under the broad banner of “salvific intentionality”. Here he reads salvation as directed towards “two distinct, yet related, directions”. The first is a vertical salvation “action of God towards humanity through the eschatological Christ event”, and the second, a horizontal aspect of “convey[ing] salvific influence towards one another and outsiders”. It is the interplay of these two aspects which Goode explores throughout the work.
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In the first chapter Goode examines the challenge of moral formation within 1 Corinthians 5:1-8 and sets it within the context of the social identity – including theological aspects – of the Corinthian church. This chapter sets up the complexity of social and theological relations for the nascent church, and Goode provides a reasonably detailed and cogent examination of the challenges therein. While it could always be expanded, this foundational work sets him up well for the investigation at hand. The second chapter works from the social identity constructs at hand and examines the challenge inherent within mixed marriages in 7:12-16. Here Goode argues that the believing partner may have significant salvific impact on an unbelieving partner through a “theological vision to strengthen their marital commitment”. But Goode is not blind to the challenges of imbalanced relationships, and cultural power imbalances inherent within first century patriarchal social settings. Rather, it is his attention to the mess present within these expressed social identities that demonstrates the compelling nature of the salvific intentionality. He identifies this as “worked out in the concrete social reality of first-century marriage, particularly for women”.
The third chapter, through the lengthy exposition on 8:1-11:1, significantly expands on the prior vignette by throwing the doors open to the street, and considering how ethics of accommodation can generate missional opportunities for the believing community with their pagan neighbours. Goode carefully – and helpfully – navigates a fine line in his treatment of the “weak” and “strong” passages. He takes seriously the nature of sectarian impulses towards fleeing from idol-food, while equally recognising Paul’s salvific commitment within his accommodation ethic that “seeks the salvific welfare of others”. Ultimately he concludes that “the mission of the believing community cannot be limited to those of insider identity only. The mission of Christ has incorporated the Corinthians, although they were once outsiders”. The verticality of salvation has temporal impact in the horizontal space.
The fourth chapter considers the nature of worship within the community (14:20–25), and Paul’s assumption that outsiders may be present within the gatherings of the Corinthian church, and this should govern the activities of the church. From a detailed discussion of tongues in 1 Corinthians 14, against the background of Isaiah, Goode then considers how this would spill over into the socioreligious nature of worship settings, suggesting that speech modes in the community should be “directed towards the salvific welfare of outsiders”.
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Finally, Goode turns his attention to the nature of missional identity and salvific intentionality “then and now”. Although the argument that church communities should be oriented towards a missional identity – even as missional communities – has been regularly made, Goode helpfully highlights the messiness of such a missional identity. This “untidy sociotheological profile” that he reads throughout the first Corinthian epistle emphasises the wrestling of the Corinthians with their own Christian identity. It is this wrestling that Goode seeks to apply as a salve to the modern church, highlighting that the Corinthian social identity is not so different from our present embodiment. Of critical note here is his section on “soft difference in ecclesial boundaries” proposing that “Paul imagines the community in Corinth not simply as a place of purity but one of ‘spiritual formation’”. Here Goode aptly observes that this untidy reality challenges contemporary expressions of community, and his diagnosis of requiring a “socially open community” to “serve the salvific welfare of outsiders as well as insiders” is a message that is sorely needed.
While Goode originally penned this work as an evolution of his MTh dissertation, he is to be well commended for his balance of academic rigour and pastoral readability. The book is firmly anchored within a scholarly foundation in social identity theory and missional hermeneutics yet is eminently readable and his insights spring easily from the page to the parish. This is recommended reading for anyone considering how to balance the challenge of inwards looking congregation for the edification of the comfortable with an outward salvifically intentional church on God’s mission field.
The Reverend Dr Christopher Porter is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Trinity College Theological School.
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