I CORINTHIANS 15:33 A PLYMOUTH BRETHREN PROOF-TEXT

I Corinthians 15:33 “Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good character”

I am always interested in the proof texts denominations use to justify their various beliefs. See, for example, the post on “Apartheid in the Bible?” As another example, I would like to discuss the verse above and its use by the Plymouth Brethren.

There is a marked tendency for some churches to fragment into small entities. Some factors that seem to accelerate such dissolution appear to be:

    A church group that is relatively small in numbers to begin with

    A highly literal interpretation of the Bible

    A large number of creeds, beliefs and traditions felt to be vital to the faith

    Congregational rule

    Strong leadership

    An exclusionistic attitude

One example of this process is the Plymouth Brethren. Starting in England with a small group of followers, it began to fragment even before coming to America. And there it continued to break into different factions at an even greater pace. The humorist Garrison Keillor grew up in one such off-shoot, and he said that they were such a small “denomination” that only God knew they existed. Consulting my nearly infallible resource of choice, Wikipedia, I learned that the various branches of Brethren can be divided into two basic classes: Open and Closed Brethren. Most of the Closed Brethren and some of the Open Brethren exclude those from Communion who do not belong to their particular branch of Brethren and especially those who come from other Christian denominations. Their biblical justification is that this is what Paul was teaching in I Corinthians 15:33. How reasonable an interpretation is this of that particular verse?

The first thing to consider is usually the immediate context of an isolated verse. In this case, it is obvious that this verse comes in the middle of an extended discussion regarding those in the church who are falsely claiming that there is no resurrection. And, just as importantly, such a belief also had a profound influence on those people's behavior, as a number of commentators point out:

    Hillyer says, “The Corinthians will ruin their Christian lives by mixing with those who live merely for selfish pleasures [see the previous verse] because they deny any resurrection or final judgment.”

    Grosheide goes even further in this direction when he states, “The warning not to err cannot mean that the Corinthians must discontinue to teach that there is no resurrection. The context does not speak of a deviation in doctrine but in life. Besides, the same warning against error is issued elsewhere (I Cor. 6:9; Gal. 6:7; Jas. 1:16). In all these cases it is possible to think of a deviation in doctrine but then a doctrine which has immediate implications for life.” I personally feel he is mistaken in saying that Paul didn't want to stop the teaching of such a false doctrine, but Grosheide does have a good point in stressing that Paul is zeroing in on the sinful behavior resulting from it.

    Lowery similarly notes the ethical emphasis of Paul's teaching here when he writes, “Paul's concluding advice with reference to those who continued to deny the Resurrection was like his former counsel concerning immoral people in the church (chap. 5) – don't associate with them...”

    And Marsh says, “Keeping company with men who reject the resurrection will corrupt Christian character.”

    Packer puts it this way: “And to demonstrate that false teaching and apostasy are not without their effect on human relationships,” Paul quotes I Corinthians 15:33.

    Gordon Fee: “Their present path is one of delusion, both in terms of their theology and its consequent behavior.”

Turning next to verse 33 itself, the first thing to note is that it is in fact a direct quotation from the Greek poet and playwright Menander's now-lost play Thais (4^th century B.C.). This is only one of three times in the NT that classical literature was quoted (all by Paul). And as such, this is the first time I have ever heard of a pagan writing used as a Christian proof text. But it is well accepted that by the first century AD, this saying took on the character of a stand-alone proverb that could be applied to many situations. Since it is basically a proverb, we must keep in mind all the limitations that must be considered in interpreting and applying it to a given situation (see the post on “Interpreting Biblical Proverbs”). For example, proverbs are the “lowest” form of truth that God has given us, and certainly they should never be taken as His commands to us.

Another complicating factor is that scholars are somewhat divided in terms of Paul's intended audience for such advice. Is it the church members who might be led astray by false teachers, or is it those who already have been led astray? Some of those commentators mentioned above appear to take the former view. However, Grosheide clearly takes the second one: Paul's use of the proverb “would be telling these Greek Christians, who had gone back to their former pagan customs, that their own proverb warned them against their evil conduct.”

Finally, there are two key words in this short verse that bear discussion:

    Ethos (character): Aristotle taught that it was acquired by people through repetition of particular activities. Other NT words denoting character are dokime, tropos, katestema and semnes. “More importantly, even where such terms are absent, the notion of character is present through the closely related NT concept of discipleship.” (Cox and Kallenberg) NRSV translated this word as “morals,” again stressing the ethical nature of Paul's concern rather than the doctrinal issue alone.

    Homilia (company): Gordon Fee offers two possible meanings to this Greek word: If it means “company,” then it counsels withdrawal from the false teachers. However, if it means “conversation,” Paul is warning against having discussions with them on the subject of the resurrection.

So in review, here are the various things that must all be true in order that the Brethren groups can use this verse in a valid way to justify excluding from table fellowship all those who do not subscribe to their particular set of doctrinal beliefs (many involving the detailed happenings of the last days):

    This proverb must have all the authority of a direct command from God.

    It must also apply to doctrinal issues less important than the existence of a future resurrection.

    It must also apply to doctrinal issues which do not have any effect on moral issues.

    It must have been directed to the church members who had not yet been led astray by the false teachers. 

    Homilia must mean “company” instead of “conversation.”

    One way to avoid those with different beliefs from influencing you is to not allow them to partake in Communion with you.

Notice that that all six contentions must be correct in order for their reasoning to hold. Since this is a chain of reasoning, one can approach it in a semi-mathematical way to get a rough idea of the odds of the Brethren utilizing this verse in a responsible manner. Starting with the very generous assumption that each of the above contentions has an 80% chance of being true, then the overall chance of the entire chain of reasoning being correct is 0.8 to the 6^th power, or only 26%. And if just one of the six assumptions is false, the whole conclusion falls like a house of cards.