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1 and 2 Corinthians

  1. Lesson One
    Overview of 1 and 2 Corinthians (Skim 1 and 2 Corinthians)
    24 Activities
    |
    1 Assessment
  2. Lesson Two
    Holiness in the Context of Freedom (1 Corinthians 5–8, 10, 15)
    20 Activities
    |
    1 Assessment
  3. Lesson Three
    Unity and Order in the Context of Diversity (1 Corinthians 1–3, 11–14)
    19 Activities
  4. Lesson Four
    Paul's Apostleship (1 Corinthians 4, 9, 16, 2 Corinthians 1–7)
    19 Activities
    |
    3 Assessments
  5. Lesson Five
    Author and Audience (2 Corinthians 8–13)
    25 Activities
    |
    2 Assessments
  6. Course Wrap-Up
    Course Completion
    1 Activity
    |
    1 Assessment

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1 and 2 Corinthians Author and Audience (2 Corinthians 8–13) In | A Pre-Pauline Baptismal Formula, Part 1
Lesson 5, Activity 10

In | A Pre-Pauline Baptismal Formula, Part 1

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As we saw in Acts, the Christian church was already thriving at the time of Paul’s conversion. While he was still persecuting Christians, the church was growing and developing its own rituals, liturgies and doctrinal ideas. Sometimes these “pre-Pauline” traditions are evident in his letters.

In 1 Corinthians, we find a statement associated with baptism that surfaces in a similar form in two other letters:

For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 
1 Corinthians 12:13 NIV

Similar passages in Galatians and Colossians look like this:

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 
Galatians 3:27-28 NIV

 

(You) have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Colossians 3:10-11 NIV

If we place these statements side by side, their similarity becomes especially obvious. 

1 Corinthians 12:13 NIVGalatians 3:27-28 NIVColossians 3:10-11 NIV
For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one bodyFor all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.(You) have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
whether Jews or gentiles,There is neither Jew nor gentile,Here there is no gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian,
slave or freeneither slave nor freeslave or free,
nor is there male and female
and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.for you are all one in Christ Jesus.but Christ is all, and is in all.

Table quoted from: Antoinette Clark Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets, 1995, pp. 123-124.