This study demonstrates that Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:5 - 4:5 is led by the rhetorical situation to emphasize God's final judgment as the affirmation of the individual Christian's work. Paul is not simply opposing his future eschatology to a Corinthian "realized" eschatology. Rather, he is teaching the Corinthians to adapt their inherited belief in a corporate judgment to new concerns within the community.
The exegetical study is set in the context of past scholarship on the questions of Paul's eschatology, his beliefs concerning judgment, and the role of eschatology in 1 Corinthians. Chapters on the functions of divine judgment in Jewish and Greco-Roman writings help to define the way early Christians thought of God's judgment and to suggest how Corinthian sensibilities influenced Paul's application of judgment language.
This book contributes to ongoing debates about the apocalyptic theology of Paul and the eschatological views of the Corinthians. It will also be useful to scholars who are interested in the role played by ideas of divine judgment in the world of the New Testament.