In episode 131 of the Enter the Bible podcast, co-hosts Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston discuss the audience-submitted question, "Can you interpret "flesh and spirit" (Apostle Paul) from a pro-body perspective?" with guest Dr. Matt Skinner.

Matthew L. Skinner is Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary. His books include Acts: Catching up with the Spirit (Abingdon Press, 2020), A Companion to the New Testament (3 volumes; Baylor University Press, 2017-18), Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts (Brazos Press, 2015) and The Trial Narratives: Conflict, Power, and Identity in the New Testament (WJK Press, 2010).

Motivated by an interest in helping people explore the Bible’s connections to faith and life, he has contributed to several commentaries, encyclopedias, and other resources to assist pastors, teachers, and students in their study of Christian scripture. Every week, he co-hosts the Sermon Brainwave podcast on Working Preacher.

Ordained as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), he serves as the Scholar for Adult Education at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. His work can be found online at www.matthewskinner.org.

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Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/bCbJQZSWVAs.

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Stepping Up to Supervision

Katie Langston: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast, where you can get answers, or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston and.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker, and today we have as our guest, Matt Skinner. Professor Matt Skinner, he's a professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, at long time colleague of ours, and he is also the author of many books on the New Testament, one of the latest being, uh, a book on the Gospel of Matthew called Matthew The Gospel of Promised Blessings by Abingdon Press. So check it out. And all his, uh, all his books. Uh, Matt, thank you for being with us. Thanks for being our guest on the podcast.

Matt Skinner: Thanks for the invitation. It's going to be fun.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, yeah. So we have a question today from a listener. And as usual, uh, listeners, if you have questions that you'd like us to address, just go to enter the Bible.org and and send it to us. So the question that we're going to address today is, uh, from a listener again, and it says, uh, can you interpret flesh and spirit from a pro body perspective, uh, with particular reference to the apostle Paul? So, uh, Paul in various New Testament epistles, uh, uses this terminology of flesh and spirit, uh, particularly uh, uh, two texts that we're going to talk about in Galatians five and Romans eight. Uh, so. Just in Galatians five. Just to give you a taste of this. Uh says live by the spirit. This is verse 16. Live by the spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh, for what the flesh desires is opposed to the spirit, and what the spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to prevent you from doing what you want. So, uh, Matt, uh, does Paul hate the body? Does he hate the bodies are bad.

Katie Langston: What? Yeah, yeah, bodies are terrible. And we should all become our disembodied, eternal souls.

Matt Skinner: Uh, the short answer is no. Uh, I think Paul actually loves, uh, human bodies. I think he just talks about them really differently than than how we do. And so our understanding of what it means to be embodied is, is quite different from Paul's. And some of that makes sense because of. Our knowledge of biology and in anthropology as well, quite different from in the ancient world. But this is a really fun question. This is a deceptively difficult question because questions about how Paul speaks about flesh, which is a term we see in this passage, which he often sets in juxtaposition to spirit, is really different from how Paul talks about bodies as well. These are two different Greek words, and Paul uses them in very distinctive ways and means different things by even flesh and body. So there's a famous old theological dictionary from the previous century that I didn't look it up, but I believe the entry on Body in Paul is like 75 pages of like this big fat dictionary, and the one on flesh is like 50 pages long of this. So, you know, how many episodes do you want to do? Is the. Short answer.

Katie Langston: We'll be here all day, folks. Yeah.

Matt Skinner: But let's start with flesh and spirit, I guess, and kind of looking into this passage. But just if people are bored already, you know, there's obvious implications to this because of, like, what you were alluding to. Uh, you know, Katie, at the beginning, does Paul hate body? Should we all become disembodied as Christianity, a flight from reality, or is it a kind of mystical escape from the physical world? And the short answer to that for Paul is no. Like Paul never tells people to flee existence, Paul never tells people to, like, discipline themselves and kind of a harsh, ascetic way, you know, to deny yourself pleasure or something like that. He gets close. In some ways, Paul appears to have been celibate. Uh, Paul does talk about a spiritual experience, but he has to be goaded into doing it most of the time. He's really concerned about everyday life and what you eat and what your household is like and these types of questions. So he's kind of normal in those, in those ways. But the church has a horrible history of of making people feel bad about their bodies or of telling people that if you desire something, it's probably sinful. Which creates all sorts of problems with things like sexuality and diet and kind of image of one's body. It probably creates horrible issues when it comes to people who are, are, are ailing or who are disabled. Um, and all sorts of, of bad theology that hits people literally right where they live in their bodies. So, I don't know, I should stop there. I haven't even talked about the text yet, but just to kind of.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: No, I think. I think a very.

Matt Skinner: Far reaching. Topic.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, it's it it is, as you said, a deceptively a deceptively simple question, but it has really vast implications for I remember a former student of ours who had experienced, uh, some sexual violence before and said that what helped her was thinking, I, I am not my body, I have a body. And then she came to seminary and realized, you know what? That's not you know, it's you can't divorce the two, right? That that our bodies are so much a part of who we are. And really a healthier way of thinking about it is to think holistically. And so the churches you're right. The church has been, uh, harmful in some of some church teachings have been harmful in that way. But, uh, but if you look to the, the biblical text and particularly the Old Testament, right, there's there's lots of concern about bodies, about human bodies, animal bodies, you know, soil, water, all of that. It really does. Uh, it really is of concern, it seems to God.

Katie Langston: Well, and I also hate to break it to you, but the resurrection was a bodily experience as well. Exactly. So. Right. Right, right, right. So yeah. Yeah.

Matt Skinner: And Paul's all over that in first Corinthians 15. So he's.

Katie Langston: Exactly.

Matt Skinner: So flesh.

Katie Langston: Um, yeah. So flesh is not body. Okay. That's I didn't know that. That's so cool. So what is it then? Yeah. Well, they're.

Matt Skinner: Not synonymous for Paul. How about that flesh body? So, um, theologians love wordplay. And especially Paul loves playing on multiple meanings of terms, which is probably really fun if you're talking to him. It's probably really difficult if you're reading his letters 2000 years later and you can't always see the winks and the and the and things like that. So, uh, sometimes Paul means flesh just to talk about literally the stuff we're made of, like the term just kind of means meat. Uh, it's, it's sarx in Greek, and it's often it's described neutrally. Paul will talk about things. He will talk about Christ descended from David according to the flesh. And what he means there is that Jesus is an actual physical descendant of David. To be the center of the coin to the flesh, right, in terms of bodies. But most of the time when Paul talks about flesh, he's talking about kind of a realm in which we live in opposition to the spirit. You can live in a fleshly realm, or you can live in a spiritual realm and spirit there. Almost always in modern English translations is capitalized. And that's a decision by editors who are saying, we think Paul is here talking about the Holy Spirit and not like a spiritual side of me. So Paul's talking about what life looks like when it's ruled by flesh, and what life is like when it's ruled by the Holy Spirit. And their flesh doesn't necessarily mean you're your meat, your, you know, your your skeleton and your vessels and and your skin and stuff like that. What it means is kind of the part of you that gets ruled by sin. And so he'll talk about things. And so we saw that in Romans five. 16, right? Live by the spirit, and you won't gratify the desires of the flesh there. He's not talking about bodily urges as much as he's talking about the part of you that sin still has colonized, right, that sin has sunk its roots into. So then he goes on. Favorite.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So you said Romans five. Galatians five.

Matt Skinner: Oh, sorry. Yeah. Galatians five. And then he'll go on to talk about things like the works of the flesh that are all these horrible things that people can do. Um um uh, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, you know, just kind of the he's this the list of vices, right? He's just pulling out everything. Uh, and then by contrast, the fruit of the spirit, the things that the spirit produces. So here's a life marked by sin versus a life marked by the Spirit's own work. Um. Love, joy.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Peace, patience. Sorry. Just listing some of the fruits of the spirit. Yeah, all.

Matt Skinner: The good stuff. Um, but if you go back to verse 13, he says this. You were called to freedom. Brothers and sisters only don't use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence. That's the new Revised Standard Version. But through love, become enslaved to one another. That word, that translation. Self-indulgence in the Greek is just the flesh. Mm.

Matt Skinner: Which is interesting. So a translator there has decided to let's get rid of the metaphor of flesh and define it as self-indulgence. But read it again. Don't use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence. And even that word opportunity means something like like a beachhead. Um, like a command post and like military descriptions or something like that. In other words, don't let your freedom be an opportunity for the flesh to gain a foothold or to establish a beachhead. And so for Paul, the the, the one's self is a place where sin and spirit are at war, like literally within ourselves. That makes sense in terms of what.

Matt Skinner: He's what he's getting at. And we have to look at other passages to really establish that. But that's kind of the first thing I want to make sure that we that we know that Paul, it's kind of a sphere of existence. And Paul loves dualism. So you either exist in the, in the sarx in the flesh, or you exist in the Holy Spirit. And even though you're saved, even though Jesus loves you and all of that, nevertheless your flesh is still a place that's been colonized by sin and still is prone to. Desires that are contrary to the Spirit's desires. There's this little miniature battle taking place within each of us, not an angel and a demon on each shoulder, but this kind of way in. Which.

Matt Skinner: Sin is about enslaving your flesh. Sin is about enslaving the person who you are, and the spirit is about liberating who you are. And it's an ongoing skirmish.

Katie Langston: So it looks like we're just to clarify, saints and sinners are.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: There we. Go.

Matt Skinner: Well, that's a very good Lutheran read.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So just to clarify, living by the spirit does not mean living outside of the flesh or living, as you said, a, you know, denying your body and from everything, right? Living by the spirit means a bodily existence, but being guided by things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc. correct? Not by jealousy and envy and such.

Matt Skinner: It's not a kind of spiritual escapism. It's not a kind of pure. Spiritual whatever. Um, and, you know, there are mystic traditions in Christianity, and that has worked for some people, but it's not that's not what Paul's saying. He's not saying, give up everything, deny all of your deny everything your body needs. Punish yourself. It's not that at all. Okay?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Good enough. Good enough.

Matt Skinner: Good. So stop. Doing that. Well, it goes. It goes.

Katie Langston: Along. I mean, that I remember, um, yeah, when I was in classes with both of you, you know, that that was something that really came out that that I took with me was just this, especially from Paul. Um, Matt. Like that for Paul, there is this sort of cosmic battle happening right within the human person and within the cosmos. Right? The, the idea of, uh, you know, that we our war is with principalities and powers and, and so there's sort of, um. There's, uh. Um, if I may use this word apocalyptic, kind of, you know, battle happening, uh, all the time. Uh, but in Christ, we know who is ultimately victorious. But that doesn't mean that it's not still, uh, going on right now in our, in our daily existence, which I think from a kind of, um, you know, scientific kind of modern worldview that is a really that can be a really challenging thing to, like, believe you could be like, okay, but that seems really, you know, that seems that seems a little crazy to say that. Um, I think until you maybe take a minute to actually observe the world around us and observe, if you take some time to actually observe what's going on in your own heart and your own mind and so on, and then it then, at least for me, it becomes more plausible, like, oh, okay, that that those categories aren't the default categories of the way we understand the world, you know, um, necessarily in our default culture. But um, but when you observe it, to me it makes more sense and actually rings true. So yeah, I agree.

Matt Skinner: I think when you talk to people who are in recovery who have wrestled with addictions, when you talk to people who have lived through. Awful kinds of social upheavals like wars and civil wars, where where otherwise kind people all of a sudden are caught up in a kind of frenzy. And I mean. But also in more pedestrian things, in the ways in which we all have ingrained habits of acting that are incredibly selfish or incredibly destructive. And. It's. But it makes it difference, I think. I think for Paul, sin is not a list of things you've done wrong from which you have to be forgiven. It's an enslavement from which you have to be delivered. And that's not popular language. And that's language that's complicated by in the United States with our own history. But it's Paul's language to describe what, what the problem of humanity is.

Katie Langston: As it says.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Elsewhere. Right. What I want to do, I don't do what I don't want to do. That's what I do. And that is a kind of language of enslavement, of being captive to something. So. So it's the gospel that liberates. What liberates us is the gospel. Yeah. Right, right.

Matt Skinner: Which in some ways gets us to bodies when you're ready to go there. Bodies?

Katie Langston: Yeah. Yeah. Please go. I was about to ask that. Yeah.

Matt Skinner: Um, so we can talk about that, too. Like so Paul also uses the expression body. So again, flesh and spirit when Paul talks about the flesh, when he's not talking about like your ancestry or what it means to just be alive and, you know, have, have. Sensory perceptions. Paul talks about flesh and spirit as these two states of existence, right? Or things that are at war. Um, he'll quote, if you want to stay Lutheran here with your saint and sinner thing. Uh, so Ernst Kasemann was a German New Testament scholar who said, for Paul, anthropology, right. What it means to be human is cosmology like, in a nutshell. In other words, the same kind of cosmic warfare that you talked about, Katie, takes place within each person's own self. Now, do I believe that it's exactly like that? Maybe not, but I think we can take Paul metaphorically in some ways. But to make sense of the metaphor, you have to dwell on the metaphor first, I think. And so that's that's helpful. So what's the solution for Paul then? He at times will talk about bodies, but he never uses the word body as like a standalone term. It's almost or almost never. For Paul, it's usually the body of something. He'll talk about a body that's enslaved to sin. He'll talk about a body, uh, in Christ or even the body of Christ. Romans chapter 12. First Corinthians chapter 12. He'll talk about Christ's own body. And so for Paul, body is always like social. It's always about being connected to something else. He doesn't talk about your body. He talks about being now caught up in a body of sinfulness. So I will jump to Romans six. Um Romans six, verse six, we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed. And here he's not saying your body is sinful like your body is this kind of house of sin that has to be purged or something like that. Rather, it's a body that's so deeply connected or associated with sin. And the solution to that is to be then incorporated into Christ's own body. In other words, as in Paul's imagination, nobody has a body that exists solely just for themselves, right? Um, and this really ties into the way in which other ancient Greek thinkers talked about bodies, that our bodies are porous. Right? Things pass through them. Um, and in some ways, we recognize that. Now, we I think during Covid, we recognized the way in which the air we breathe and the people were in contact with have influence on our health. Sure.

Matt Skinner: But the ancients. Yeah. Recognized this, that. But for them, it was less about molecules coming and going and the air you breathe. For them, it was more about a world full of all sorts of spiritual powers that are constantly trying to get influence over you. They're constantly trying to bend you to their will, whether those are deities or whether that's a kind of sense of fate or whatever. And so nobody fully lives to themselves. And so a big mark of like kind of maturity or strength in the ancient world was to have a body that would not be influenced without one's consent or one's one's willingness. And so for Paul, it's like, of course, your body is always interacting with the world. It's always interacting with others. And you're the movement of salvation is to get moved away from a body that's constantly being influenced by sin, and to move to a body that's now claimed by Christ. To use Paul's baptism language, a body that literally dies and is raised again just like Christ and into Christ. So. So for Paul, it's not I don't think he has quite the same sense of embodiment and selfhood as we have. But there's a connection there. Right. That what's a true pro body perspective? Paul would probably say a body that's fully been made alive by Christ. Yeah. That's some make.

Matt Skinner: Sense. Yeah. Yeah that.

Matt Skinner: Distinction there. So and that's where you come into your true self and your true goodness, your true potential. Once you've been not just liberated by Christ but actually caught up into participation with him.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So body of Christ is a communal concept, right? Like you mentioned first Corinthians 12 and Romans 12. So, so we're none of us are the body of Christ alone, right? We're body of Christ as a group. Is that fair to say? So is that true of the body of sin to like, like you mentioned, being influenced by evil forces or deities in the Greek mindset were also influenced by by other bodies, right? Other people around us?

Matt Skinner: Um, I think so, although I think when Paul is talking about he's mostly talking about the influence that sin has on you versus the influence that Christ has on you. Okay, okay.

Matt Skinner: At least in chapter six, I went to chapter 12 when he says basically and here in first Corinthians, we corporately and there's that word corporate which is body. We corporately are the body of Christ that do you want to know what Christ looks like in the world? You look at? People who have been baptized into his death in his life. Do you know what I mean? And so Christ's body is still present in the world. Christ's body is still influencing the world. Through literally our bodies.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: That's really helpful. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Skinner: Now Paul never says like, therefore go ahead and do whatever you want. But he does talk about freedom in ways where he says, you know, he says, eat whatever you want to eat, right? Yeah.

Matt Skinner: Um, he says nothing's going to defile you. But he says, you know, if what you eat offends somebody, then restrain your freedom and work that out. But he's not. He's not a killjoy. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Matt Skinner: He's not somebody who says if you like it, it must be bad. And that's how he's been taken sometimes. Yeah, yeah. And that's how some.

Matt Skinner: People were raised, I know. Right. Or if it's like and not even necessarily like around bodies. But some people have been raised to think, well, if there's two career options in front of you and you really want to do one, that's probably the selfish choice. So you should pick the other one and be miserable. I mean, I've know people who have gone through those kinds of discernment processes and it's like, well, why? Why would you not choose the joyful route?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, right. Right, right right, right. Yeah. The fruit of the spirit includes joy. It does.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So I'm curious later in Romans, in Romans 12, uh, I appeal to you, Romans 12 one, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Would you mind? Uh, yeah. Explicating that a. Bit. Yeah.

Matt Skinner: Well, you've got more kind of puns or wordplay, right? Like the idea of a living sacrifice is kind of funny because a sacrifice is job is to die. Yeah. Um. So there's one job. Exactly.

Matt Skinner: Your one job is to be killed on this altar. Uh, so living sacrifice is just an interesting image or metaphor right away. Right there. Yeah. And present your bodies. And so here it's the term body which, which yes, it has to do with my physical self. But body is body comes closer than flesh does to describing. Kind of the sum of who I am. What what we in the modern world might talk about as a self, for example, like, what does it mean that I'm a self part of that's embodied? I'd be a different person if I were inhabiting a different body. Um, if I was a different body, but it has all sorts to do with kind of my whole existence, my whole sense of who I am. And so I think for Paul, it's this idea of. The acceptable response to what God has done for you is to give yourself fully over to God. Mhm.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Kind of love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind. Is that. Yeah. Well that's a.

Matt Skinner: Good Old Testament. Yeah. Which I have.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: To bring in the Old Testament.

Matt Skinner: Which Jesus also liked. Yeah. And Paul also likes, I think it is like that. And, and Paul puts it in at the end of that, which is your spiritual worship. That's how the Nrsv has it. And if you look in the footnote, it says or reasonable. The Greek word there is logicus, which where we get logic from. So it has a sense of this is your, um. Logical is not quite right, but this is kind of the only fitting worship that's imaginable. Based on everything Paul said in Romans one through 11, which is largely about our salvation in Christ. So how should one live? Is kind of what he's getting at in chapter 12. And he said, the way you live is to hand yourself entirely over to God. Now, one question then is, well, what does that mean for our bodies, and what does that mean for our sense of self-worth? I think it's still really positive, but we've got, you know, Jesus says, take up your, you know, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. We have to also parse that very carefully. It's not just Paul. There's whenever it gets to be language of denying oneself or handing one's self over, we have to be really careful because our tendency is to say, yeah, I want you to do that. I want you to do that for the sake of me, you know, and so there's some bodies or some people that we view as expendable. There are some people that we view as, um, lacking the same worth that others do. And. I think Paul would be mortified to. Here us interpreting him in those directions, I hope. Well, that was awesome.

Katie Langston: Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Did you have something else, Catherine?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: No. I just want to come back to your. The reasonable worship or the logical worship like you correct me if I'm wrong, but, uh. In a sense, Paul is saying this is actually what who you are created to be, right? Like you're not you're not denying your real self. You're actually coming into your real self, right? And your real identity and your full identity by, uh, living according to the spirit. Is that fair to say?

Matt Skinner: Yeah, I think so. I'm not. Yeah. The one question is, does Paul have a sense of, like, living into one's full self, or is that more of a modern concept? But we're modern. So let's talk about that, because I don't want to go back and live in the first century, um, at all. Doesn't sound. Fun. Um, I think that is true, that this is not so much it's not a loss of one's self. It's a full discovery of one's self. Because again, for Paul, you're never.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Which which sin has kind of corrupted. Is that right. Like oh.

Matt Skinner: Yeah. Yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Like you were talking earlier about, uh, the gospel about Jesus liberating us from the body of sin. So I'm just trying to I'm trying to express something, and I'm not I'm probably not being so articulate. But, you know, sometimes we think about, like, someone who's had a conversion experience about, again, take up your cross and deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. Like somehow we're denying our real self there. And Paul is saying, no, that's not actually your real self, right? You were created to to be part of the body of Christ. You were created to live in love and joy and peace and patience and not envy and greed and sin. So in a sense, it's a turning back to, uh, who we really are, who we're really created to be instead of, uh, being enslaved to sin.

Matt Skinner: Yeah. Exactly. Right. And think of all the things that sin does to to deform or to mal form a person, right? Right.

Matt Skinner: Yeah. And so it's meant to be this release from that. So Paul will talk about enslavement to sin. You'll talk about being set free to Christ. He will use language of being enslaved to Christ, but more so the language is about being under sin to then being in Christ, which that's subtle. I don't want to build a whole theology off of prepositions, but, um, we don't move from being under sin to being under Christ as if we're we're being enslaved. We're brought into this kind of new fullness of who we are. And. How that plays itself out, then we have to, I think. I'm not sure Paul is going to give us all the answers to that, but Paul will say we're given gifts. By the Holy Spirit that are meant to build one another up, that love is the central. Yeah. Connection.

Matt Skinner: Point of connection between all of us. You can't love somebody if you're going to deny who they are. You know, it's. This is part of what love is. And so to be brought into a body, into a community where that's expressed. I think has to involve what we would call a positive self-regard or a positive body image and all of that, that more modern language that I think is not it. I'll say it positively. I think that's consistent with some of the things Paul is trying to get at.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: That's really helpful. Thank you Matt.

Katie Langston: Thanks. Yeah, that's that's amazing. Um, thank you, thank you. Uh, thank you to the listener who submitted that question. And especially thank you to those of you who are joining us on YouTube or are listening in your favorite podcast app, please remember that you can always go to enter the Bible.org to get more wonderful reflections and podcasts, articles, commentaries, uh um, overviews of every book of the Bible and more. Uh, and uh, if you enjoyed this program today, we invite you to please, uh, review, rate and review us on Apple. Uh, or like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. And of course, the best compliment you can give is to share this podcast with a friend. Until next time.