Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars
| PentecostalTheology.com
1 Corinthians 16:20
"All the brothers send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss". ESV. My emphasis.
Many years ago I was in a church congregation and the preacher was speaking about "a holy kiss". In the middle of the sermon he got us all to get up and walk around and greet other members of the congregation with a kiss. I don’t recall that we were instructed whether those kisses should include men pecking men on the cheek, or women with women or men with women.
For me the preacher put all the emphasis on the word "kiss". We were told that we should greet each other with a kiss. I don’t criticise this preacher, maybe there was little affection demonstrated at this church at the time that this happened and he was dealing with that.
But is it possible that in this verse there is no encouragement to kiss? If the writer of 1 Corinthians was well aware that the Christians he was addressing often kissed each other, and he was aware that kissing is physical, then he would be aware that physical attraction
could interfere with the holiness of it.
Can we say if when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians he wanted to emphasise the word "holy" or the word "kiss"?
Is there something about "a holy kiss" as per 1 Cor 16:20 which is beyond cultural norms? Something which cannot be replaced by just a smile or a nod?
[ An example of something beyond cultural norms-"because of the angels", 1 Cor 11:10].
