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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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1 Corinthians 16:20
Comments
‘Greet ye one another with an holy kiss.’ The holy kiss – the cultural way in that place, at that time, of expressing affection, love, respect, solidarity, companionship, and helpfulness; a sincere token of all those things. Did Paul send it by proxy – give them a kiss from me? Without going to the anthropologists, we do assume it was not a kiss across the sexes. The Gospels show us it was the standard welcome in Jewish life. Judas kissed the Lord Jesus when he betrayed him, but was feigning friendship when he did so. The father of the prodigal kissed his returning son, and the elders of Ephesus fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him in sorrow at his departing. Apart from the exhortations in the epistles, the only other kiss in the New Testament is a unique act of worship by the woman who was a sinner (Luke 7:37-38) when she kissed Christ’s feet, which has no parallel to this.We read in our Scripture reading from Romans 12. ‘Let love be without dissimulation’, that is to say, without pretence, without sham. We’re not just pleasant, or charming to each other. We respect each other. We have affection for one another, concern for each other, prayer for each other. Greet ye one another with an holy kiss.
Application
Questions
Is the manner in which this greeting is expressed normative, or just the spirit of the greeting? In a culture where it is not done outside your family. most in the West would normally attach more significance than was intended to a literal kiss between on-family members. There are other ways of expressing the same warm greeting, and the kiss is not essential to the expression. This is an example of an abiding principle expressed in Paul’s time in a cultural coat. Today, a handshake is better.
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