At the recent SBL conference in Rome, Mark Nanos presented a paper on Paul’s claim to be “all things to all people”. He suggested that if Paul was adapting his lifestyle to please Jews in one setting, and Gentiles in another setting, he lacked integrity and was duplicit… duplicit… two-faced. So Nanos offered a new interpretation of 1 Cor 9 that was, he implied, kinder to Paul and more attentive to Paul’s (consistent) relationship with the Torah.
He suggested that Paul never claimed to adapt his lifestyle for different contexts, but rather his rhetorical strategy. Acts 17 is illustrative – when speaking to Gentiles, Paul argues “as a Gentile” (as opposed to when he is addressing Jews and argues from the Scriptures). This adaptability of rhetorical strategy makes sense of Paul’s ministry, and presents no problem to Paul’s own integrity.
I don’t think that an appeal to “rhetorical adaptability” is sufficiently related to the argument of 1 Corinthians 8-10, which is all about questions of eating and drinking – that is, questions of lifestyle. But on the other hand, I think Nanos is right that Paul is not necessarily being two-faced. I think the issue is about the shape of his self-constraint. So, for example, Paul always rejects idol-meat. But while he is among Gentiles, Paul presents his rejection of idol-meat in a way that is sensitive to the Gentile concern that idols are dangerous gods. And this is exactly what he wants the Corinthians to develop: A sensitivity to those in danger of idolatry, so that the expression of “freedom” is not made into an unnecessary cause of stumbling.
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