Holy Kiss - I Corinthians 16:20

I never really thought a lot about the Pauline exhortation to "greet one another with a holy kiss" until I traveled to Russia and the Ukraine in 1990. That's when I found out that the Christians there practiced this command very literally. Women kissed women on the lips and men kissed men on the lips when meeting one another. About two hundred Russian and Ukrainian men kissed me before I finally met with some of the leaders to discuss their interpretation and application of I Corinthians 16:20, and other similar verses.

What I did not want to do is fall into the contemporary trap of saying this verse is 'culturally conditioned'. This is where Christians look at the cultural context of a particular verse or passage, like I Corinthians 16:20 and pronounce it completely inapplicable for us today. One could say that the 'holy kiss', which was apparently a kiss on both cheeks with an embrace, was a cultural phenomenon in the ancient Middle East and is not appropriate for say, the American Midwest culture. But this is a very slippery slope. The reality is that one can go to almost any New Testament command and find a cultural connection and then dismiss it as "culturally conditioned".

Before setting aside any verse or passage of Scripture as irrelevant or inapplicable to us today, it would be best for us to err on the side of literal application like our Russian brothers and sisters. After all, II Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness..." What I take away from this verse is that there isn't any New Testament scripture that we can completely dismiss as culturally inapplicable. You may ask, 'what about the Old Testament'?

That is the scripture that Paul had at the time he wrote to Timothy, the New Testament was still being written. Most Old Testament scriptures do apply primarily and directly to Israel, but for us in the Church they still have an application. It is not prohibited any longer for us to eat lobster because we are no longer under the Law (see Romans 7:6 for example) But having said that I believe that OT prohibitions still have an application for us today based on II Timothy 3:16. We need to be careful, for instance, about when and how much we eat things like lobster. There were reasons why God prohibited them for Israel beyond ceremonial uncleanness. But for certain in this age, every single New Testament command has a timeless truth that applies to us in some way today, and you may ask, what would that be for I Corinthians 16:20?

I would say the timeless truth is this: When believers meet, they should greet each other with some physical display of affection. It needs to be "holy", not impure or inappropriate. It needs to be physical, not just verbal, and it needs to show genuine affection. It could be a handshake, a hug, a pat on the back, or any number of ways that are appropriate in a particular culture. But the "holy kiss" is not a option, it is a command of Scripture and should be obeyed.

How did my conversation with the Russian leaders go? Very well. Most of them agreed that it was not necessary to kiss others on the lips to obey this command. But a few people still insisted on kissing me on the lips, and I cooperated, not because I liked it (in case you were wondering) but because it is much better to apply Scripture a little too literally than to dismiss it altogether.