Another curveball - 36
Kissing when greeting?
The second subject that has caused good Christians to pause can be found Paul’s instruction to the Church in Corinth and elsewhere. It comes at the very end of his second letter.
This is what the text says.
Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. (2 Corinthians 13:11-13)
So here we have a sentence of just seven words, “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” It makes you ask, “Is the modern Christian instructed to kiss other Christians upon greeting?” Perhaps, our first question should be, “Was Paul instructing the Corinthian Christians or even the first century Christians to kiss upon greeting?”
John Ellicott comments on this verse, “The tense of the Greek verb indicates that the Apostle is giving directions, not for a normal and, as it were, liturgical usage, but for a single act. In doing so, he repeats what he had said in 1Corinthians 16:20. The same injunction appears in Romans 16:16; 1Thessalonians 5:26. What he meant was that, as the public reading of the Epistle came to a close, the men who listened should embrace each other and kiss each other’s cheeks, in token that all offences were forgotten and forgiven, and that there was nothing but peace and goodwill between them. It was, perhaps, natural, that the counsel should be taken as a rubric, even at the cost of its losing its real significance, and becoming a stereotyped formula.”
In other words, Ellicott believes that the letters, where Paul’s formula was used, were sent to individual churches and read before the congregation. And that once the letter was heard, a holy kiss would be that congregation’s way of accepting Paul’s ambassadors, and Paul himself by the letter he penned to them as a brother in Christ.
Ellicott’s point is well-taken. However, the formula repeated in the other letters mentioned above seems like it begs to become a common practice. In other words, just as Paul’s salutations and benedictions began to be repeated in churches during worship, so why not greet one another with a holy kiss? The Apostle Peter says something similar, “Greet one another with the kiss of love.”1 This is why Ellicott could understand how it became a rubric (an established guideline) for churches.
The Expositors Greek Testament suggests as much, “By ἅγιον (holy) the kiss is distinguished from an ordinary greeting of natural affection or friendship; it belongs to God and the new society of His children; it is specifically Christian.”
So why don’t we kiss in churches today? Does a hug count the same? Won’t a handshake be enough? Or did Paul intend to establish a ritualistic kiss? I know some that would never want to go into a church where people were kissing each other. But again, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. What was Paul’s intention?
Sometimes the stress on surrounding words are where the author’s intention resides. The word holy attached to kiss is instructive. Not just any kiss will do. Paul would not want a hypocritical kiss, nor a romantic or flirtatious kiss, nor a meaningless kiss, and especially not a Judas kiss. The kiss is not his greatest concern. The word “holy,” however, is imperative.
In the Pulpit Commentary we read, “St. Paul, of course, in enjoining it here and in other Epistles, has in view the concord (agreement) which it expressed.” In other words, there are kisses and there are kisses. What is at the heart of it? To be a holy kiss suggests that there is a peace in fellowship being communicated. THIS is holy. It is set apart. Love for Jesus Christ and one another must be the thing that evokes the kiss.
Unlike foot washing, I do not believe the “holy kiss” is as easy to hermeneutically disregard as a universal obligation. Though I do lean in the direction of John Gill, who writes, “I say, it is an allusion to this custom, for it is only an allusion; the apostle did not mean that any outward action should be made use of, only that their Christian salutations should not be mere complaisance, or expressed by bare words, and outward gestures and actions, either of the hand or mouth; but that they should spring from real love and true friendship, and be without dissimulation, hearty and sincere.”
1 Peter 5:14