Military statue and the Body

This picture is a sculpture of a man in Roman military garb from the 2nd century AD. Corinth is filled with statues of emperors and military men. The theater, also designed in the 2nd century by Romans, has frescos depicting battle scenes.

How are military statues significant for understanding the world of Paul?

Men in the military did not come from the bottom of the social ladder, but closer to the top. Corinthian art indicates that the society had men of wealth and power.  The society was socially stratified.

How is Paul remixing his culture?

This social stratification created divisions within the Christian church. In order to quell these divisions, Paul describes the church as a body:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink (1 Corinthians, chapter 12:12-13)

In these verses Paul actually says something quite intuitive to the Greek mind. The idea that collective humans or even the cosmos functioned liked a body was prevalent in society. That slaves and free were even in the same body is actually not particularly striking. At this point, Paul is simply stating what people thought.

However, Paul quickly starts to remix people's perceptions of the body. In the Greco-roman mind of Paul's day, hierarchy was the norm. Those on the bottom served those on top; those on top took care of those on the bottom by protecting them (militarily) or providing for them (paying for the construction of temples or athletic competitions as seen throughout Greece).

Paul completely reject this hierarchical conception of the church body. He writes:

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (Chapter 12, verses 21-26)

Paul humbly reminds us that in Christ, there is neither slave nor free because there is no more status.

source:
info on greco-roman understandings of the body: Martin, Dale. The Corinthian Body. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.