1 Corinthians

Overview

Corinth was a hard place for a church and this one had taken on the city’s character: factions, lawsuits, immorality tolerated, communion turned into a class dinner, and gifted people competing at worship. Paul answers report after report, then question after question.

For all the correction it is not a cold letter. It contains the clearest account of the Lord’s Supper, the great chapter on love, and the fullest treatment of the resurrection anywhere in Scripture.

Background

Paul had spent eighteen months there. Now in Ephesus, he had heard from Chloe’s household about quarrels, and had received a letter from the church asking about marriage, food offered to idols, worship and gifts.

Corinth sat on a narrow isthmus carrying trade both ways, with the temple of Aphrodite above it; "to Corinthianise" was slang for immorality. Some of these believers, Paul says, had come out of exactly that — and such were some of you.

Key themes

• The cross looks like foolishness and is the power of God.
• A church divided over leaders has misunderstood what leaders are.
• Freedom is limited by love: what is lawful may still not be helpful.
• Gifts are for building up the body, not for display.
• The resurrection of Christ is the ground of everything, including ours.

Outline

1. DivisionsChapters 1–4

   I am of Paul, I of Apollos — and the wisdom of the world against the message of the cross.

2. Scandals toleratedChapters 5–6

   Immorality left unjudged, believers suing each other, and the body as a temple.

3. Marriage and singlenessChapter 7

   Answers to their questions about husbands, wives, widows and the unmarried.

4. Meat offered to idolsChapters 8–10

   Knowledge puffs up; Paul gives up his own rights as the example.

5. WorshipChapters 11–14

   Order in the assembly, the Lord’s Supper taken worthily, gifts, and love above them all.

6. The resurrectionChapter 15

   If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain — but now is Christ risen.

7. Practical mattersChapter 16

   The collection for Jerusalem, travel plans, and final greetings.

Key passages

• 1 Corinthians 1:18 The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.
• 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost — ye are bought with a price.
• 1 Corinthians 10:13 God will with the temptation also make a way to escape.
• 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 The Lord’s Supper: ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.
• 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Charity suffereth long, and is kind.
• 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 The gospel handed on: died, buried, risen, and seen.
• 1 Corinthians 15:55-57 O death, where is thy sting?

Christ in 1 Corinthians

Christ crucified is the theme Paul says he determined to know among them, and Christ risen is the argument he ends with. He is the wisdom and power of God, our passover sacrificed for us, the rock that followed Israel, the head of the body, and the firstfruits of everyone who will rise.

Reading it

• Watch for "now concerning" — it marks each question the church had asked.
• Read 13 in its place, between two chapters on gifts, rather than as a wedding reading.
• Chapter 15 answers a real doubt in the church; read it as an argument, not a poem.