1 Corinthians Overview

Our next letter is 1 Corinthians, a letter written by Paul to the church in Corinth. It was likely written in 56 CE during the last year of his three-year ministry in Ephesus. We read as Paul planted the church in Corinth in Acts 18.

While this letter is titled 1 Corinthians, it is likely Paul’s second letter to the church. In his travels he’d heard reports about bad things going on in the church in Corinth and so he wrote his first letter to them, which we don’t have. They then responded to Paul with another letter we don’t have, most likely justifying their behaviour and explaining why Paul was wrong.

In his second letter to them, this letter, Paul addresses more reports he’d had about their behaviour, and then addresses their letter. The issue with this is it means we’re getting only half the conversation and have to try to piece together what it is that Paul is replying to.

1 Corinthians 1:1-9 - Introduction

1 Corinthians 1:10-6:20 - Addressing reports about the Corinthians

• 1 Corinthians 1:10-4:21 - The church is divided
• 1 Corinthians 5-6 - Immorality in the church

1 Corinthians 7-15 - Addressing the letter from the Corinthians

• 1 Corinthians 7 - Questions around marriage
• 1 Corinthians 8-10 - Mixing with idol worship
• 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 - Women in worship
• 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 - The Lord’s table
• 1 Corinthians 12-14 - Abuse of spiritual gifts
• 1 Corinthians 15 - The resurrection

1 Corinthians 16 - Conclusion

One of the key issues in the church in Corinth was the impact of Greek thinking. The Greeks believed the most important thing about a human was the spirit. The body was physical and was therefore bad. At best, it should be ignored and worst, it should be suppressed.

Because of this thinking, the Corinthians had become hyper spiritualised while at the same time either suppressing their bodies, or not worrying about the sin they did with their bodies, because they believed their bodies didn’t matter. This flowed into various issues like sexuality, eating food that had been dedicated to other gods, and their view on the resurrection. Paul will address these issues with a proper understanding of the body.

Because of their hyper spirituality, the Corinthians had also become proud. They believed that they had earned their spiritual gifts with their impressive spirituality, and were constantly chasing after teacher who could teach them to be more spiritual.

This bled into how they treated one another and how they used their spiritual gifts to promote themselves. Paul will address these issues with a reminder that spiritual gifts are exactly that, gifts from God. He also brings some order into how they are to use their spiritual gifts.

Paul wants them to see that because they have become wise and powerful in their own sight, they’ve actually become foolish and God’s power is weak in them. They’ve allowed themselves to become divided, when instead they should be pursuing unity.

1 Corinthians 1-2

As with Romans, Paul starts his letter by introducing himself as an apostle and introduces Sosthenes. It’s unclear who Sosthenes is. It may be that he was a ministry partner of Paul, or that he was the one who wrote 1 Corinthians for Paul, just like we read about Tertius, who wrote Romans.

Paul then addresses the readers themselves. He describes them as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2). Sanctified means to be made holy, and saints can also be translated holy ones.

These are Corinthians have already been made holy by Jesus and they are called to be holy ones. This is an interesting description from Paul when we look at how they are behaving further on in the book. However, the point stands. They have been made holy by Jesus, and they are called to live in that holiness.

Paul then gives thanks for the Corinthians. They are enriched in all speech and knowledge. They are not lacking in any gift. These people are a highly skilled and effective people. But Paul wants to make very clear to them that everything they have has come from Jesus. They are gifts from him. The Corinthians didn’t become skilled and effective by themselves.

Then we jump into the meat of the letter. We’ve already mentioned that the Corinthians were constantly chasing after whatever teacher would make them more spiritual or more wise in their own eyes. This often led to infighting, as they argued over who was the best teacher.

Paul addresses this division. These teachers aren’t the source of their freedom. Jesus is, and they shouldn’t be divided by teachers when they’re meant to be united in Jesus. Paul is grateful that he didn’t baptise the Corinthians, because he knows they would then argue over who baptised them and how that made them more special.

So Paul targets the root of the issue. They’re chasing after teachers they think are wise or eloquent. That’s the wrong way to think about it. Paul himself purposely tried not to come with his own wisdom or eloquence, because he didn’t want that to overshadow the Jesus that he was talking about.

The good news of Jesus is not ‘wise’ as the world sees it. A messiah comes to save the world, dying on the cross makes no sense to how 1st Century Greeks saw the world. Paul quotes Isaiah 29:14 to point out that God intentionally subverts the wisdom of the world.

In all of its wisdom, the world was not able to know God, so he chose unwise means to make himself known. The Jews’ weakness is they are constantly looking for signs. The Greeks’ weakness is they are constantly chasing after wisdom.

But the Christians believes in a crucified messiah, which is an issue for both Jew and Greek. The reality is God’s ‘foolishness’ is wiser than any human wisdom and his ‘weakness’ is stronger than any human strength. In short, if they are trying to pursue wisdom using the world’s understanding of wisdom, they’re going to end up foolish.

Paul then appeals to their own histories. Not that long ago, the Corinthians were a ragtag bunch. They were not considered wise, or powerful, or noble. In many ways, Corinth wasn’t like the noble, aristocratic Greek cities we tend to think of. The city had been destroyed by the Romans 200 years before and left as rubble for 100 years.

Then 100 years before this, the Romans reestablished it as a Roman Colony. It was settled predominantly by freedmen, ex-slaves who were trying to make their mark. It’s city was not made of impressive buildings but tightly packed houses, workshops, and stores.

It was these people, likely working-class individuals with low standing and low influence, that initially made up the church in Corinth. Whatever influence and standing they have since gained has been given to them because of Jesus, and so if they are going to boast, they need to do it in Jesus.

Paul himself did not preach to them with great rhetoric and wisdoms. He simply preached Jesus crucified, and allowed the power of the Spirit to demonstrate the truth of his words. Therefore, those who are mature in Jesus shouldn’t seek to show off their wisdom.

Paul is cleverly attacking their pride here. He is insinuating that because they do seek to show off their wisdom, they must not be mature.

The spirit of the world only knows human wisdom. As Christians, we have the spirit of God, and so we should not seek wisdom but more of the Spirit. Those who are seeking human wisdom do not receive the gifts the Spirit is offering, but those who seek the Spirit understand the nature of the spirit and the mind of Christ.

Psalm 139

The psalm is attributed to king David and falls into the category of lament psalm, though it may not seem it at first. We’ve mentioned before that lament psalms are about bringing your complaint to God, asking him to do something, and then declaring your trust in him.

This psalm spends the first three quarters of the psalm declaring their trust in God and his great power. It’s only in the last quarter that the psalmist brings their complaint and request.

Psalm 139:1-6 - The Lord is all-knowing

Psalm 139:7-12 - The Lord is all-present

Psalm 139:13-18 - The Lord as creator

Psalm 139:19-24 - Vindicate me, O Lord

The psalmist starts by declaring that the Lord has searched them, and knows them. Whatever the psalmist does or thinks, the Lord knows about it. Even before the psalmist says a word, the Lord knows what they are going to say. This means that the Lord can ‘hem’ the psalmist in by guiding their steps and keeping them safe long before trouble is at hand. The idea of all this is almost too much for the psalmist. They can’t quite comprehend how the Lord can know them so intimately.

It may be that this knowledge scares the psalmist a little, but they realise there’s nothing they can do. There’s nowhere they can run away from the Lord. The Lord is in the heavens and in the pits of Sheol. Sheol was the Old Testament understanding of where you go when you die. They could travel towards the morning (east) or to the farthest limits of the sea (for Israelites, this was seen as the far side of the Mediterranean, to the west) but the Lord would still be there guiding them and leading them. Even if they hid somewhere really dark, the Lord can see in the dark just as well as the light.

This leads the psalmist to think about how it was the Lord who created them. The Lord knows how all the internal organs work, because he was the one that knit them together when the psalmist was in their mother’s womb. The psalmist marvels at the Lord for being able to do that. The Lord saw everything that was going on in their mother’s womb and even then knew the full extent of the psalmist’s life. Again, this idea is too much for the psalmist to think about or comprehend.

This, finally, leads the psalmist to their complaint and request. The psalmist is clearly surrounded by wicked people that oppose them and oppose God. The psalmist asks that God deal with their enemies. They point out to God that they have been loyal to him, hating those that God hates and those that turn away from God. The unspoken question is if the psalmist is doing what they should be doing, why are they being persecuted like this? So the psalmist then ends with a request that God search them and point out anything that is wicked in them so they can deal with it and live right.

The psalmist’s struggle is that they are surrounded by wicked people persecuting them and they don’t know why. So they first build this logical understanding that God sees all and knows all, and then asks God to either deal with the problem of point out where they’ve misunderstood. This is an incredible prayer. It shows humility to recognise ‘this seems wrong to me, but it may be that I’m missing something that God can see’. This humility and teachability means that we can both ask for God to intervene with our problems, but also give him space to work on us if we’re the problem.