1 Corinthians

Who Wrote It?

In Acts 9 God confronts a religious man by the name of Saul, a persecutor of the church. God tells him to stop persecuting Jesus, not just the church.  Consequently, God refers to Saul His "chosen instrument" that He will use to take the Gospel to the Jews and the Gentiles.  Saul (whose name was later changed to Paul) lived a fearless life led by the Holy Spirit and planted many churches.  The church at Corinth is one of the churches that Paul planted on his third missionary journey (Acts 18: 1-17). 

Paul lived among the people at Corinth for eighteen months. He planted the church, raised up leaders and moved on to the next city.  Shortly after Corinth he went to Ephesus.  During his time in Ephesus he corresponded with members of the church at Corinth (1:11).  Through this exchange Paul discovered a high level of tension in the church.  Issues included: immature attitudes toward church leaders (4:1-21),  bizarre sexual sins (5:1-5) and believers suing each other (6:1-11). 

Some issues emerged from a failure to understand Paul's teachings.  It is evident that Paul wrote several letters to the church at Corinth.  We know for sure that he had written a previous letter (5:9) which was misinterpreted by the Corinthians.  In that letter he was warning the Corinthians not to associate with immoral persons and they took this to mean ALL immoral persons, while he only was referring to immoral professing believers (5:10-13).  Ironically, this portion of Paul's teaching is still misunderstood today!

Paul wrote the letter we know as1 Corinthians  in order to clean up the misunderstandings of the church at Corinth. The letter was likely read by one of the church leaders at one of its corporate gatherings.  Fortunately, all Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God and we can learn about Jesus and his church through the letter of 1 Corinthians. 

Why Corinth?

Corinth today has little significance other than historical.  During the time this letter was written (around A.D. 55) Corinth was composed of both Jews and Greeks (Acts 18:4).  However, it is clear there were more Gentiles resided here because we see Paul reiterate his vision statement for his ministry,  "From now on I will go to the Gentiles" (Acts 18:6; cf. 13:46). 

Corinth was a strategic city for Paul to plant a church in. From cities, culture emanates and influences surrounding regions.  Corinth was a large, innovative, wealthy city.  It was a port city located between the Aegean region and the western Mediterranean whereby goods from around the world were transported in and out.  Thus it became the center for art, philosophy and religion.  Corinth was widely monotheistic and contained a number of pagan temples including large ones to Apollo and Aphrodite.  The worship of these gods was so ingrained in the culture of Corinth that it was apart of the governmental affairs, many of the cultural outlets and festivals, and consequently became apart of everyday life.  Religion in Corinth could be compared to modern day Bangkok, Thailand.  Here there are many trades, travelers, cultures, and displays of polytheism.   

Practical Things to Know.