Paul's first letter to the Corinthians was written to a church community that Paul knew really well.
Corinth was a major port city in the ancient world and had lots of temples to
Greek and Roman gods. It was a big economic center and so Paul
strategically came here as a missionary. He spent a year and a half there
getting to know people, talking to them about Jesus and a whole bunch of people
became followers of Jesus and formed a church community. You can read about all
of this in Acts chapter 18.
So after a while Paul moved on to start churches in other cities and he started
getting reports that things were not going well at all
back at the church in Corinth. He was plagued by all kinds of problems and
that's why he wrote this letter. It's broken up into five main parts along
with the final greeting. And these five sections correspond to five main
problems that Paul is addressing. And so the letter reads like a collection of
short essays on different topics but there are these core ideas that unite
all of the pieces together. So here's what he does in each section. He describes
the problem, but then he always responds to that problem with some part of the
story of the gospel, which is the good news about Jesus. And he shows how
they're actually not living out what they say they believe. And so this letter is
all about learning to think about every area of life through the lens of gospel.
So let's dive in and see how he does it. In chapters one through four the problem
is that there are these divisions in the church. There are some other teachers who had
come through town since Paul left--a guy named Apollos, and then Peter, and people
had picked their favorite teacher and then became groupies around that leader and
then started to talk bad and disrespect people who favored another leader or
teacher. And so Paul, his response to this is kind of sarcastic and sharp. He says, "You
have to be kidding me!
The church is not a popularity contest. The church is the community of people
who are centered around Jesus. Its leaders and its teachers are simply
servants of Jesus. So while you might prefer one leader more than another,
it's not worth dividing over and certainly not speaking poorly about each
other.
The center of the church is Jesus and the good news about who he is and what
he's done. In chapters five through seven, Paul addresses some problems related to
sex. There were a number of people sleeping around in the church-- one guy
with his stepmother and a number of other people still worshipping at the local
temples to Greek gods and sleeping with the prostitutes who worked there. Not
only that, but there were people in the church who were saying that this was all
just fine. They said, "Hey, we're free in Christ! God's grace is bottomless, right?
It's fine." And Paul said it's not fine. And with the gospel in hand he shows just how
wrong-headed this kind of thinking is. He says, "Remember first of all, Jesus died
for your sins, including the ruin of broken relationships that's caused by
sexual misconduct. And so if you're a Christian, sexual integrity is one of the
main ways that we respond to Jesus' love and grace." Paul also reminds them
that just as Jesus was physically raised from the dead, so our bodies will be
raised from the dead. Which means this: if your body is being redeemed by Jesus now
and in the future, then what you do with your body
matters. It matters a lot. And it's not yours to do whatever you want with. Paul is being
super clear. Being a follower of Jesus involves no compromise when it comes to
sexual integrity.
In chapters 8 through 10 the issue is about food, but not just food preferences like
"Do you like or dislike a certain food?" The issue the Corinthians were divided over is
meat that came from animals sacrificed in the local temples to Greek and Roman
gods. And there was a split between the Jewish and non-Jewish Christians about
how to respond to this issue. And once again Paul appeals to some core ideas
from the gospel. He says our allegiance first and foremost is to Jesus as Lord,
not to any other gods. And so if you're in a situation where there's meat that's
been dedicated to another god and there are people around who might watch you
and conclude, "Oh, look! Christians worship Jesus and they can worship other
gods too." Paul says if that's the scenario, don't eat the meat. Your loyalty is to
Jesus and you should love those people more than yourself and not mislead them.
But Paul quickly qualifies this and says, "Listen, as Christians we believe God is
the Creator of all things including that animal. And the temple idols, we believe,
are just pieces of wood and stone. So if there's no one around who's going to
misunderstand your actions and you're hungry, eat up! You're free as a new
human in Christ to follow your conscience in these kind of debatable
matters. So what makes it ok in one situation to eat but not in the other?
The core principle is love. Love will deny itself and look out for the
well-being of other people. And love, God's love, is at the core of the gospel.
It's what Jesus did when he died for us and so Paul says it's what Christians
should do for other people. In chapters 11 through 14 Paul moves on and
addresses problems in their weekly worship gathering. There were some people
who were having really powerful spiritual experiences in the gathering
and so they would start praying out loud in unknown languages. There were other
people who might start sharing a teaching or a word from God and then
someone would get up and interrupt them because they wanted to share. And it all was
really chaotic and it was distracting people, especially visitors, from hearing
the gospel.
So in these chapters Paul helps them think first of all about the purpose of
this gathering-- to help them see what kind of behaviors are appropriate.
He says the gathering is a place where God's Spirit should be working through
everybody and it should happen in a unified way. So he developes this cool
metaphor about the church as a human body. It's one but it has all these
different parts and each part serves a unique and important role. So he goes on
to name a whole bunch of things that the Spirit does through all these
different people, all for the building up of the church (that's a key
phrase in these chapters). And Paul concludes that the highest value in the
gathering should be a concept central to the gospel--God's love. Love is the key
word in these chapters too. Love will compel each person in the gathering to
use their role to serve and seek the well-being of others. So Paul applies all
this to the Corinthian's problems.
Some people think the purpose of the gathering is to have intense spiritual
experiences or to get a chance to speak their mind.
And Paul says, "Listen, I'm a big fan of powerful experiences of prayer but if it
distracts other people or freaks them out, I should stop it because I'm loving
myself more than I am loving those people." The gathering around Jesus should
be orderly so everybody can learn and sing and worship and hear God speaking to them.
The last problem Paul addresses is the issue of Jesus' resurrection and the
future hope of Jesus' followers. There were some people in the church who were
saying that the idea of resurrection is ridiculous and doesn't really matter to
being a Christian. And Paul reacts to this big time. He begins by saying that
the resurrection is an indispensable part of the gospel. We believe in it
because of the hundreds of eye witnesses that saw Jesus alive in a physical
body after being publicly executed by the Romans.
If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, Paul says, that his death was meaningless, we
are all still lost in our sin and selfishness, we should just stop being Christians.
Paul then shows in detail how the resurrection was Jesus' victory over
death and evil, how it's a source of life and power for us now in the present and
how it's a promise of future hope for the whole world. It's because of the
resurrection that we have a reason to be unified around Jesus. It's the reason we
have motivation for sexual integrity. It's the source of power for loving
other people more than ourselves and ultimately it's our hope for victory over death.
And so, Paul concludes, we do believe Jesus was raised from the dead, which
means this: the gospel is not just moral advice or a recipe for private
spirituality. It's an announcement about Jesus that opens up a whole new reality.
And that's what 1 Corinthians is all about--seeing every part of life through
the lens of that gospel.