As a brief intro to 1 Corinthians: Corinth was a city in Greece that Paul went through and planted a church (Acts 18). He met Aquila and Priscilla, tentmakers from Pontus that were living in Rome but were kicked out by the emperor Claudius for being Jewish (he expelled Jews from Rome likely because of their missionary work as the Senate in 139 BC and Tiberius in 19AD had done). It was a large city and was a Roman capital of the region. You may enjoy reading a bit more about it here. Corinth had many places for worshipping gods at the time of Paul, but was likely no more or less immoral than other cities at the time. Many worship practices involved rituals that were sexual in nature (the temple of Aphrodite was huge and employed as many as 1000 temple prostitutes at one time) and worship of the Roman imperial family was common as well. Paul stayed and taught here for a year and a half, which was one of the longer stays. It should be no surprise that he wrote them so often. 1Co 5:19 suggests that he had written a letter before this (that we do not have access to) and 2Co 2:4 and 7:8 may be speaking of 1Co or may even be another letter! He clearly loved this church! They were also very much in the wrong on a number of issues. Be ready to dive into some tough subjects together!

Chapter 1
This church will show itself to have a number of issues, trust me. Yet Paul starts with thanksgiving for them and for all that God has given them and all that they understand God has done! They have all they need in Christ (remember Ephesians 1:3? – we preached on it last year, but will get there soon with our reading).

Due to their understanding of what God has done for them, there is still a problem with their actions. How is this possible? I thought Jesus saved them from their sin! He did, read Romans again. However, Christians must live differently in light of what we have received. One of the things we should not be taking part in is division. This is a hard one for many non-Christians to see. They see division within the body of Christ and doubt what Christ has done! Further, when the division is based on allegiance to a teacher or a pastor, this is not right and not a good thing at all! The early church struggled with this – see verse 12. Paul condemns this and we should do the same today.

Finally, Paul shows that Christ is foolishness/folly to the world. Death on a cross is ludicrous to honor and be thankful about. Everyone is offended (Jews and Greeks) about this truth. What’s further, God uses those with little to “give” the world to serve Him and build the church. This is amazing! You are significant and are bought with a price – so follow Jesus and let Him use you!