St.

Paul’s Letter
To The
Corinthians
What is the longest time
you talked to someone
on the phone? And what
did you talk about?
LITERARY ANALYSIS: Letters or Epistles
Just as there is a standard form to our letters (date,
salutation, body, closing, and signature), so there was for
theirs.
The first thing one must try to do with any of the Epistles
is to form a tentative but informed reconstruction of the
situation to which the author is speaking.

• What was going on in Corinth that caused Paul to

write 1 Corinthians?
• How does he come to learn of their situation?
• What kind of relationship and former contacts has he
had with them?
• What attitudes do they and he reflect in this letter?

These are the kinds of questions to which you want

answers.
CORINTH
One of the largest, wealthiest,
and most prestigious cities in
ancient Greece.
Location and important
features. Corinth is located
about fifty miles west of
Athens on the narrow isthmus
that connects mainland Greece
with the Peloponnesus.
FIRST LETTER TO THE
CORINTHIANS
First Corinthians is the first of two NT
letters written by the apostle Paul to the
Corinthian church.
Paul visited Corinth on his second
missionary journey (Acts 18:1–18) for a
year and a half before leaving for Syria.
CONTEXT
While in Ephesus, Paul heard of immorality in the
church at Corinth and responded with a letter (1
Cor. 5:9).

PURPOSE
In chapters 1–6 Paul deals with a number of problems
in the church at Corinth, including divisions,
arrogance, immaturity, and immorality;

then, in chapters 7–16 he answers the questions sent

to him by the church. Not only are the members of
this church not unified, but also they are at odds
with Paul himself.
PROBLEMS IN CORINTH
• Divisions. The church had divided sharply,
aligning with different Christian leaders (1:12).
There is no indication that this was encouraged by
these leaders.
•Confronting immorality. Paul is appalled at the
sexual immorality at the church: a man is sleeping
with his own stepmother (5:1).

•Lawsuits. between believers. Conflicts in the church

community had reached the point where church
members were seeking resolution in secular courts.

•Immorality generally. Apparently, the new converts

have continued with much of their pagan lifestyle,
including visits to the temple prostitutes. To justify
their behavior, the Corinthians had distorted Paul’s
theology of freedom: “I have the right to do
anything,” they say.
QUESTIONS FROM CORINTH
• Marriage. Some of the Corinthians were claiming
that celibacy was a higher spiritual state than
marriage.
• Food sacrificed to idols. Most of the meat eaten in
the ancient world came from pagan shrines and
temples, where some of the animal was burned on
the altar and the rest sold at a market. Some
Christians believed that eating the pagan meat was
like worshiping the god to which it was sacrificed.
• Issues in worship. Paul’s discussion on head
coverings is among the most difficult in the NT
because the background and context are obscure to
us.
• The resurrection. To the question “Will there be a
physical resurrection of the dead?” Paul gives an
extensive explanation of the gospel message.
ACTIVE READING: Basic Rules In
Reading

“A text cannot mean what it never could

have meant to its author or readers.”

As you read, deconstruct ideas or concepts that

you inject into text and reconstruct the meaning
of the text by contrasting it with your previous
understanding.
1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men or of
angels, but do not have love, I am only a
resounding gong or a clanging
cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of
prophecy and can fathom all
mysteries and all knowledge, and if I
have a faith that can move
mountains, but do not have love, I am
nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the
poor and give over my body to hardship
that I may boast, but do not have love, I
gain nothing.
In no way Paul is saying that you
shouldn’t do these things but if their
Faith in God causes other people to
be hurt and to suffer, then you are
missing the point of what “love” is.
CELL VS BLACKHOLE
“The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-
treated the Jews because they hated
them: afterwards they hated them much
more because they had ill-treated them.
The more cruel you are, the more you
will hate; and the more you hate, the
more cruel you will become-and so on in
a vicious circle for ever. Good and evil
both increase at compound interest.” –
C.S. Lewis “Mere Christianity”
Every time we make unloving
actions towards other people
amplifies a cycle that will make
you ask yourself “how did I get
here?” but if we trace it, we will
know.
1 Corinthians 13
4 
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not
envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It
does not dishonor others, it is not self-
seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps
no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not
delight in evil but rejoices with the
truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
Paul is like saying love is
the opposite of what
you are doing
1 Corinthians 13
8 
Love never fails. But where there are
prophecies, they will cease; where there are
tongues, they will be stilled; where there is
knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in
part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when
completeness comes, what is in part
disappears. 
11 
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When
I became a man, I put the ways of
childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a
reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to
face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,
even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and

13 

love. But the greatest of these is love.

Paul points them to a future built
in the love of Christ, so Paul
tells them to pursue the love of
Christ here on earth because it
will not pass away
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians
is about redirecting them to
what “love” truly means
“It is a blackhole right now in the
world. But we can be cells that
gives itself away so that we can be
people that we ought to be.”

– Dr. Tim Mackie

• Does your love take the life out
of people or does it give life to
people?

• What do you learn about

yourself whenever you do
things in an unloving manner?
Bibliography:

• Baker Illustrated Bible Dictionary

by Tremper Longenecker
• How to read the Bible for all its
worth by Gordon Fee & Douglas
Stuart
• The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• “Love is not a Blackhole” by Dr.
Tim Mackie