A Church That Was Losing Its Way: 1 Corinthians Chapter 1

 Introduction

In the 1st century A.D., Corinth was a busy seaport city in Asia Minor and capital of the province of Achaia. The city was a business and trading hub at the intersection of major trade routes. Its architecture and culture resembled that of  Rome, and the city was a favorite spot for retired Roman soldiers to make their homes.

Corinth had a rough and rowdy reputation throughout the Roman Empire. To call someone a Corinthian was considered an insult, because the Corinthians were known for their greed, reckless pursuit of pleasure, callous disregard for others, drunkenness, sexual immorality, and the rampant venereal diseases in the city.

The city was the site of eight temples dedicated to pagan gods, including the temple of Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. Housed in the temple of Aphrodite were more than 1,000 priestesses who were the temple prostitutes. Sexual acts in the temple of Aphrodite were considered to be acts of worship. Not surprisingly, the temple of Aphrodite was a major attraction for local residents and travelers.

Corinthian industries included pottery and brass alloy. The city also was the site of annual athletic contests which were as well known in the Roman Empire as the athletic games held annually at Olympia.

Paul established the church at Corinth during his second missionary journey. We can read about the church’s history in Acts chapter 18. Paul spent about a year and a half in Corinth. Eventually, Jewish leaders in the city grew angry at Paul for his preaching about Christ. They hauled him before the Roman proconsul Gallio (see Acts 18:12), who served as proconsul in Achaia for just one year, 51-52 A.D. When Paul left Corinth, there was a growing Christian community there, and the gospel had begun to spread throughout the region.

But three or four years later, word reached Paul that there was sin and disruption in the church, and he consequently sent a stern letter to the church. We know that letter as the book of 1 Corinthians in the New Testament.

The Corinthian Christians faced very strong cultural pressures, and many of them yielded to the sinful influences of the city’s secular culture. The church had been established to change the city. But instead, the city had changed the church.

Both of Paul’s Corinthian letters give us valuable information about this early church, including how it was organized and how it dealt with or failed to deal with the rough, hostile, sinful, polytheistic influence of the secular culture. In Corinth, sin and self-centeredness that had gradually infected the church.

The letter we know as 1 Corinthians was copied and distributed and was highly valued in the early churches. Early church fathers in the second and third centuries quoted from it more than they quoted any of Paul’s other writings. One early document, known as the Muratorian Fragment, lists the two Corinthian letters among the writings accepted by the church as authoritative.

(Note: The Muratorian Fragment contains the oldest known list of accepted New Testament books. It was discovered in the Milan library and published in 1740 by Ludovico Antonio Muratori and is dated circa 170 A.D. It consists of a manuscript containing the first known attempt to assemble a list of authoritative or inspired writings of the Christian era. Its list includes the four gospels, “The Acts of All Apostles,” all of Paul’s epistles, the book of Jude, two “epistles bearing the name of John,” and “The Apocalypse of John.” Eventually, the church adopted 66 books it considered to be scripture at the Council of Carthage, which was a council of bishops, in 397 A.D.)

We read in Acts 18:9-11 about the vision God gave to Paul while he was in Corinth:

“⁹One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. ¹⁰For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.’ 11So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.”

Paul’s visit to Corinth occurred during his second missionary journey. His mission strategy was to start churches in major cities like Corinth. Then those churches would grow and influence nearby regions with the gospel message. In addition, Paul intended for the churches to influence traders and other travelers to turn to Christ and then spread the gospel in their journeys.

While he was in Corinth, Paul met a couple, Aquila and Priscilla, who were Jewish converts to the Christian faith. Like Paul, their trade was tentmaking. The two became friends with him and began assisting him in his church planting efforts. When Paul left Corinth, Aquila and Priscilla traveled with him and continued assisting him when they arrived in Ephesus.

Paul wrote the letter we know as 1 Corinthians in the mid-50s A.D. during the three years he lived in Ephesus. Around 55 A.D., Paul learned the church in Corinth was about to fall apart after receiving letters and personal visits from people who told him about the problems in the Corinthian church.

Those problems among the Corinthian Christians included: 

• Disunity among the church members,
• Lawsuits between believers,
• Sexual sins and immorality,
• Disorder in the worship services,
• Sharp divisions between the rich and the poor, and
• Overall spiritual immaturity.

In his letter, Paul confronts and corrects the Christians at Corinth and shows them God’s will for their behavior. He warned them not to be conformed to the world, but to live as godly examples, reflecting Christlikeness, even in the midst of an immoral society.

Chapter 1 begins with a typical greeting Paul wrote in his letters (vv. 1-9): 

“¹Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, ²To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours: ³Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. ⁵For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge—⁶God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. ⁷Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. ⁸He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The literal translation of v. 1 is more accurately: “Paul a called apostle of Jesus Christ…” Paul’s apostolic authority was challenged by some of the Christians at Corinth. He had established the church and had lived in Corinth for a year and a half (see Acts 18), but some of the leaders questioned Paul’s authority and his standing as an apostle, pointing out that Paul had not been with Jesus during His ministry on earth like the rest of the apostles. So Paul made it clear at the very beginning of the letter that he indeed was “…a called apostle of Jesus Christ…,” which was meant to emphasize that his call was as valid the calls of the other apostles. He adds that he is an “…apostle…by the will of God…,” to let them know that he was in the same position of authority as the 11 other apostles.

The only difference between Paul and the other apostles was that he was called by Christ on the road to Damascus, after the resurrection, with Christ speaking to him supernaturally. Therefore, Paul was qualified to admonish and correct, just as qualified as James, John, Peter, and the others.

Before writing 1 Corinthians, Paul had written an earlier letter to the Corinthian church to warn them against condoning sin. That earlier letter is referenced in 1 Corinthians 5:9, but that earlier letter has not survived. After sending that earlier letter, he continued to hear of the church’s problems, and that prompted him to write the letter we know as 1 Corinthians.

Worship practices in the 1^st century were not like those of today in the western church. The worship time on Sundays, called “the Lord’s Day” at that time, consisted of church members ceremonially washing each other’s feet, a time of communion of the bread and wine, teaching by a leader of the congregation or visiting teacher, and then concluded with a fellowship meal in which all the church members ate together.

In Corinth, disruptions, bickering, and shouting constantly interrupted the Lord’s Day services. In addition, Paul had been informed of some of the church members leading immoral lives, which the leadership of the church tolerated, and the church members had become segregated based on wealth, social standing, and the possession of spiritual gifts, with some people proudly claiming to have the more visible and demonstrative spiritual gifts that they called a sign of God’s special favor.

Wealthy members strutted in their fine clothing and jewelry. For the fellowship meal, they would have their household slaves bring large quantities of expensive food and wine to serve them, while poorer church members were able to bring with them only small helpings of food for the fellowship meal. The wealthier members refused to share, ate and drank excessively, and the fellowship meal became an occasion for partying and drunkenness.

The Corinthian church had lost its way, and Paul’ goal was to set it back on the right track.

He started this letter by reminding them of his authority as an apostle, because there were members of the church who questioned his authority.

In v. 1 we learn the letter came not only from Paul, but also from a man he refers to as “…Sosthenes our brother…” We first met Sosthenes when the Jewish leaders took Paul before the civil authorities because of his preaching in the incident recorded in Acts 18:12-17: 

“¹²While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews of Corinth made a united attack on Paul and brought him to the place of judgment. ¹³‘This man,’ they charged, ‘is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.’ ¹⁴Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to them, ‘If you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you. ¹⁵ But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law—settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.’ ¹⁶So he drove them off. 17Then the crowd there turned on Sosthenes the synagogue leader and beat him in front of the proconsul; and Gallio showed no concern whatever.”

When Paul had first arrived in Corinth, a man named Crispus had been the ruler of the synagogue. According to Acts 18:8, “Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household believed in the Lord;…,” and because of that, the Jews removed Crispus from leadership and appointed Sosthenes to be ruler. Later, Sosthenes also accepted Christ and accompanied Paul when he left Corinth to go the Ephesus. Sosthenes is thought to have assisted Paul by writing letters as Paul dictated them.

(Note: For some reason, Paul did not write his letters in his own hand, but always used someone as a kind of a secretary. However, he made it a point for he himself to write a short greeting in most of his epistles in his own handwriting. A typical example of this is found in 1 Corinthians 16:21, where Paul writes: “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.” We find similar examples in Galatians, Colossians, Philemon, and 2 Thessalonians. Scholars speculate that Paul dictated his letters because of poor eyesight.)

Paul addresses his letter “To the church of God in Corinth…” (v. 2). The Greek word “church” is ἐκκλησία (ekklésia), which is the root of our English term “ecclesiastic.” In Greek, ekklésia means simply “an assembly” or “a group of people assembled together.” Calling a building or place of meeting “the church” is a usage that developed over time in the early centuries of Christianity, as many cathedrals were built, and the noun “church” began to be used for the building. But to call the building “the church” as we do today is not wrong. It is just an adaptation from the original meaning, which identified the church as the people, not the place. So Paul’s reference to them as “…the church of God in Corinth…” (V. 2) is precise. They were not just an assembly, but the assembly of people who had faith in God in the city of Corinth.

For us to understand the tension between a Christian’s holiness and the influence of the secular culture is important to our understanding 1 Corinthians, just as it is important to understanding the pressures we face today.

Church growth experts beginning in the late 20^th century advised local churches to identify more closely with their communities and become more like the communities they serve. Doing this, the experts say, makes visitors and members comfortable. On the contrary, however—what the modern church really needs to do is not to accommodate to society’s secular values, but to change them.

Paul in v. 2 refers to his readers as those who are “…called to be his holy people…” Christians are deemed to be holy by virtue of God’s acceptance of their commitment to Him. Our holiness is not based on our performance. While the Corinthian Christians were called a holy people before God, they were a lot like us—hardly a holy people by virtue of performance. We are holy people in God’s eyes because we have been forgiven and set apart from a lifestyle of sin. Our position is that we are holy in the sight of God, and His will is that we are also become holy people in the way we live.

In vv. 4-9, he is careful to provide encouragement to his readers along with the exhortations he will give them later in the letter. His encouragement is heartfelt, even though he is about to admonish and correct the church.

Like many people, the Corinthian Christians were gifted, but they were living carnally.

The famous British preacher Charles Spurgeon commented about the Corinthians’ spiritual shortcomings in a 1904 sermon. He said, “The Corinthians were what we would call…a first-class church. They had many who understood much of the learning of the Greeks. They were men of classic taste and men of good understanding, men of profound knowledge and yet, in spiritual health, that church was one of the worst…perhaps, in the world! Among the whole of them, you could not find another church sunk so low as this one, although it was the most gifted. What should this teach us? Should it not show us that gifts are nothing unless they are laid on the altar of God? That it is nothing to have the gift of oratory? That it is nothing to have the power of eloquence? That it is nothing to have learning, that it is nothing to have influence unless they all be dedicated to God and consecrated to His service?”

Paul used a classic teaching method in trying to help the Corinthians to see the problems and correct them. He did not hesitate to show them the changes that were needed, but his criticisms were accompanied by recognition of the positives in the church’s ministry.

He addresses a problem directly in vv. 10-11: “¹⁰I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. ¹¹My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.”

The Greek word translated “divisions” in v. 10 is σχίσματα (schismata), from which we get the English term “schisms.” It means “divisions” or “tearing apart.” The same Greek word used elsewhere for tearing, as in tearing in a cloth. The idea in v. 10 is that the Corinthian Christians were tearing apart the church the body of Christ. Paul’s prayer for them is that they would not be torn apart, but perfectly joined together.

What has caused this schismata? Paul tells us in v. 11 that the problems involved quarrels or divisions among the people in the church. He had heard about the divisions in the Corinthian church from members of the household of a woman named Chloe (v. 11): “¹¹ My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.” Chloe was a prominent member of the church and a mature Christian with a godly family.

There were at least four factions each devoted to a prominent leader in the early church movement (v. 12): “…One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ.’”

·      One faction claimed that Paul was supreme, possibly because this faction was mostly Gentile believers and Paul ministered and preached to Gentiles.

·      Another faction followed a Christian leader named Apollos, who was an eloquent preacher from Alexandria (see Acts 18:24; 19:1; Titus 3:13).

·      A third faction followed Cephas, which is Peter’s name in the Aramaic language. This faction consisted primarily of people from Jewish backgrounds who were impressed by the emphasis of Peter’s ministry on witnessing to Jews.

·      The people in the fourth faction claimed arrogantly, “I follow Christ,” claiming to have a special relationship to Christ that none of the other church members had.

Paul makes it clear in vv. 13-17 that factions should not exist among Christians: 

“¹³ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴ I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵ so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶ (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) ¹⁷ For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”

God does not send anyone to divide the church. He sends us to preach, teach, and disciple people into oneness in Christ. Christ is not divided, and neither should Christians be divided.

In v. 17 Paul’s point is that his essential work was preaching the gospel not baptizing. Baptism by certain individuals was of secondary importance. This gives him the opportunity to talk about the thrust of his preaching ministry. His method was to preach “…not with wisdom and eloquence...” If he were to depend on human argument, the heart of the message of the cross would be emptied of its essential meaning.

V. 18 and the verses that follow give Paul’s reasoning that flows from the proposition of v.17, that he did not come preaching with human wisdom:

“¹⁸ For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ ²⁰ Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

The presentation of the message of the cross produces two effects (v.18). First, it is foolishness to those who are on the way to being lost. Second, it is the power of God to those who are being saved. Paul quotes Isaiah 29:14 in v. 19: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” He quotes Isaiah in order to show that God declares that He will set aside human wisdom and understanding as a means of finding favor with him.

So far, Paul has established God’s rejection of human striving for salvation through wisdom. In v. 20, he asks: “Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”

By “…the teacher of the law…” Paul referred to the Jewish professional who was skilled in interpreting the law, and “…the philosopher of this age” was from the secular culture who wanted to debate and dispute every issue and solve it by human reason. To the secular philosopher the very idea that someone could be saved or rescued from the human condition by a person who was executed by crucifixion as a common criminal was foolishness.

Paul explains in vv. 22-24 that the different cultures of the Jews and Gentiles impact their views. In Jewish thought, for example, the Messiah’s purpose was to be the deliverance of Israel from the domination of the Romans. The rabbis reasoned that the Messiah would deliver the Jewish people from their present bondage just as God had delivered their ancestors from Egyptian bondage. The Jewish people were looking for a miraculous sign; they did not expect a Messiah who would die for them.

Gentiles, on the other hand, constantly sought wisdom and insight, saw reason as the way to impact the human condition, saw no need for a savior, and rejected the idea of a crucified Messiah. Ancient graffiti uncovered by archaeologists in Rome is typical of the Gentiles’ attitude. The graffiti is a drawing of a figure on a cross having a man’s body and a donkey’s head.

Seeking wisdom through human reasoning simply never results in understanding the message of the cross. Today, with some exceptions, the most educated people, such as western secular educators and other leaders of science and philosophy do not have high regard for God or even accept the idea of the existence of a creator.

But as Christians, we know the cross is the power of God and the instrument through which people are saved, though we may not understand it completely. Merely preaching morality or standards of behavior is not preaching the gospel, because the cross is the message of the gospel. The people today who are in ministry must properly preach the word of God, the understanding of which is crucial and critical to salvation and Christian living.

There are many ideas today about the purpose of the church among ecclesiastical leaders. There are those who reason the church’s primary purpose is to create a socialistic world or to reform of various kinds of injustices, and in some regions of the world, notably in parts of South America, Christian missions focus their efforts on the redistribution of wealth and land.

When human wisdom redefines His purposes or ignores God altogether, His name is profaned. In his book, The Now Prophecies, author Bill Salus cites Leviticus 22:31-32, which says: “³¹Therefore shall ye keep my commandments, and do them: I am the Lord. ³²Neither shall ye profane my holy name, but I will be hallowed…” and then couples those verses to the end-time prophecy of Ezekiel 39:7: “So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them (profane) pollute my holy name anymore: and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord…”

Christians need to remain aware of an important crucial fact the prophet Isaiah has given us about the wisdom of God in Isaiah 55:8-9: “God’s wisdom is not man’s wisdom multiplied to the highest degree; it wisdom of a different order altogether. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Even the wisest of the unsaved scholars are ignorant about spiritual truths. Charles Spurgeon once addressed this issue in a sermon, saying: “It is certain that a blind man is no judge of colors, a deaf man is no judge of sound, and a man who has never been quickened into spiritual life can have no judgment as to spiritual things.”

So the gospel did not make sense either to the Jews or the Gentiles. A crucified Messiah offended the Jews.

Once more addressing the problem of pride among the Corinthian church leaders, Paul notes that there were some who had come to think highly of themselves in vv. 26-29: 

“²⁶ …think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him.”

Paul meant to be confrontational when he wrote those verses. The Greek word translated “…called…” (v. 26) always refers to the divine call in the New Testament and stresses God drawing His people to himself (see Romans 11:29 and Ephesians 1:18). God chooses His servants not because they are so great, but because He is so great, and there is no reason for boasting, as he reminds his readers in the final verses of this chapter, vv. 30-31:

“³⁰ It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’”

Paul quotes Jeremiah 9:23 in v. 31: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord…”  It is his way of emphasizing that our salvation has all been of God, not of us, and therefore it is God who should receive the glory for our walk with Him.