Encyclopedia entry · the book of 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians is Paul's longest pastoral letter and his most practical. Written from Ephesus around AD 55 to a young church in Corinth — a wealthy port-city congregation he had planted three or four years earlier — the letter addresses crisis after crisis: factions, sexual immorality, lawsuits, marriage, idol meat, head coverings, the Lord's Supper, spiritual gifts, the resurrection. Each topic gets its own chapter. Each chapter ends pointing back to the cross.
It is also the New Testament's most-quoted source on the love that holds the church together (chapter 13), the meal that re-members Christ's death (chapter 11), and the resurrection that secures every promise (chapter 15). Paul writes in a city of luxury and learning. He spends the whole letter trying to make a divided church look like the body of Christ.
Movements
4 arcs through the bookMovement 01
1–4
chapters
The Wisdom of the Cross
Paul opens by addressing the factions tearing the Corinthian church apart — I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, I am of Christ. He answers not by adjudicating between the parties but by re-anchoring the church on the only foundation it has: Christ crucified. The wisdom of the cross looks foolish to the wise of this age. The strength of God looks weak to the strong. Whatever the Corinthians' problem is, it begins by forgetting that.
Key passages
Movement 02
5–11
chapters
Pastoral Crises
Seven chapters of practical fires. A man sleeping with his stepmother; Christians taking each other to court; questions about marriage and singleness; meat sold in pagan temples; head coverings in worship; the Lord's Supper being treated like a private dinner party. Paul moves through each one not with rules but with the gospel — you are not your own; you were bought with a price. The body matters because Christ's body matters. The meal matters because Christ's death matters. Nothing in church life is too small for the cross to touch.
Key passages
Movement 03
12–14
chapters
Spiritual Gifts and Love
Three chapters on what the Spirit does in a church. Many gifts; one body. Many members; one Christ. Between the diagnosis of disordered worship in chapter twelve and the prescription for ordered worship in chapter fourteen, Paul places chapter thirteen — the hymn to love that the whole world quotes at weddings. Tongues, prophecy, knowledge: all useless without love. Love is patient, love is kind, love endures everything. The greatest of these is love.
Key passages
Movement 04
15–16
chapters
The Resurrection
1 Corinthians 15 is the New Testament's most thorough defense of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the most extended teaching on the resurrection of believers. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. But Christ has been raised — and the dead will be raised, and death will be swallowed up in victory. The letter ends with practical instructions for the collection for Jerusalem and a few closing greetings. The doctrine, by then, has done its work.
Key passages
