1 Corinthians 1

Alright, I've gotten a request to continue "blogging." The thirsty for more comment convinced me, plus the fact that I haven't been totally focused on my reading or anything. So I'll be starting a new series on 1 Corinthians, hopefully being able to do a chapter a day. As a chapter is a fair amount for each day, obviously I cannot examine every cross reference and dig into the deepest depths of every verse. That would take years, if not forever (who knows really how deep this book goes?). I'll be doing a little overview of each chapter, inserting my thoughts here and there - these obviously not to be taken immediately as absolute truth.

A fair sized chapter, at 31 verses long it takes up 2 pages and then some in my MacArthur Study Bible, and most of those are notes. It would seem that Paul has a way of conveying many more ideas than the words he writes, no?

An intoduction to this book: 1 Corinthians (as well as 2 Cor.) was written by Paul, as the first verse indicates, and is named for the church of the people to whom it is addressed, Corinth (indicated also by the second verse). Corinth was located in southern Greece, and prospered as a major trade city, since captains would pass over the ithsmus with their boats on rollers in order to avoid the otherwise long and dangerous 250 mile journey by sea. Corinth also hosted the Isthmian games, apparently second only to the Olympic games, and as a result of all the people traffic, became extremely morally corrupt, even when compared to the godless standards of the day. Some of these sins such as incest, were still discovered among church members! Obviously, Paul needed to address these issues.

Paul begins by asserting his apostleship and introducing also a friend who was with him named Sosthenes. John MacArthur explains in his notes that since the letter Paul was about to write was meant to rebuke and correct, he needed to present himself as an apostle speaking the very words of God, implying that rejection of his words would be rejecting God.

In light of the circumstances in which he writes this letter, the first few verses are quite amazing to me, because had it been I writing, 1 Corinthians would not have started out this kindly. Paul begins by addressing the Corinthians as saints(v.2), sancitified(v.2) and enriched(v.5) by Christ. He tells them that he is always thankful(v.4) to God for them as they fall short in no gift(v.7). Paul often used this method of speaking with people, first affirming where they had gone right, then alerting them of their faults.

Now, verse 8 catches my eye. It reads as follows "who [Jesus Christ] will also confirm you to the end, that you may be* blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." The bold word is the one that sparked my curiosity. This word is often associated with perfection, which most people - if not everyone - believes to be impossible in this life. Interesting...

In this next section (vv.10-17), Paul admonishes the Corinthians in their dissent over certain issues. The Corinthians had been quarelling amongst themselves over "who they were of." I'm really not sure what that means, but Paul quoted them in verse 12: "'I am of Paul,' or 'I am of Apollos,' or 'I am of Cephas [Peter],' or 'I am of Christ.'" Notice that he doesn't try to say that following him is right and others iswrong (in fact he does just the opposite in vv. 14-17), nor does he say that those who claim to be of Christ are right, and everyone should agree with that group. No, he admonishes everyone for dissenting with eachother and encourages them to be unified in their testimony (v.10). Maybe you can see the correlation between the Corinthians and the churches of today? What is Paul saying about denominations? Perhaps we should be doing more to remain unified as Christians rather than separated between denominations... would that not help our testimony? I cannot count how many times I have heard the line "you Christians cant even agree on what you believe, look at all your denominations!"

Onto the next section! This one is a really fun one... I'm including the end of verse 17 as well as vv.18-25. This chunk of Scripture is really freeing in that it allows us to escape from the burden of explaining away Scripture. It openly admits that there are some things that non-believers simply will not be able to handle without the help of the Holy Spirit. Basically it starts at verse 17 where Paul seems to imply that if those who had been saved had been saved by "wisdom of words" (ie. eloquent) that the power of the Gospel would actually be weakened! Verses 18-25 are basically him repeating the idea that God's message is foolishness to the gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews. It's ironic really, if anyone hears something along the lines of: "What your gospel? Savior on a stick? Hahaha!" that person should be further convinced of the truth of what the Bible teaches, since Paul predicts this will be said of the cross, right here in verse 23: "but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness." We don't have to be ashamed of our foolish gospel, though: "but to those who are called [a reference to the elect, which people also seem to have trouble with] Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (v.24), explaining that: "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (v.25).

In the last part of this chapter, Paul informs the Corinthians of a curious fact among those who are believers. "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called" (v.26). Not many of the great people according to the world's standards are called to be believers. This affirms Christs motto of the last first and the first last. This is not to say that smart people are less likely to be saved, or buff people wont come to Christ as easily simply because they are buff, but it certainly would imply that humbling oneself is an integral part of coming to God. As long as we rely on our own strength or our own smarts, God isn't going to seem necessary, and therefore we won't be willing to come to Him. After all, what would be the purpose? Paul explains the reason why God does this in verse 27: "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty." God wants us to know that He alone is strong, that He alone is wise, and therefore that He alone is worthy of worship.

Paul ends with a quote from Jeremiah 9:24 "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord."**

Thanks for taking time to read my 1 Corinthians 1 overview - I'll attempt to go through chapter 2 tomorrow! (This one took about an hour and a half so we'll see...) Leave me comments. ^_^ Time for me to go, hope you found this insightful!

*Italics denote implied words in the original greek text that are technically not there.
**In this case, the words were italicized in my Bible to denote a quote.