Historical Background

By the time Paul arrived in Corinth around 50 AD, his second missionary journey was barely a year old but already wearing on him. He began his eighteen month long stay in that city, by his own admission, “in weakness and in fear and much trembling” (1 Cor. 2:3). Why was that? Because after crossing the Aegean Sea from what is today called the country of Turkey, Paul was attacked, beaten, and jailed in Philippi (Acts 16:19-42); forced out of Thessalonica by an unruly mob (Acts 17:5-10); chased out of Berea by remnants of that same mob who followed him there (Acts 17:13-14); and grievously agitated by the idol-filled streets he walked in Athens (Acts 17:16). Nevertheless, he pressed onward into Corinth determined to continue preaching “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

Corinth was the largest city in Greece at that time, located on a narrow isthmus connecting Macedonia to Achaia. To the east lay the Aegean Sea and to the west, the Adriatic Sea. To keep from having to sail an additional 200 miles south around Achaia, ships headed east or west would be rolled overland on logs across Corinth from one seaport to the other. The city was quite literally a crossroads of travel and commerce, a cultural center, and a notoriously wicked place. The Temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was there. Out of the city's name was even coined a term to describe a person who had lost all self-control or engaged in prostitution. The term was “Corinthianized.” Outside Corinth, a mother who didn’t approve of her son’s choice in women would refer to her as a “fine Corinthian wife.” Outside their homes, angry fathers could be overheard yelling, “No daughter of mine will be leaving this house tonight looking like a Corinthian girl!”

Not long after Paul left Corinth, the great orator Apollos came and ministered there (Acts 18:24-28). Despite the faithful preaching of those two men, the house fellowships that made up the church at Corinth were among the most troubled congregations that Paul established.

Five years passed. Having rested up from his second missionary journey and entered into his third, Paul was ministering in the city of Ephesus. It was there that he received a report from the household of Chloe about deep divisions among the house churches in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:11). Around that same time, Paul hosted a delegation of three men from those churches (1 Cor. 16:17) who had been sent to him with a letter (1 Cor. 7:1). It may have been a list of questions they wanted him to answer in order to prove who was right and who was wrong in their fractured fellowship. Or, the letter may have been their response to what Paul had written to them earlier in a letter that we no longer possess but to which he refers in 1 Corinthians 5:9. If that’s the case, they may have written him back to tell him how wrong he was. Can you imagine?! Regardless of why they wrote what they did, 1 Corinthians is Paul’s reply.

Sermon Series

Dazed and Confused: How to Live Like Saints in Sin City

First Corinthians is one of the easiest of all of Paul’s letters to divide into a sermon series. And yet, it’s the most difficult to summarize because it deals with nearly a dozen different issues! The problems that plagued the Corinthian church and the questions that fractured its membership are as deadly and divisive as ever. The answers Paul gives are as relevant today as they were then.

My first church walked through this letter with me as we considered together the kinds of issues that God’s people must deal with in a world that’s no friend to grace. If I were to preach through the letter again, I’d consider carefully whether to preach it entirely in one series or divide it into two. “Dazed and Confused: How to Live Like Saints in Sin City” would be one possible title for a single series. “Problems that Plague Us” and “Questions that Bedevil Us” could serve as titles for two series covering 1 Corinthians 1-6 and 7-16 respectively.

Big Idea for Whole Series: We must overcome numerous challenges in our struggle to live like saints in this sinful world.

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:10 – 6:20

• Title: Problems that Plague Us
• Exegetical Idea: The Corinthians’ problems resulted from their failure to appreciate fully and apply consistently the message of Christ’s cross.
• Big Idea: Christ crucified is the solution to our deepest problems.

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:10 – 3:4

• Title: When We Get the Gospel Wrong
• Exegetical Idea: Without the Spirit-given ability to perceive the wisdom of the Cross, people operate by a worldly wisdom that results in discord and destruction.
• Big Idea: The message of the Cross is foolishness to the world but wisdom and power to us who believe.

Text: 1 Corinthians 3:5-23

• Title: When We Get the Church Wrong
• Exegetical Idea: The church is Christ’s field/building, its leaders her farmers/builders, and its membership fools by worldly standards.
• Big Idea: Our source of boasting is Jesus, not the church. Brag on him!

Text: 1 Corinthians 4:1-21

• Title: When We Get the Preacher Wrong
• Exegetical Idea: Preachers are servants of Christ, stewards of God’s mysteries, a spectacle to the world, and spiritual fathers through the gospel they proclaim.
• Big Idea: We should respect our preachers for what they are.

Text: 1 Corinthians 5:1 – 6:20

• Title: When We Get Our Ethics Wrong
• Exegetical Idea: The Corinthian believers’ failures to deal with an incestuous relationship in their midst, to handle their grievances internally, and to abstain from visiting the prostitutes were contrary both to their sanctification (6:9-11) and future resurrection (5:5; 6:2, 14).
• Big Idea: Decency and order mark a cross-disciplined life.

Text: 1 Corinthians 7:1 – 16:24

• Title: Questions that Bedevil Us
• Exegetical Idea: The Corinthians’ misunderstandings resulted from their failure to believe fully and live consistently according to the reality of Christ’s resurrection and their own.
• Big Idea: Christ risen is the answer to our most bedeviling questions.

Text: 1 Corinthians 7:1-40

• Title: What about Sex, Marriage, and Divorce?
• Exegetical Idea: Paul advised the believers at Corinth to honor their marital obligations and, as a general rule, to remain in the same marital state they were in when they first came to faith.
• Big Idea: Submit your sexual and marital life to the soon returning Christ.

Text: 1 Corinthians 8:1 – 11:1

• Title: What about My Rights?
• Exegetical Idea: While idols have no real existence, as the Corinthians well knew, they were wrong to think their affiliation with them was harmless (for sake of a weaker brother, themselves, the idolater, and their personal witness).
• Big Idea: Subordinate your rights to God’s glory.

Text: 1 Corinthians 11:2-34

• Title: How Should We Worship?
• Exegetical Idea: Paul commended propriety (regarding head coverings) and charity (regarding the Lord’s Supper) as guiding principles in the Corinthians’ worship.
• Big Idea: Worship that honors God is proper and charitable.

Text: 1 Corinthians 12:1 – 14:40

• Title: What About Speaking in Tongues?
• Exegetical Idea: By elevating one gift (i.e., tongues) above all others, the Corinthian believers were stratifying themselves rather than unifying through the Spirit in a godly love that would edify their membership and evangelize outsiders.
• Big Idea: All spiritual gifts come from one Source (i.e., the Holy Spirit) and are given to benefit one body (i.e, the body of Christ).

Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-58

• Title: Is the Resurrection for Real?
• Exegetical Idea: Contrary to the popular belief in an afterlife without a bodily resurrection, Paul argued the believer’s resurrection to be real (following logically after Christ’s resurrection as the firstfruits from the dead [vv. 1-28]), reasonable (continuing his farming analogy by likening the deceased’s body to a seed that is sown [vv. 35-57]), and a rule to guide one’s living in the interim (v. 29-34, 58).
• Big Idea: Resurrection is real, reasonable, and a rule for life.

Text: 1 Corinthians 16:1-4

• Title: What Is all this About Me Giving away My Money?
• Exegetical Idea: Paul directed the Corinthian believers to prepare their gift weekly and as God prospered them so that it might be delivered later to Jerusalem by trusted couriers.
• Big Idea: Our giving to the church should be regular, proportionate, and carefully handled.

Application

The city of Corinth had laid dormant for many years before Julius Caesar rebuilt it in 44 BC. By the time Paul arrived roughly one hundred years later, it was a booming metropolis drawing in crowds from all across the empire. Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, slave and free came, all looking to make a quick buck. “New money” filled the place and, with it, all the vices you’ll find in a place like Las Vegas—most notably, prostitution.

Along with their ambition, greed, and carnal appetites, newcomers to Corinth packed their religious beliefs and, in many suitcases, their gods. Starting and sustaining a Christian church drawn from such a diverse population was never going to be easy. Even after they received God’s grace through Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:4) and could rightly be called “saints” (1 Cor. 1:2), the Corinthian believers still didn’t understand what it meant to be people of the Spirit. They fumed against Paul, fought with one another, fornicated with the local prostitutes, flaunted their liberties, and forsook Paul’s teaching on the resurrection.

Paul’s example in dealing with these believers and their issues is instructive. To begin with, he didn’t ignore them. He confronted them head on. Confrontation is seldom pleasant. It’s far easier to ignore problems in the short-term and hope they’ll work themselves out over the long-term. They seldom do.

How did Paul handle this confrontation? He didn’t vilify the members of his audience but acknowledged them as saints. They weren’t acting like it (practical sanctification), but that’s what they were by virtue of their faith in Jesus (positional sanctification). When a church and its pastor go through tense times, we must avoid slipping into an us-versus-them, good guys-versus-bad guys mentality. As believers, we are all saints of God.

That said, Paul didn’t try hiding his feelings either. Throughout his letter he shows little joy or approval of his Corinthian readers. Instead, we hear him employing both sarcasm (4:8; 6:5) and irony (1:26-28). Paul kept it real. That’s what God expects all his preachers to be—authentic. When we are respectful of our hearers as fellow saints, they’ll be more likely to entertain what we say when we’re keeping it real.

Paul’s critique of their problems and his answers to their letter show he had given careful thought to both. Whatever emotions he may have been experiencing due to their attacks on him personally, he didn’t forget that it wasn’t about him or them. It was about Jesus. That’s the mindset he’d had from the start. “When I came to you … I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified,” he says in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2. For this reason, Paul opens the body of his letter by talking about Jesus’ cross (1 Cor. 1:17 - 2:16) and concludes by defending Jesus’ resurrection (1 Cor. 15:1-58). Everything he writes in between is intended to show what it means to be his people, that is, people of the Spirit. They were the body of Christ (1 Cor. 6:20). As such, they should be living in unity, purity, and hope.

Whether we are expounding Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians or dealing in a more private setting with problems in our own congregation, we must not lose sight of Jesus. It’s all about him, not us. We serve to celebrate his preeminence, to invite his Spirit’s fullness, and to promote the unity, purity, and hope of his people.

Theological Themes

Given the myriad of problems and questions Paul addresses throughout 1 Corinthians, it seems odd that he would introduce (1:1-9) his letter by recognizing his audience as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1:2) and thanking God for his grace that had enriched them in all speech and knowledge (1:4-7). But actually, it’s the sanctification of the Corinthian church that is the issue.

Zeroing in on this subject a few chapters later, Paul states that it was their faith in the crucified and risen Christ that had sanctified those among them who were formerly idolaters, adulterers, practitioners of homosexual acts, thieves, misers, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers (6:9-11). That sanctification was immediate—bestowing on them the title of saints, positioning them in the body of Christ, and marking them as set apart to God.

At the same time, the call to be saints was ongoing—requiring them to put off the ways of their old life and to put on the ways of the new in obedience to the Son, through the power of the Spirit, to the glory of the Father. Like those believers of old, many Christians today are positionally but not practically sanctified. They must be made to understand that sanctification is both a gift and a duty.

Paul moves into the body of his letter by briefly summarizing his theology of the Cross (1:18 – 3:4), and he never strays far from the Cross in what he writes afterwards. He sarcastically calls the Christian leaders behind whom the Corinthians were aligning themselves “fools for Christ’s sake” (4:10). Why fools? Because they had devoted themselves to proclaiming the word of Christ’s cross, that word which the Gentiles dismissed as folly (1:22).

Why should the Corinthian believers flee sexual immorality and abstain from the temple prostitutes? It was because they “were bought with a price” (6:19-20), that price being Christ’s cross.

Why were the Corinthians told to avoid meats offered to idols, even though they knew idols were nothing in this world? It was so that they might not undermine the faith of a brother or sister “for whom Christ died” (8:11).

Why should they honor the Lord’s table? Because, says Paul, the cup that is blessed is “a participation in the blood of Christ,” and the bread that is broken is “a participation in the body of Christ” (10:16-17; 11:23-26).

What was the gospel that Paul preached? “Christ died for our sins … he was buried … [and] he was raised …” (15:3-4).

Why is death stingless, the grave powerless, and our labors for the Lord not pointless? It’s because God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ whom he raised from the dead (15:55-58)! There is simply no escaping the centrality of Christ’s cross and resurrection in 1 Corinthians.

Throughout this letter Paul correlates theology and morality. Bad theology usually leads to bad behavior and vice versa. It’s also possible to misapply good theology, as when the Corinthians abused their knowledge of idolatry’s worthlessness in order to justify their selfish behavior. Rather than issue terse directives and answers, Paul takes the time to provide a sound theological framework for every practical matter he addresses. Within the frame of Christ’s death and resurrection, he speaks to questions of sex, marriage, divorce, worship, spiritual gifts, giving, and more. We would be wise as preachers to follow his example.

My Encounter with 1 Corinthians

I was a young Bible college student taking a class on 1 Corinthians. The professor lectured us on the letter’s background during our scheduled classes and required that we read through the letter three times on our own during the semester. Each time through we were supposed to record our insights in a journal. I was surprised by how my understanding grew clearer and my insights deeper as a result of learning the letter’s background and seeing how it informed what Paul wrote. I determined then to help others enjoy that same experience in their Bible reading, especially when reading 1 Corinthians.

Later, during my first pastorate, I preached through 1 Corinthians, hoping to inoculate my church against some of the problems that plagued that one. I returned to 10:13 often during the twelve years I served as a chaplain at a juvenile male correctional facility. I wanted the young men who cycled through there to take heart in the knowledge that the temptations they faced were universal, resistible, escapable, and bearable.

Not long ago while on vacation in Branson, Missouri, I visited what’s billed as the world’s largest toy museum. I asked one of the workers there to identify their most valuable toy. She couldn’t do it. As she explained, to the children who owned them, every toy was valuable. Upon reflection, I later realized how misguided my question was. I had forgotten what toys are for and was trying to measure their worth using the wrong scale. Just today, I realized that was the very problem that lay behind all the problems Paul addressed at Corinth. The people were evaluating Christ’s cross using the wrong scale. They had substituted a sophisticated worldly wisdom for the wisdom of God that we must accept like children. Inevitably, their faulty values resulted in their foolishly destructive behaviors. Alas, there is nothing new under the sun. This is why we must continue to revisit 1 Corinthians often in our preaching.

Commentaries

Craig L. Blomberg, 1 Corinthians: The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995).

Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible Book by Book (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002).

Paul Gardner, 1 Corinthians: Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018).

Gregory Hollifield is the Associate Dean at Memphis College of Urban and Theological Studies at Union University and Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of the Evangelical Homiletics Society.