Discipleship is a journey.
Many people yearn for a church with the bold integrity and energetic commitment of first-century gatherings of Christ-followers. They imagine the early church as a close-knit congregation of believers who were radically devoted to each other and, despite their small number, were shaking the world’s foundations with the gospel. It’s an exhilarating ideal—but not one that many of the first churches lived up to.
The fellowship at Corinth, for example, possessed skilled leadership and sound teaching, but it struggled with the same breadth of problems churches face today. The modern church is the church as it has always been: a community of sinners saved by grace.
If we approach the two Corinthian letters with this truth in mind, they make for encouraging reading. Like the struggling Christians at Corinth, we learn that there is no instant spirituality. Discipleship is a process, a lifelong journey that requires patience and perseverance. When our own attitudes and actions seem less than Christlike, we can take comfort in the knowledge that the Corinthians have walked this path before us. And in spite of their shortcomings, they held a special place in the hearts of those who knew them best and helped them get started in the faith.
Unlike the Book of Romans, Paul’s letters to the Corinthians are highly personal. Paul knew of the difficulties his friends were facing, and he delivered the words they needed—not eloquent explorations of complex concepts but practical advice for working through everyday problems.
Paul had lived in Corinth for a year and a half (Acts 18:11), but the Christians he had taught there had now fallen into inner conflict and heresy. They divided themselves into competing factions (1 Cor. 1:10–17). They tolerated blatant immorality, ignoring an incestuous relationship in one of the church’s families (5:1–13). They sued each other in court (6:1–11) and mishandled spiritual gifts (12:1—14:40). They once again needed basic teaching on the resurrection (15:1–58). Paul addressed these issues compassionately yet firmly, determined to correct the Corinthians’ errors and help them gather their bearings and redirect their course.
Like many modern believers, the Corinthian Christians struggled with the temptations that are part of living in an immoral society. Corinth was a city of beauty. Stately gates at each city entrance opened onto well-maintained avenues with dozens of buildings and monuments built by the Roman emperors. City walls were lined with picturesque colonnades and residential shops. But Corinth was known not only for its architectural splendor but also for its encouragement of sin and excess. See Corinth’s profile at 2 Corinthians 1:1.
The two Corinthian epistles preserved in Scripture are only part of the correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians. Paul wrote at least four letters to the church, some in response to messages sent to him. For more on this correspondence, see the introduction to 2 Corinthians.
The greetings in both 1 and 2 Corinthians identify their author as Paul the apostle, and there is no serious dispute that he wrote them. The first epistle was probably written from Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:8) around A.D. 56. The second epistle was sent from Macedonia some twelve to fifteen months later, after Paul had met with Titus and received news of the church’s response to his previous correspondence (2 Cor. 2:12–17).
Key Verses in 1 Corinthians
• “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” (1 Cor. 1:20).
• “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23, 24).
• “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful” (1 Cor. 6:12).
• “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit … and you are not your own?” (1 Cor. 6:19).
• “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22).
• “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).
• “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
• “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13).
• “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (1 Cor. 15:55).