CORINTHIANS, FIRST EPISTLE TO THE. First Corinthians is the second longest of the thirteen letters in the NT which bear the name of Paul; accordingly it comes next after Romans (the longest) in the traditional sequence of Pauline letters.

1. Authorship. The Pauline authorship of 1 Corinthians is uncontested, if one excepts such eccentric schools of thought as that represented by W. C. van Manen (cf. his contribution to the article “Paul” in EBi cols. 3620ff. esp. 3626f.). With Romans, 2 Corinthians and Galatians, it belongs to the four “capital” epistles which provide the foundation of Pauline theology.

2. Destination. The addressees are specified as clearly as could be desired: they are the members of “the church of God which is at Corinth”—a church of Paul’s own planting—but with them are associated “all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (1 Cor 1:2). The word “place” (Gr. topos) prob. means “place of worship” (a sense established for Heb. māqôm) and includes Christian meetings in Achaia outside Corinth, like the church at Cenchreae, seaport of Corinth (Rom 16:1).

3. Background. Corinth, situated on the isthmus of that name, at the junction of sea routes to the E and the W and of land routes to the N and S, was from ancient days one of the most important cities of Greece. In classical times it was the chief commercial and maritime rival of Athens. Because of the leading part it played in a revolt against Rome it was sacked and destroyed by L. Mummius and his army in 146 b.c., and the site lay derelict for a cent., until in 46 b.c. it was refounded by Julius Caesar as a Rom. colony with the official designation Laus Iulia Corinthus. In 27 b.c. it became the seat of administration of the Rom. province of Achaia.

The new Corinth quickly made its name in the commercial world as its predecessor had done and it quickly gained the reputation for sexual laxity that its predecessor had enjoyed. In classical Gr. the verb korinthiazesthai (“to behave as they do in Corinth”) denoted the more outrageous forms of wantonness and it was equally applicable to the new Corinth. The moral atmosphere of the city accounts for some of the temptations against which the Corinthian Christians esp. needed to be warned by Paul.

The evangelization of Corinth is narrated in Acts 18:1-18. Paul spent eighteen months in the city (Acts 18:11) prob. from the fall of a.d. 50 to the spring of a.d. 52. One chronological pointer is provided by the inscriptional evidence for Gallio’s arrival as proconsul of Achaia (Acts 18:12) in July a.d. 51 or just possibly, but less prob., twelve months later (cf. the Delphian inscr. in W. Dittenberger’s Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum ii³, 801, naming him proconsul of Achaia during Claudius’s 26th imperatorial acclamation, a period which is known from other inscrs., CIL iii. 476; vi. 1256, to have covered the first seven months of a.d. 52). Another is the statement that when Paul reached Corinth he found there Aquila and Priscilla, who had recently come from Italy because of Claudius’s edict expelling Jews from Rome (Acts 18:2)—an edict which on other grounds can be dated in a.d. 49 (the date ascribed to it by Orosius, History vii. 6. 15f.).

During his stay in Corinth, in spite of sustained opposition, Paul laid the foundation of a large and gifted church, including both Jewish and Gentile converts. Among the former was a synagogue ruler named Crispus (Acts 18:8; 1 Cor 1:14); among the latter was the Godfearer Titius Justus (Acts 18:7), who put his house at Paul’s disposal when he could no longer use the synagogue (which adjoined it) as his base of operations. If (as is probable) Titius Justus is to be identified with the Gaius of 1 Corinthians 1:14 and Romans 16:23, then his full name, Gaius Titius Justus, marks him as a Rom. citizen. (The citizens of a Rom. colony such as Corinth were ipso facto Rom. citizens.)

The sustained opposition to Paul’s activity in Corinth came to a peak shortly after Gallio’s arrival in the city as proconsul of Achaia. The leaders of the Jewish community brought Paul before him on the charge of propagating an illegal religion—one which, unlike Judaism, did not enjoy the sanction of Rom. law. Gallio quickly decided that what Paul preached was simply a particular version of Judaism to which his prosecutors objected, and declared that it was none of his business to arbitrate between rival interpretations of the Jewish law (Acts 18:15). His decision was in effect, though perhaps not in intention, a declaration of the benevolent neutrality of Rom. law toward the Gospel: if the Gospel was a variety of a religion sanctioned by Rom. law, then it could be propagated freely, unless it occasioned public disorder. His ruling would be followed as a precedent by magistrates elsewhere in the Rom. empire, and in fact it appears to have been accepted as such until it was reversed by imperial action in the next decade. Paul had good reason to take courage from this turn of events, and he remained in Corinth for several more months. When at last the time came for him to cross the Aegean and embark on his Ephesian ministry, he left a numerous community of Christians behind him in Corinth.

His ministry in Ephesus, however, was marked not only by troubles in that city but by troublesome news which kept coming to him from Corinth. When he referred to the daily pressure of his “anxiety for all the churches” (2 Cor 11:28), his anxiety for the Corinthian church must have made a major contribution to that burden. Quite early in his time at Ephesus he had occasion to send the Corinthian Christians a letter (1 Cor 5:9), warning them “not to associate with immoral men” (a reference to the besetting vice of Corinth). This letter is lost (the view that part of it is preserved in 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 has little to commend it, since the latter passage deals with idolatry, not immorality). Some of the Corinthians evidently misunderstood Paul to mean that they must have no dealings with pagans who were guilty of fornication and similar practices. What he really meant, as he made plain in 1 Corinthians 5:11, was that such practices must not be tolerated within the Christian brotherhood and that no Christian fellowship should be extended to anyone who indulged in them. That the “previous letter” was not as effective as could have been desired is evident from such passages as 1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 6:9-20.

4. Occasion. Later, news came to Paul either by letter or by a personal visit from members of the household of a Corinthian lady named Chloe that party spirit was manifesting itself among his converts in Corinth, and that in some quarters of the church there the authority of Paul, its founder apostle, was being questioned. The challenge to his authority came chiefly from a group of people in the church who set much store by “wisdom” (sophia) and “knowledge” (gnōsis), in the sense which these terms had among the Hel. intelligentsia, and who assessed the Pauline gospel by these standards. Paul set himself to deal in writing with this news, and had practically finished what he had to say when fresh news arrived. This was brought by three further Corinthian visitors, Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus (16:17), who carried a letter to the apostle from the Corinthian church asking him a number of questions. In addition, they delivered by word of mouth an even more disquieting report than that which he had received from the members of Chloe’s household: the characteristic vice of Corinth had not been completely exorcized from the church—in fact, a particularly flagrant case of sexual irregularity had lately come to light—and the members of the church who had complaints against one another were instituting legal proceedings before pagan judges. Accordingly, instead of dispatching the letter which he had just dictated (chs. 1-4), Paul proceeded to dictate much more, dealing first with the serious state of the church as reported by his new visitors and then one by one with the questions raised in the Corinthians’ letter (his answer to each question is introduced by the phrase, “Now concerning”). He hoped to deal with them in greater detail when he was able to pay them a personal visit; meanwhile, he sent this letter (perhaps by the hand of Ste phanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus) and told them to expect a visit from Timothy soon after the receipt of the letter.

5. Outline.

Outline

6. Contents. Paul associates one Sosthenes with himself in the superscription of the letter. It must remain uncertain whether this is Sosthenes of Acts 18:17, the ruler of the synagogue who was beaten up by the bystanders after the Jewish leaders of Corinth had been rebuffed by Gallio (see # 3). If so, he must have subsequently followed the example of his predecessor Crispus (Acts 18:8) and become a Christian. In the thanksgiving which follows the initial salutation mention is made of the Corinthian Christians’ proficiency in eloquence and knowledge and their endowment with every variety of spiritual gift. The remainder of the letter bears ample witness to their equipment in this respect, but makes plain how deficient they were in the necessary qualities of spiritual maturity and moral stability. This deficiency, however, will be dealt with later; at present Paul singled out those features for which he could sincerely thank God, and he assured them that, as they waited for the revelation of Christ at His parousia, they could rely for their establishment on their faithful God, who has called them into the fellowship of His Son (1 Cor 1:1-9).

With an appeal for unity, he proceeded at once to tackle the question of partisanship, of which Chloe’s people had informed him. It has been disputed whether three or four parties were envisaged (v. 12); those who think of three consider that “I belong to Christ” is Paul’s retort to those who claimed himself, Apollos or Cephas (Peter) as party leader. But the question, “Is Christ divided?” (v. 13), suggests that some were using His name as a party slogan. If the Paul party consisted of those who believed themselves to be following the teaching of their own apostle, the Cephas party of those who attached higher importance to the authority of Peter and the other members of the original apostolate, and the Apollos party of those who found the learning (and possibly the Alexandrian allegorical exegesis) of Apollos esp. congenial to their intellectual taste, the Christ party prob. consisted of those “for whom Christ meant something like ‘God, freedom, and immortality,’ where ‘God’ means a refined philosophical monotheism; ‘freedom’ means emancipation from the Puritanical rigors of Palestinian barbarian authorities into the wider air of self-realization; and immortality means the sound Greek doctrine as opposed to the crude Jewish notion of the Resurrection” (T. W. Manson, Studies in the Gospels and Epistles [1962], p. 207). The difference between the Paul party and the Apollos party was at most one of emphasis; but the extremes of the other two parties, representing legalism on the one side and libertinism on the other, were regarded by Paul as deadly enemies of the Gospel, and in countering them he was obliged to fight simultaneously on two fronts—a fact which must never be forgotten in the study of his Corinthian correspondence. Paul claimed that he had given no one any encouragement to name him as party leader; apart from his first half dozen converts in Corinth he had not even baptized any of them, in order to emphasize that believers are baptized into Christ, regardless of who baptizes them. His commission was to proclaim Christ as Savior and Lord of all His people, not of this or that section of them (1:10-17).

This choosing names of party leaders, like the current attachment to philosophical schools called after their various founders, might be a mark of secular wisdom but the Gospel of Christ crucified had nothing to do with secular wisdom. By the standards of secular wisdom, indeed, it was a tale of weakness and folly. Yet Corinthian believers had to acknowledge, for all their cultivation of wisdom, that this tale of weakness and folly had accomplished what the philosophical schools had failed to do: it had brought effective salvation to those who believed it. This is completely in line with God’s consistent policy of using what is weak and foolish in worldly estimation to overcome the forces of secular wisdom and might, so that His people should boast exclusively in Him, who had given them Christ Jesus as their true wisdom, their righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1:18-31).

Paul cut an unimpressive figure when he came to Corinth and his preaching lacked the graces of rhetoric. Yet its effectiveness in leading his hearers to faith in Christ proved that the power behind it was the Holy Spirit’s (2:1-5).

They might have thought his teaching elementary by contrast, perhaps, with Apollos’. Paul could indeed impart higher wisdom to those who were spiritually mature, but spiritual maturity called for charity as well as knowledge. The higher wisdom concerned God’s eternal purpose for His people; it was concealed from the supernatural powers controlling the godless world, and it was this ignorance on their part that trapped them into crucifying “the Lord of glory,” thus sealing their own fate. This divine wisdom, inaccessible apart from divine revelation (as is indicated by the poetical fragment of unknown origin quoted in 2:9), can be grasped only by spiritual men, since it concerns spiritual truth. To the “unspiritual” man—the man who, unenlightened by the Spirit of God, is left to the doubtful guidance of his own soul (whence he is called psychikos)—this higher wisdom is meaningless, if not foolishness; he lacks the spiritual capacity to understand it. It is the man endowed with the Spirit of God who has the gift of discernment and discrimination; he can appreciate the mind of God because he has received “the mind of Christ” (2:6-16).

Whatever the Corinthian Christians thought of their attainments, they were not sufficiently mature to be taught this higher wisdom; that they were still in spiritual infancy, requiring the “milk” of elementary teaching, was evident in the prevalence of party spirit among them. This might be expected in unregenerate men; it was a work of the flesh and those in whom it was found could properly be described as “carnal” (3:1-4).

Paul and Apollos, for example, were only servants of Christ, each performing the duty assigned to him. Paul sowed the seed at Corinth, Apollos then came and watered it, but it was God who made it grow. Or, to use a different figure, Paul laid the foundation and Apollos the upper courses but the building was God’s. There was no fault to be found with the foundation: Christ is the one true foundation. Those who build on that foundation should be careful about the quality of the material they use; it is not Apollos that Paul had in mind. He had no complaint to make of Apollos, but of others, who used materials quite out of keeping with the foundation stone. The Gospel Paul had given them would stand the fiery test of persecution or the more searching test of the final judgment. Would the teaching given by later visitors do the same? When a fire broke out and swept through one of those ancient cities, structures of durable material survived but wooden huts and the like went up in smoke. So the day of divine testing would reveal the kind of workmanship used for building up the Church. Good workmanship would be rewarded; faulty workmanship would be consumed. The workman’s personal salvation, since it depended on divine grace and not on his own workmanship, would not be imperiled, but he would forfeit the reward which might have been his (3:5-15).

Party strife desecrates the building of God. Paul’s readers must consider that, as a community of believers in Christ they are God’s sanctuary, in which His Spirit dwells. God will deal appropriately with anyone who harms His sanctuary. On the other hand, if they would abandon their party strife and secular wisdom, and glory in God rather than in men, they would find that Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and other servants of Christ belong to them all, not just to a few. Let those servants of Christ be accepted for what they really are: those whom Christ has commissioned to dispense His revelation to His people. Let them be assessed not in terms of their popularity but in terms of their faithfulness to Him who has commissioned them. Paul himself was not greatly concerned how men assessed him; what mattered to him was his heavenly Master’s assessment. This assessment will be made public at the Lord’s coming; any attempt at judging the Lord’s servants before that day is premature and invalid (3:5-4:5).

Paul had been using the names of himself and Apollos by way of example, but he knew that neither he nor Apollos had fostered party spirit. Any other aspirants for Christian leadership would do well to learn from these two to repudiate ambitious emulation (the phrase rendered “to live according to scripture” in 4:6 may be an abbreviated proverb whose precise force now escapes us). No teacher can impart anything that he has not received; why then should he boast as though he owed no debt to a teacher of his own? (vv. 6, 7).

It was no easy task that Paul and his fellow apostles had to discharge. They were exposed day by day to slander, persecution, destitution, danger and death. But the Corinthian Christians in their own eyes had “arrived”; they lived as though they had already entered fully into the coming glory. Paul spoke ironically, not to make them feel ashamed, but to show them the best path to follow. He was the only one among their teachers who had a father’s affection for them; they were his children in Christ. Let the children follow their father’s example. He would soon visit them in person; for the present, he would send Timothy to see them. When he himself would come, he would discover what substance there is in those who boast so loudly of their attainments and belittle his authority. It would depend on his readers whether his visit would be a happy occasion, or whether he would have to use a big stick (4:8-21).

The letter which was almost finished is resumed in ch. 5 as Paul dealt with the reports just received from Stephanas and his companions. First of all, there was a case of incest in the church which might have shocked even the tolerant society of Corinth: a man was living with his father’s wife. (Whether his father was still alive or not is uncertain, but it does not affect the issue materially.) Worse than that, some members of the church actually regarded this illicit union as a fine assertion of Christian liberty, something to take pride in. Paul did not stay to argue that this state of affairs was intolerable; he ordered them to expel the offender from their fellowship at once. Let a church meeting be held and sentence of excommunication pronounced; Paul, who had already passed this judgment on the man, would be with them in spirit, concurring in the sentence. The terms of the sentence, “to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,” imply not merely excommunication but bodily affliction, perhaps even death—both for the vindication of the church’s good name and for the offender’s ultimate benefit: “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (v. 5). If conduct of this kind were tolerated in the church, it would corrupt the whole fellowship as surely as a little leaven ferments the whole batch of dough. The mention of leaven reminded Paul of the festival of unleavened bread, which followed the Passover; this served as an illustration of the moral purification which should be carried out in those for whom Christ had died as the true passover Lamb (5:1-8).

When in a previous letter he told them not to associate with immoral people, he did not have pagans in mind (to avoid association with them in Corinth would involve emigration); he meant that such people must find no place within the Christian brotherhood. It is noteworthy that here as elsewhere Paul coupled greed with immorality and idolatry as a major sin meriting expulsion from the fellowship (5:9-13).

The news that some Christians at Corinth were prosecuting others in pagan law courts was shocking in Paul’s eyes. If they must have justice done, why not do as the Jews did and submit their disputes to arbitration within their own community? That would be better than laying them before men who had no status in the church. It would, however, be better still to follow their Lord’s example and endure injustice uncomplainingly. If, as Daniel 7:22 foretells, “the saints of the Most High” will one day share in executing the last judgment, are they unable to adjudicate in their own internal affairs here and now? They should be ashamed of themselves (1 Cor 6:1-8).

Addressing himself more generally to those who thought that the Gospel emancipated them from the restraints of ordinary morality, Paul insisted that there is no place in the kingdom of God for wicked people. Some of the Corinthian believers had once lived wicked lives, but they had been cleansed by Christ. They might say “All things are lawful for me,” or “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” as though their physical life was religiously neutral. But the body as well as the spirit had been redeemed by Christ; therefore God should be glorified in their bodily conduct. That the believer’s body, a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, should become “one flesh” with a harlot was a logical and ethical monstrosity (6:9-20).

Turning now to the questions raised in the Corinthians’ letter, Paul dealt first with marriage and divorce. At the other extreme from the libertines addressed in the preceding paragraph were those who thought it best “for a man not to touch a woman” (7:1). Paul could agree for himself, since he found celibacy a congenial way of life, but as a practical man he recognized that marriage—strictly monogamous marriage—was the norm for Christians, and that there should be a mutual willingness between husband and wife to grant each other the rights and privileges of the conjugal state. Paul was far from sharing the foolish notion of some later Christian ascetics that sex as such is undesirable. If unmarried people and widows can without difficulty remain so, good and well; otherwise, let them marry (7:29).

As for the divorce question, the Lord’s ruling is binding on His people (cf. Mark 10:6-12); there must be no divorce on either side. There was, however, a situation not provided for in the Lord’s ruling: if a husband or wife became a Christian and the other partner to the marriage would no longer continue the relationship what then? In such a case the marriage relationship may be allowed to lapse. Better that the pagan partner should be willing to remain; in that case both the pagan partner and the children of the marriage would be “consecrated” through association with the believer, on the principle that “whatever touches the altar [or anything that is itself holy] shall become holy” (Exod 29:37). It is uncertain whether verse 16 holds out hope for the salvation of the pagan partner or not (1 Cor 7:16).

In general, there is no reason for a Christian to change the status in which he found himself at the time of his conversion—whether circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free (7:17-24). In v. 21 “avail yourself of the opportunity” (to gain your freedom) is prob. the meaning; but the words in themselves could equally well be “make use of your present condition instead.”

It is important to mark the care with which Paul distinguishes the Lord’s unambiguous ruling (v. 10) from his own judgment (vv. 12, 25). This appears in his injunctions to the unmarried (vv. 25-38). In “the impending distress” (v. 26) Christians with family responsibilities might find it more difficult to stand uncompromisingly for the faith than those who were free from such obligations. Detachment in heart and interest from the present evanescent world order is advised. If some Christians had in their first enthusiasm undertaken vows of celibacy, or if an engaged couple had decided not to marry, and then found it desirable to marry, let them marry, says Paul; they have committed no sin (vv. 28, 36).

Similarly, it was best that widows should remain unmarried, but if they decided to remarry they were free to do so, “only in the Lord.” In matters where he had received no commandment from the Lord, Paul would only express his own mind and leave his readers to decide for themselves, but he regarded his judgment as sound judgment, “and I think,” he added, “that I have the Spirit of God” (7:39f.). Nowhere is Paul’s pastoral common sense more evident than in this chapter.

The fact that in a pagan city like Corinth most of the meat exposed for sale in the market was the flesh of animals that had been sacrificed to idols presented many converts from paganism with a problem of conscience. Should they eat such meat, or would they be infected with idol worship by doing so? The Jerusalem decree of Acts 15:29 had instructed Gentile converts not to eat such meat, but Paul appealed to two principles—Christian liberty and Christian charity. A Christian is at liberty to eat it, since it is neither better nor worse for having been dedicated to an idol, but considerations of charity toward a fellow Christian whose conscience might be damaged by his example may lead him to impose a voluntary restriction on his liberty in this regard (8:1-13).

This reference to a voluntary restriction on a Christian’s liberty reminded Paul that his own readiness to do this was an argument which his opponents used to cast doubt on the reality of his apostolic commission. The church of Corinth, wrote Paul, need have no doubt on this score; it was the Lord’s “seal” on his apostleship (9:2). For the rest, he was not at liberty to decide whether he would carry out his apostolic task or not: “necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (9:16). But he was at liberty to decide whether he would live at his converts’ expense or maintain himself, and if, unlike the Jerusalem apostles and the Lord’s brothers, he chose to forego his undoubted right and maintain himself—well, he was free to do so. He exercises his freedom by making himself slave to all for the Gospel’s sake, by being “all things to all men” with an apostolic versatility which some lesser spirits could not distinguish from inconsistency. He practiced self-discipline in order to win the prize which faithful service will receive on the day of review (9:1-27).

Reverting to the subject of idolatrous associations, he reminded his readers how the Israelites’ redemption from Egypt, their passage through the Red Sea and participation in supernatural food and drink in the wilderness did not protect them against divine judgment when they fell into idolatry and immorality (10:1-13). It is equally certain that Christians cannot escape divine judgment if they think they can conjoin the fellowship of the Lord’s Table, where they communicate in the blood and body of Christ, with fellowship at “the table of demons”—if, for example, they join in a banquet in a pagan temple under the idol’s patronage (cf. 8:10). On the other hand, there is no objection to accepting a pagan friend’s invitation and eating whatever is served at his table; but if an issue is made of food that has been dedicated to an idol, the Christian will safeguard his witness and show a helpful example to others. (Verse 29 is so difficult to construe in the context that it has been regarded as an intrusive gloss, but there is no textual evidence for this. Perhaps the two quesitons of vv. 29b, 30, should be taken as an objection to Paul’s argument, but even this is awkward.) Let Christians seek God’s glory and the blessing of others, not their own advantage—as Paul himself did, following the example of Christ (10:4-11:1).

The conduct of church meetings now received attention. Paul disapproved of the Corinthian church being a law to itself in that women prayed or prophesied with uncovered heads, departing both from current convention and from the practice of other churches. His injunction is supported by an appeal to certain ordinances, to the facts of nature, and to the unseen presence of angels at meetings of the church (11:2-16).

He disapproves still more of the unbrotherly conduct of their love feasts or fellowship meals, where, instead of sharing their food, the rich ate what they brought and left their poorer fellow Christians hungry. They might expect Paul’s commendation for their faithfulness in observing the “traditions” he had delivered to them (v. 2), but he would not commend them for this behavior any more than for their divisions and factions (11:17-22).

Apparently they celebrated the Eucharist at the end of their love feasts, but their conduct during those feasts and their condition at the end of them meant that they were in no fit state to take the Holy Supper whose significance they were denying in practice. Paul reminded them of the institution of the Supper—something that he had already “delivered” to them as he, in turn, had first “received” it (the characteristic verbs of tradition are used). This is the oldest written account of the institution, not more than twenty-five years after the event; it is perhaps the only account which reported that Jesus said, “Do this...in remembrance of me” (vv. 24, 25). Their unbrotherly behavior was a profanation of the holy ordinance; by disregarding their obligations as fellow members of the body which was symbolized by the bread they ate, they ate and drank judgment upon themselves. No wonder that sickness and untimely death were rife among them! Let them take their ordinary meals at home, and come to the Lord’s Supper in a proper state of spiritual preparation (11:17-34).

The exercise of spiritual gifts in the church was a subject on which the Corinthians had asked for advice. Many of them were attracted by the more spectacular gifts, esp. by the gift of tongues. All spiritual gifts, said Paul, are bestowed by the Spirit, and no one speaking by His power will use derogatory words about Jesus, whereas the utterance “Jesus is Lord” is a certain token of His prompting (12:1-3).

Nine gifts of the Spirit are named, and their use is compared to the functioning of the various parts of the human body for the health of the whole. In one Spirit all believers have been baptized into one body; by that same Spirit they are all refreshed. As chaos would rule in the human body if each part tried to perform the functions of others, or all entrusted their different functions to one, chaos would rule in the church unless each member made his proper contribution to the good of the whole (12:1-31a).

Higher than all the gifts of the Spirit is the grace of heavenly love, which Paul celebrated in the following words. Christians may be talented, devoted, generous in their giving; they may be endowed with mountain removing faith; they may even have in them the stuff of which martyrs are made—but if love be absent, it is all to no profit. Above all else, love is the one thing needful. As he described love, Paul used language which might well be used of Christ, if “Christ” were put in place of “love.” Other spiritual gifts have their place for a time, but love endures for ever. Man’s present condition, in comparison with the perfection which he shall one day attain, is as childhood in comparison with the years of maturity. The things which befit the present stage of spiritual immaturity will be outgrown when believers are glorified with Christ, but love will never be outgrown. Faith, hope and love form a heavenly triad of graces which endure for ever, but love is the greatest of the three. Therefore, “make love your aim” (12:31b-14:1a).

More particular attention is now given to the exercise of certain spiritual gifts, esp. glossolalia and prophecy. On the former, Paul speaks as one who himself possesses the gift of tongues in an exceptional degree (no one would have guessed this had he not had occasion to mention it incidentally in 14:18), and deprecated the attaching of undue importance to it. It should not be exercised in public unless an interpreter is available; otherwise, it should be used only for private edification (14:4f.). The important point of all public utterance is that the Church should understand what is said and be built up by it, but it cannot be edified by what it fails to understand. Scripture suggests that God is most likely to use glossolalia when addressing people who refuse to believe His message spoken in an intelligible tongue (14:21, quoting Isa 28:11f.). Besides, the impression made on outsiders who venture into Christian meetings must be considered; the sight and sound of a whole company engaged in glossolalia will suggest that they are all mad, whereas prophecy—the proclamation of the mind of God in the power of the Spirit—will produce inward conviction and a realization that God is present (14:23-25).

As for prophecy, this does not require so much regulation, apart from the reminder that the “prophets” should speak one after another and not all together, and two or three utterances should suffice for one session. The “prophet” should maintain his self-control and be equally able to speak or to refrain from speaking (14:29-32). Women should refrain from interrupting with their questions; this did not happen in other churches and should not happen in Corinth (14:33b-36). Paul was not simply expressing his own judgment in these injunctions but conveying the Lord’s commandment as His duly commissioned apostle. Let those members of the church who consider themselves to have a special endowment of the Spirit show that this is so by recognizing the authority with which Paul spoke. The sentence, “If any one does not recognize this, he is not recognized” (14:38), belongs to the category of “eschatological judgment pronouncements” (cf. E. Käsemann, “Sätze heiligen Rechtes im Neuen Testament,” NTS i, 1954-1955, pp. 248ff.). Two principles of permanent validity in the church are “Let all things be done for edification” (14:26) and “all things should be done decently and in order” (14:40).

Although ch. 15 comes between two answers to Corinthian questions, that introduced by “Now concerning spiritual gifts...” (12:1) and that introduced by “Now concerning the contribution...” (16:1), it is not clear that the treatment of the doctrine of resurrection which it contains forms an answer to a specific question in the letter received by Paul. In any case, he knew that at Corinth there were doubts about this doctrine. (No doubt there were some members of the church who considered it an embarrassing accretion to the Gospel and were quite content with the Gr. doctrine of the immortality of the soul.) He therefore reminded them first of all of the centrality of the resurrection of Christ in the Gospel to which they owed their salvation (15:1-11, a paragraph important for many things, including the light it throws on apostolic tradition and its summary, the earliest one available, of the appearances of the risen Christ). Those who denied the principle of resurrection could not accept the fact of Christ’s resurrection, in which case the message and faith of the Gospel were illusory and the preachers were pitiable dupes (15:12-19). But the resurrection of Christ was too well established to be overthrown, and it carried with it the resurrection of His people, just as the firstfruits presented to God on the first day of the week following Passover (Lev 23:9-11) guaranteed the coming harvest. The resurrection harvest will be followed by the eternal day of God, when God has brought all hostile forces in the universe into subjection beneath the feet of the risen and exalted Christ (15:20-28). It is the hope of resurrection that encourages men and women to become Christians and receive baptism in order to be reunited with their friends who departed in Christ; the same hope emboldened Paul and his fellow apostles to endure the dangers of their calling (15:29-34).

If it be asked what the nature of the resurrection body is, Paul replied that it will be a body adapted to its new environment, as the physical body is adapted to this earthly environment; it will be a “spiritual body” whose wearers will share the glory of their risen Lord (15:35-50). By a revelation previously uncommunicated Paul declared that the resurrection will take place when the last trumpet sounds, and in that moment believers still alive will be transformed from mortal beings into immortal ones. Thanks to the victory of Christ, death then will be finally abolished. Here is encouragement indeed for Christians to persevere in their Lord’s service, knowing that it is not doomed to end in futility (15:51-58).

Paul answered their question about the way in which they should organize their contribution to the gift which all his Gentile churches were making to the Jerusalem church: let them set aside a sum of money week by week, and when he came to Corinth the money would be there, ready to be taken to Jerusalem by the church’s accredited delegates (who might be accompanied by Paul himself, 16:1-4).

Paul planned to remain at Ephesus until the following Pentecost, making use of the wideopen Gospel opportunities at present presenting themselves; then he would pass through Macedonia and visit Corinth. Meanwhile they were to expect a visit from Timothy (16:5-14).

One of the sources of the troubles in the Corinthian church was the lack of recognized leaders; Paul indicated certain people who should be accorded such recognition (16:15-18).

With greetings from Paul’s associates in the province of Asia, and esp. from Aquila and Prisca, well known in Corinth, and with a concluding benediction, the letter comes to an end (16:21-24). The last paragraph, written in Paul’s own hand, includes v. 22, prob. a familiar quotation from their communion service.

7. Text, canonicity and authority. The text of 1 Corinthians raises no major problems. The integrity of the letter as a single document is commonly accepted. There are a number of individual places which present features of special textual interest, like the phrase freely tr. “to live according to scripture” (4:6), which some (e.g. Bornemann) have thought to have originated as a scribal note. Most of the textual phenomena of 1 Corinthians receive detailed study in G. Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles (1953).

The canonicity of 1 Corinthians was never an issue in the Church. From the beginnings of the Pauline corpus and the NT canon its place within the canon has been secure, not only in the Catholic church but also in such heretical bodies as the Valentinians and Marcionites. In the Marcionite order of the epistles 1 and 2 Corinthians together came second after Galatians (Galatians coming first for programmatic reasons); in the Muratorian list, 1 and 2 Corinthians together come first in the sequence of Pauline letters—perhaps because if these two are counted as one (as they were in certain quarters in the 2nd cent.) they form by far the longest document in the Pauline corpus. The authority with which the writer addresses his readers is that of the apostle of Christ whose spiritual children they were, the authority of one who claimed to have the mind of Christ and the Spirit of God (2:16; 7:40). The care which Paul took to distinguish his own judgment from the Lord’s commandment (e.g. 7:6, 10, 12, 25) adds the greater weight to places where he unambiguously calls for the obedience due to the Lord’s commandment (e.g. 14:37).

Readers of later date will distinguish between the permanent principles laid down in the letter and their local and temporary application. Corinth presented special problems and was evidently out of step with the other Gentile churches in a number of matters. The lack of clearly recognized leaders in the Corinthian church meant that Paul had to give rulings on matters which would normally have been dealt with by local leaders or elders. The cultivation of such gifts as glossolalia at Corinth does not appear to have constituted a problem in the other churches addressed by Paul; and 1 Corinthians cannot be used as a directory of public worship by churches in general. Yet the principle that ministry in the church must have as its object the spiritual welfare of the members should always be borne in mind, as also should the principle that the reputation of Christ and the Gospel is at stake in the public behavior of Christians. The Christian attitude to sex and marriage is expressed in this letter by a man who, though himself a celibate, showed a remarkable understanding of the practicalities of the marital relation and “a psychological insight into human sexuality which is altogether exceptional by first century standards” (D. S. Bailey, Sexual Relation in Christian Thought [1959], p. 10). The refusal to base Christian ethics on legalism and the exposition of the fine balance of Christian liberty and Christian charity must also be reckoned high among the chief lessons taught in 1 Corinthians.

In addition, 1 Corinthians (written not more than a quarter of a cent. after the death and resurrection of Christ) is an early and indispensable source of information about the apostolic preaching. The Gospel as summarized in 1 Corinthians 15:2ff., with its list of resurrection appearances, is clearly stated to be common ground for Paul and for such other preachers as the Twelve and James (15:11)—a statement which could have been readily refuted if it were questionable. Like these gospel facts, the record of the institution of the Eucharist (11:23ff.) forms part of the tradition (paradosis) which Paul himself received before he delivered it to his converts. One occasion when Paul could have received the tradition is indicated in Galatians 1:18ff.; it is striking that the two Jerusalem leaders whom he met in the third year after his conversion (Peter and James) are the only two whom he named in 1 Corinthians 15:5ff. as having (like himself later on) seen the risen Christ by themselves. The preaching, like the ethical teaching (cf. 7:10; 9:14), stems from the authority of Christ Himself.

Above all, this letter emphasizes the surpassing power and worth of the love of God in human life; Christianity may survive in the absence of many valuable things, but it will die if love is absent.

Bibliography C. Hodge, Exposition of First Corinthians (1863; reprinted 1953); F. Godet, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 2 volumes (1886; reprinted 1957); T. C. Edwards, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (1897); G. G. Findlay, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (1900); J. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief (1910); H. L. Goudge, The First Epistle to the Corinthians³ (1911); A. Robertson and A. Plummer, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on First Corinthians (1911); E. B. Allo, Saint Paul: Première Épître aux Corinthiens (1935); J. Moffatt, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (1938); H. Lietzmann and W. G. Kummel, An die Korinther I-II⁴ (1949); F. W. Grosheide, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (1953); J. Héring, The First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (1962); T. W. Manson, Studies in the Gospels and Epistles (1962), 190-209; G. Deluz, A Companion to I Corinthians (1963); M. E. Thrall, I and II Corinthians, Cambridge Bible Commentary on the NEB (1965); J. C. Hurd, The Origin of I Corinthians (1965); A. Isaksson, Marriage and Ministry in the New Temple (1965); C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (1968); F. F. Bruce. 1 and 2 Corinthians (1971).