Commentary by John W. Gregson
Introduction to I Corinthians
The Author
There is little controversy as to the authorship of the book of I Corinthians. In fact, for someone
to try to disprove that Paul is the author would be to prove their own incompetence as critics.
Conservative scholars identify Paul the Apostle as the author. Paul had reached Corinth only after
experiencing a great deal of discouragement at Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea where he was
opposed by fanatical Jews. He states in (2:3) that he arrived in Corinth, "...in weakness and in
fear, and in much trembling." He was in all probability alone because Silas and Timothy had
remained in Macedonia. He initially met with little success in Corinth; the Jews ousted him from
the synagogue. Somewhat undiplomatically and not very tactfully, he went next door to the
synagogue in the house of Justus and sought a following for the Lord Jesus Christ. Almost
immediately, one of chief rulers of the synagogue, one Crispus and all of his household believed
(Acts 18:8); later many of the Corinthians believed and were baptized. Probably many of Paul's
converts to Christianity in Corinth were men and women of wealth, such as Gaius, (Romans
16:23), and Chloe (1:11; 11:18) who was a freed woman, both were members of the church.
Paul's pastoral care of the church at Corinth is very evident. He gives an abundance of practical
advise to the church. Since the range of issues in the church at Corinth is so evident, the epistle
serves as a guide to members of every congregation that would follow. A trademark of the epistle
is the personal pronoun I, which occurs repeatedly throughout its sixteen chapters. It is very
evident that Paul had a good command of the Greek language; furthermore, it also reveals a
Semitic flavor in the author's use of Old Testament Scriptures.
Paul's Tenure in Corinth
On his second missionary journey, Paul, Silas and Timothy stayed in Corinth for at least eighteen
months and possibly two years, establishing a large church there, and Paul and others of his
associates organized churches in the surrounding area. Acts 18:1 - 4, 11 state, "After these things
Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth, and found a certain Jew, named Aquila, born in
Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife, Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all Jews
to depart from Rome),and came unto them. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with
them, and worked; for by their occupation they were tentmakers. And he reasoned in the
synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks...And (Paul) continued there a
year and six months, teaching the word of God among them." Paul and his associates, Silas,
Timothy, Aquilla and Priscilla, established a large church in Corinth, and he and others organized
churches in the surrounding area. Paul must have worked six days a week in the trade of tent-making or dealing with leather goods; he spent his Sabbaths teaching in the synagogue as long as
he was permitted to do so. Week after week Paul entered the synagogue and reasoned
(dielegeto), debated or disputed with the congregation and persuaded (epiethen) or assured both
Jews and Greeks that Jesus was the Messiah. Paul showed how Jesus fulfilled all the Old
Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah, reading from the Old Testament and inserting His
name as an interpretative expansion in those passages which - as the event proved - pointed
forward to Him (Bruce, p. 369).
The Time of Writing
The time of writing was about A. D. 56 and the book of II Corinthians was written just a few
months after I Corinthians. Both of the Corinthians letters were probably written from Ephesus
(Acts 20:31.) In I Corinthians 16:8 Paul writes, "But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost." I
Corinthians 5:9 speaks of a former letter, "I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with
fornicators..." Either this epistle was lost or there was some misunderstanding about Paul's
instructions.
The City in Which the Church was Located
The city of Corinth, Greece, was the chief city of Achaia proper; it was located on an isthmus
between Aegean and Ionian Seas fifty miles west of Athens. Corinth was a thriving commercial
city and a very wealthy one. It was notorious for its luxury and moral corruption, particularly in
the worship of Aphrodite. In the classical Greek to corinthiazesthai (to act or behave like a
Corinthian) meant to practice fornication which was polite Greek for "go to the Devil." The
Temple of Aphrodite on the Acrocorinthus (a mountain 1,500 feet in elevation above the city) had
a thousand consecrated prostitutes (hetroduli). Its citizens were interested in literature and the
arts, especially rhetoric and philosophy. Paul lists some of the city's characteristic sins--fornication, adultery, effeminacy, homosexuality, stealing, coveteousness, drunkenness, reviling
(abusive speech) and swindling (6:9, 10).
Morris shows the cosmopolitan character of the city when he states that Corinth was a city
"where Greeks, Latins, Syrians, Asiatics, Egyptians and Jews, bought sold, labored and reveled,
quarreled and hob-nobbed, in the city and its ports, as nowhere else in Greece...yet for all that the
city had great prestige" (I, p. 16). The finest of athletes were attracted to the surrounding area
because of the Isthmian Games. Maybe it was the intensely evil side that induced Paul to preach
there and establish the great church at Corinth; anything preached there would be guaranteed
wide dissemination.
In Ken Adams' article entitled, "A Rat Visits Corinth and Sees What Paul Saw," he characterizes
Corinth well. In this parody, the author shows how a lowly creature, a rat, was repulsed by the
things that went on in Corinth. The fat black rat, jumped from the ship and onto the hard
cobblestone road stating, "Here's my chance to visit this famous city;" however, upon visiting the
cities' wharves, schoolrooms, its taverns, its temples to Aphrodite, Apollo, Asclepius and
Poseidon and its fertile fields, his conclusion was, "Corinth may be a beautiful and rich city, but it
is no place to raise a 'rat family'...I'll be glad to get back to Rome...I'm going to get me a wife,
find a nice sewer to move into, and raise a family. I wouldn't think of raising my kids in Corinth"
(Adult Advancer, December 1999 - February 2000).
The Church
In the church at Corinth, Paul was working with a Grecian environment. It would be necessary
for Paul to show the people of that city the difference between true and false gnosis and lead them
to a deeper understanding which would transform their practice. In the church can be seen a
picture of the inside workings of the primitive Gentile Christianity. After Paul had left the area,
indeed, after returning to Ephesus on his third missionary journey did serious trouble arise in the
church composed of elements converted from the contaminated populations of a vitiated city soon
after his initiation of his ministry of three years in the large city of Ephesus (Shepard, pp. 204,
205). When one considers the fact that the Christians at Corinth had been Christians for only a
short time--six years at the most, this fact explains why a church would be faced with so many
problems, especially in the absence of stable leadership.
In his overview of I Corinthians, E. H. Henderson states, "God have mercy on the preacher who
is assigned by the Holy Spirit as pastor of a church such as the one in Corinth...If a pastor is
having problems in his church today, he can preach through the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle
to the Corinthians; if he does, he will deal with that problem sooner or later...And yet, Paul's
epistle to the Corinthians affords better insight into the life of pioneer church than any other book
of the New Testament" (Adult Advancer, December 1999 - February 2000, p. 2).
The Reason for the Epistle
Paul wrote to the church at Corinth in response to an inquiry that they had made earlier. In fact,
Paul's first letter to the church was apparently lost, and it was necessary to write I Corinthians to
answer some questions the members wanted answered. Apparently a committee of three,
Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus (16:17), had arrived from the church with questions and
problems within the church. The problems addressed in the letter were as follows: partisan
factions (1:10 - 4:17); incest (5:1 - 13); seeking justice in law-suits before pagan judges; (Chapter
6); marriage and celibacy (Chapter 7); food offered to idols (Chapter 8); the veiling of women
(11:1 - 16); the Lord's Supper, (11:17 - 34); spiritual gifts (Chapters 12 - 14); the resurrection
(Chapter 15), and personal greetings and concluding exhortations (Chapter 16). Some "of the
household of Chloe," had brought an alarming report about some factions and strife in the church
as well as the prevalence of fornication heading up in an outstanding case of incest. Morris
quotes Moffat who wrote, "The Church was in the world, as it had to be, but the world was in the
Church, as it ought not to be" (p. 25).
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