1 Corinthians
Paul to a gifted, chaotic church in a port city, on how to actually live together.
Who wrote it: Paul, with Sosthenes, from Ephesus around 54 or 55 AD. Undisputed.
What it is
Corinth was a rich, rough, cosmopolitan port with a reputation. Paul had spent eighteen months there planting a church, then moved on to Ephesus, and the reports coming back were bad. The church had split into fan clubs (Paul's, Apollos's, Peter's). A man was sleeping with his stepmother and the church was proud of how tolerant it was. Members were suing each other in pagan courts. Some were visiting prostitutes and calling it freedom. The rich were eating the communion meal before the poor arrived. And the services were a competitive mess of people speaking in tongues over each other.
So this is not an essay like Romans. It is a working letter that goes issue by issue, partly responding to reports and partly to questions the Corinthians had written to him. That gives it a rhythm: 'now concerning' marriage, 'now concerning' food offered to idols, 'now concerning' spiritual gifts. Paul's answers keep coming back to one thing. You were bought at a price. You are not your own. The body matters, other people matter, and the point of any freedom is love.
Chapter 13, the love chapter read at weddings, is not about weddings. It sits between two chapters on spiritual gifts and is Paul's answer to a church competing over who was most spiritual: without love, all of it is noise. Chapter 15 is the other high point, the earliest written account of the resurrection we have, listing the people who saw Jesus alive, including five hundred at once, most of whom Paul says were still around to ask. Paul then argues that if Jesus was not raised, the whole faith is pointless and Christians are to be pitied. He was not hedging.
Read 1 Corinthians and you will stop imagining the first church as a golden age. It was full of exactly the problems churches have now, and Paul's response was not to give up on them. He calls them saints in the first sentence and means it, then spends sixteen chapters telling them to act like it. Chapter 11 also contains the words said at communion in almost every church on earth, and chapter 16 ends with 'let all that you do be done in love', which is the whole letter in a line.
Verses worth keeping
but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsBut God picked the things the world calls foolish to shame the wise, and the things the world calls weak to shame the strong.
To a church embarrassed by its own lack of status. Paul says the lack of status is the point.
No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsNothing has hit you that other people haven't faced too. God is faithful. He won't let you be tested past what you can take. With every test he'll also give you a way through, so you can stand it.
It says 'way of escape', not 'the test will go away'. Look for the exit; there is one.
4Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, 5doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; 6doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsLove is patient and kind. It doesn't envy, doesn't show off, isn't arrogant. It doesn't act shamefully, doesn't insist on its own way, doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep a record of wrongs. It takes no pleasure in injustice but is glad when truth wins. Love puts up with everything, keeps trusting, keeps hoping, keeps going.
Written to a church, not a couple. Try reading it with 'we' instead of 'love' and see how it feels.
3For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsI passed on to you what mattered most, which is what I received myself: that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.
Probably a creed Paul was taught within a few years of the crucifixion. The oldest summary of Christian belief we have.
13Watch! Stand firm in the faith! Be courageous! Be strong! 14Let all that you do be done in love.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsStay alert. Stand firm in your faith. Be brave. Be strong. And do everything you do with love.
Paul's sign-off. Four commands about toughness and one that governs all of them.
Read 1 Corinthians
The full text, every chapter, from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. Pick a chapter below. The highlighted verses are the place to start if you have never read it.
1 Corinthians 15
1Now I declare to you, brothers, the Good News which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand, 2by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. 9For I am the least of the apostles, who is not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the assembly of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 11Whether then it is I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.
12Now if Christ is preached, that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ been raised. 14If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith also is in vain. 15Yes, we are also found false witnesses of God, because we testified about God that he raised up Christ, whom he didn’t raise up if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead aren’t raised, neither has Christ been raised. 17If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. 18Then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.
20But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruit of those who are asleep. 21For since death came by man, the resurrection of the dead also came by man. 22For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then those who are Christ’s at his coming. 24Then the end comes, when he will deliver up the Kingdom to God the Father, when he will have abolished all rule and all authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy that will be abolished is death. 27For, “He put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when he says, “All things are put in subjection”, it is evident that he is excepted who subjected all things to him. 28When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son will also himself be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.
29Or else what will they do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead aren’t raised at all, why then are they baptized for the dead? 30Why do we also stand in jeopardy every hour? 31I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. 32If I fought with animals at Ephesus for human purposes, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, then “let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” 33Don’t be deceived! “Evil companionships corrupt good morals.” 34Wake up righteously and don’t sin, for some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
35But someone will say, “How are the dead raised?” and, “With what kind of body do they come?” 36You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies. 37That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind. 38But God gives it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own. 39All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. 40There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial differs from that of the terrestrial. 41There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.
42So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. 43It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.
45So also it is written, “The first man Adam became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46However, that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. 47The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. 48As is the one made of dust, such are those who are also made of dust; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 49As we have borne the image of those made of dust, let’s also bear the image of the heavenly. 50Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable.
51Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. 53For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55“Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?”
56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Questions about 1 Corinthians
Does Paul tell women to be silent in church?
1 Corinthians 14:34-35 says wives should be quiet in the assemblies. But 11:5 in the same letter assumes women pray and prophesy out loud in the gathering, so Paul cannot mean total silence. Explanations include: a local problem with disruptive questions, a rule about weighing prophecy, or (a minority view) a later addition to the text. Christians are divided between reading it as permanent and reading it as situational. Whatever it means, it has to fit with chapter 11 and with Romans 16.
Is 1 Corinthians 13 really about romantic love?
No. It is about a church whose members were competing over spiritual gifts, and it says that without love every gift is worthless. That said, it describes love well enough that reading it at a wedding is fair. Just know Paul wrote it to people who were arguing.
Why is there so much about food offered to idols?
In Corinth most meat sold in the market had passed through a temple, and every social event involved it. Paul's answer runs three chapters (8 to 10): the idol is nothing, so the meat is fine, but if eating it wrecks someone else's faith, don't. The principle is bigger than the meat: freedom is real, and love limits it.