1 Corinthians
INTRODUCTION
1 CORINTHIANS
RALPH P. MARTIN
The church at Corinth
In the middle of the first century, Corinth was a city of great importance. It had reached eminence at a much earlier date, owing to its commercial and maritime advantage as a seaport on the isthmus between central Greece and the Peloponnesus, but had been destroyed by the Romans about 200 years before Paul’s first visit (Acts chapter 18). After lying in ruins for about a century, it was reconstructed by Julius Caesar in 44 BC and populated as a Roman colony.
In the first century AD the city was heavily populated (200,000 freedmen, 400,000 slaves have been estimated), and its place as a political and commercial center is gauged from the fact that the Romans made it the capital city of the senatorial province of Achaia in southern Greece.
However, the reputation of Corinth for moral corruption is also well known. The “Corinthian life” became synonymous with luxury and licentiousness. At the same time, its pretensions to philosophy and literary culture made the phrase “Corinthian words” a token of polished and cultivated speech.
In this city of busy commercial life and social entertainment Paul spent a year and a half or more during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:11,18), having arrived in the city probably in the winter of AD 50–51. He found a welcome in the home of Aquila and Priscilla, with whom he carried on his trade of tentmaking as well as conducting some evangelistic ministry (Acts 18:4-18).
Problems at Corinth
The converts won to Christ seem to have belonged to the lower strata of society (1:26-29), but not exclusively so (1:16; 11:17-34; Romans 16:23). They were not free from the prevailing tendency to intellectual pride (1:18-20; 3:18-19; 8:1); and added to this was a proneness to sensual sin, equally characteristic of their native city (5:1-11; 6:15-18; 11:21). The most glaring defect of the church’s life, however, must have been that of party divisions (1:12; 3:3; 11:18f.) represented by their allegiance to apostolic names, and their bickering which drew them to the civil courts to settle their quarrels (6:1,6). They even carried their wrangling to the Lord’s table (11:17ff.). They did all this claiming as their watchwords “knowledge” (8:1) and “liberty” (6:12; 8:9; 10:23) but were blissfully unaware of the serious moral crisis which was blowing up (5:1ff.). Rather, they were exulting in the largesse of spiritual gifts with which they had been endowed (1:5; 14:12), although they needed careful instruction as to their meaning and use (12:1; 14:37).
Paul and Corinth
Of all the churches that Paul founded as a “skilled master-builder” (3:10), none caused him more concern than the community at Corinth. “Anxiety for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:28) was no idle phrase when he reflected on his dealings with the Corinthian saints. He claimed a special relationship to them (3:10; 4:15; 9:1-2; 2 Corinthians 3:2; 12:14-15), and maintained a shepherdlike care in every situation.
Details of the precise number of letters that he wrote to them and the various visits he paid to Corinth are a complicated business which the textbooks try to sort out. A possible sequence is:
The immediate occasion of 1 Corinthians is more straightforward. Various reports had reached Paul of the troubles at Corinth (1:11). The church members themselves had written requesting guidance on specific matters of doctrine, custom and procedure, and were not loath to offer their own views at the same time (7:1; 8:1), while professing to remain loyal to Paul’s earlier, oral teaching (11:2). Moreover, the coming of some of the church leaders (16:17) doubtless filled in some of the background of the tangled situation at Corinth. The letter before us is a reply to, and an inspired commentary on, just this situation. It was written at Ephesus (16:19) about AD 55.