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WorkPaul the Apostle

Epistles to the Corinthians

Two letters to a quarrelling church in a Greek trading city: on love, on the resurrection, and against Paul's rivals.

by Paul the Apostle59 passages held

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Original title
Πρὸς Κορινθίους Α΄ · Πρὸς Κορινθίους Β΄
First published
(aged 50)
Original language
Greek

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Overview

In Ephesus, Paul heard from members of Chloe's household that the church he had founded in Corinth was splitting into parties: some said they belonged to Paul, some to Apollos, a gifted preacher who had taught there after him, and some to Cephas, which is Peter. A letter from Corinth arrived as well, with questions about marriage, food offered to idols and gifts of the spirit. This page holds the two of Paul's replies that survive. First Corinthians, written from Ephesus around 54, answers point by point, and its root claim is that the message of a crucified Messiah looks like foolishness to Greeks who seek wisdom and like an offence to Jews who seek signs, and that this foolishness is God's wisdom. Boasting about one's teacher, one's knowledge or one's spiritual gifts misses the point. From that come chapter 13, on agápē, the love that does not seek its own advantage, and chapter 15, written against members who said there is no resurrection of the dead; it hands on an older formula listing those to whom the risen Jesus appeared. Second Corinthians, sent from Macedonia perhaps a year later, after a painful visit and a letter Paul says he wrote in tears, begins in reconciliation, asks for the money he was collecting for the poor of the Jerusalem church, and ends, in chapters 10 to 13, in a fierce defence against rival missionaries. They were Hebrews, they came with letters of recommendation, and they said his letters were weighty but his presence weak and his speech contemptible; Paul calls them, with irony, apostles beyond measure. Who these "super-apostles" were, scholars have never settled. Paul's answer is to boast of shipwrecks, beatings and a thorn in the flesh, because power is made perfect in weakness. The sudden change of tone leads many scholars to think the second letter joins pieces of more than one letter. The first, for its part, mentions an earlier letter now lost. Along the way the letters show a congregation's ordinary trouble: lawsuits between members, a man living with his father's wife, rich members eating before the poor arrived at the shared meal. The text given here is the King James Version (1611), translated from the Greek, with the verse numbers removed and the chapters kept.

Key concepts

What is agápē, the love of First Corinthians?

Agápē is the Greek word Paul uses for a love that gives rather than wants, translated 'charity' in the King James Version. It is neither desire nor ordinary friendship: it 'suffereth long, and is kind', envies no one and 'seeketh not her own'. Paul describes it almost entirely by what it does and refrains from doing, so it reads less as a feeling than as a way of treating people.

What are 'spiritual gifts' in Corinthians?

Abilities Paul says the one Spirit hands out to different believers: wisdom, healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpreting them, telling true spirits from false. His point is that they are given 'to profit withal', for the good of the whole congregation, not as badges of rank. That is why he ranks them by how much they build others up, and puts unexplained tongues low.

What is 'the Lord's supper'?

The shared meal at which believers repeat what Jesus did on the night he was betrayed: breaking bread as 'my body' and sharing the cup as 'the new testament in my blood', in remembrance of him. Paul hands this on as received tradition. Eating and drinking together, he says, the believers 'shew the Lord's death till he come', so the meal is a proclamation as well as a memorial.

What does Paul mean by a 'spiritual body'?

The body of the resurrection: still a body, but transformed, no longer subject to decay. Paul contrasts it with the 'natural body' we have now, which comes from the first Adam, made of earth; the raised body is modelled on Christ, the 'last Adam'. He insists on the difference: 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God', so the dead are not simply restored as they were.

What is 'the ministry of reconciliation'?

Paul's name, in Second Corinthians, for the work he has been given: announcing that 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses'. Reconciliation means enemies made friends, and God is the one who moves first. Paul calls himself and his helpers 'ambassadors for Christ', pleading on God's behalf, which is how he understands his authority over the congregation.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

The foolishness of the cross

What happens to wisdom, eloquence and loyalty to a favourite teacher when God's message is a crucified man? Paul turns the Corinthians' admiration for clever speech upside down.

Corinth's believers were dividing into parties, some for Paul, some for the preacher Apollos, some for Peter. Paul answers that a crucified Messiah is an offence to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, and that this foolishness is wiser than men. God chose the weak and the low, not many wise or well born, so that no one might boast. Paul came without fine speech; he planted, Apollos watered, God gave the growth. Teachers are servants, and a church that ranks them is still feeding on milk.

  • rhetoric
  • knowledge
  • humility
  • leadership
  • unity
  • faith

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One body, many members, and the greatest of these

How can people with unequal gifts, incomes and standing form one community? Paul's answer is the image of a body, and a love that outranks every gift.

At Corinth the rich ate their own suppers while the poor went hungry, and those who spoke in ecstatic tongues looked down on the rest. Paul answers with the body: the foot is no less a member for not being a hand, and the weaker parts are the most necessary. Every gift comes from one Spirit for the good of all, and worship must build others up, so five clear words outweigh ten thousand in a tongue. Above it all stands love, patient and kind, which seeks not its own and never fails.

  • community
  • spiritual gifts
  • love
  • charity
  • religious practice
  • equality
  • order
  • gender
  • service

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All things lawful, not all things helpful

If believers are free, what still binds them in sex, marriage, food and the courts? Paul accepts the slogan of freedom and then asks what it does to the body and to the neighbour.

Some at Corinth said 'all things are lawful' and concluded that what the body does does not matter. Paul agrees and qualifies: not all things help, and the body is a temple of the Spirit, bought with a price. He condemns a man living with his father's wife and believers suing each other before outside judges. He prefers the single life yet says it is better to marry than to burn. On meat offered to idols he grants that an idol is nothing, and still asks the knowing to give way for a weaker conscience.

  • freedom
  • sexual ethics
  • marriage
  • celibacy
  • holiness
  • embodiment

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The resurrection of the body

Some in Corinth said the dead do not rise. Paul answers that everything hangs on it, and tries to say what kind of body could be raised.

Paul hands on an older formula: Christ died, was buried, rose, and was seen by Peter, by the twelve, by five hundred at once, and last of all by Paul himself. If the dead do not rise, Christ is not raised, faith is vain, and we might as well eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. The raised body is to the present one as the plant is to the seed sown in the ground, a natural body raised a spiritual one. The chapter ends taunting death itself: where is thy sting?

  • resurrection
  • death
  • trust
  • grace

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Power made perfect in weakness

How does an apostle prove himself against polished rivals? In the second letter Paul boasts, as he says, like a fool, and only of what shows him weak.

Rival missionaries came with letters of recommendation and said Paul's letters were weighty but his presence weak. Paul refuses their standard. He carries the treasure in earthen vessels so that the power is plainly God's, and his credentials are beatings, shipwrecks and an escape let down the city wall in a basket. Begging three times to be rid of a thorn in the flesh, he was told that strength is made perfect in weakness. The same letter asks, without command, for a cheerful gift to the poor in Jerusalem.

  • suffering
  • authority
  • religious authority
  • integrity
  • generosity

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Within this work

passages held
59
distinct concepts
162
by passages held, corpus-wide
#629

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “community” and “religious practice”.
Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 18 pairings. 40 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
ConceptPaired conceptShared passages
communityreligious practice5
charitycommunity3
humilitysuffering3
humilityleadership2
leadershipsuffering2
charityleadership1
charitylove1
charityreligious practice1
communityhumility1
communityleadership1
communitylove1
communitysuffering1
faithleadership1
faithlove1
faithreligious practice1
faithsuffering1
leadershiplove1
leadershipreligious practice1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. 51 Epistles to the Thessalonians (Πρὸς Θεσσαλονικεῖς Α΄ · Πρὸς Θεσσαλονικεῖς Β΄)

    One of his earliest surviving letters, paired with a second in his name whose authorship is disputed. Between them they hold most of what the letters say about the Lord's return.

     EN
  2. 53 Epistle to the Galatians (Πρὸς Γαλάτας)

    A letter of controversy, written in haste to churches he feared to lose. It holds his fullest account of his early years as an apostle and of his clash with Peter, and states in compressed form the case Romans later sets out at length.

     EN
  3. 55 Epistles to the Corinthians (Πρὸς Κορινθίους Α΄ · Πρὸς Κορινθίους Β΄) you are here EN
  4. 57 Epistle to the Romans (Πρὸς Ῥωμαίους)

    The longest and most systematic of his letters, and the one later theology was built on: for a church he had not founded, it works out at length the argument about faith and the law that Galatians had made in anger.

     EN
  5. 62 Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians (Πρὸς Ἐφεσίους · Πρὸς Κολοσσαεῖς)

    The two letters on this shelf closest to each other in wording, and with Second Thessalonians the three whose authorship is disputed. They carry Paul's thought toward a teaching about the universal church.

     EN
  6. 62 Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon (Πρὸς Φιλιππησίους · Πρὸς Φιλήμονα)

    Prison letters, one to the congregation that supported him with money and one to a single household. Philemon is the only one of Paul's undisputed letters written chiefly to one person.

     EN
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