Week Eighteen

Apr 30

The church in Corinth apparently needed some additional pastoral guidance from Paul — hence we have what we call the letter of 1 Corinthians. You may want to go back to Acts 18 to refresh your memory of Paul’s 1.5 year stay in the city of Corinth.

1 Corinthians is actually the second letter Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth. The first letter has not been found by historians, but Paul references it in 1 Corinthians 5:9. He probably wrote this letter while he was in Ephesus between two to four years after he founded the church in Corinth.

The subjects Paul addresses in this letter are provoked by a letter or report he received from Chloe’s household. An overarching theme in this letter is how the Body of Christ should live. While Paul addresses some pretty heavy topics like sexual immorality, incest, lawsuits, marriage, and food, everything he talks about is meant to help the reader understand how these things impact our relationship with God and each other. His emphasis is not just that these things are bad but that they destroy the church, families, and put up barriers in our relationship with God.

This is not a letter to faceless and nameless people. It is a letter of deep love for a people that Paul poured his heart out to for a long time. It is written to a people he deeply invested in. It is a letter to people that he would later say he wrote out of the depth of his love (2 Corinthians 2.4). Why else would he go to the trouble of addressing tough issues? But, it is also a letter for us. We are also the people he poured his heart our for. In fact, Paul poured his heart and life out for the people who would come to believe in the living gospel generation after generation after generation. Like David said in Psalm 22.31, “declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!” It is because he and others poured out their hearts that we know Jesus today.

What I love about 1 Corinthians is that Paul moved with incredible grace from hard conversations to the Spirit filled life in the Church. He spoke of the way a healthy Body of believers moves together like a human body does - each part doing what it was made for. He was able to put a unified Body of believers on display as we waltz through chapters 11 through 14.

He ends his letter with pure gospel! He makes it clear that the gospel isn’t good news without resurrection! “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” Victory is in Christ and His resurrection! Therefore, stand firm brothers and sisters! “Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord” because that work is not in vain. If we set out to do the work of the Lord, all those other things he spent the beginning of the letter talking about will fade away in the distant past, because our focus will have shifted to the Spirit filled life. And oh what a life it is!

Enjoy this letter Paul poured his heart and life out for to the Body of believers across the world today and even to us at Crossroads in Chandler, Arizona.

You can write a comment below, or reach me, Melissa, at mrightmire@crnaz.com . Thank you for traveling with me on this journey through the New Testament.

Below are the readings for week 18: