1 Corinthians – Chapter One Part One – The Style Points of God

I’m going to assume that everyone has a bible, so I won’t be quoting much from Corinthians, unless to make a point. I’ll just refer to chapter & verse and let everyone follow along.

Some background on Corinthians may be helpful. This letter (Epistle) was written to ‘the church’ in Corinth, a city in Greece of perhaps 600,000 people. ‘The church’ there, was the direct result of one of Paul’s missionary journeys through the region. He would go around preaching the Gospel in public and teaching in private. When he moved on to another city/town, he would leave behind those folks whose faith he was deeply concerned for.

In Corinth, he left behind folks in a town of sin. ‘Sin City’…like a familiar one we have now, except for one difference. In Las Vegas, everyone KNOWS they’re serving their own passions. In Corinth…they thought they were doing it for God. For instance, the Temple of Aphrodite was in Corinth and on any given day, you could find upwards of a 1,000 young women available for Godly prostitution. Yup. Families would rejoice when their daughters were chosen to serve Aphrodite (and the men of Corinth) in the temple.

Such was the atmosphere in the city. And while Christianity now makes clear what kinds of social and sexual behavior are favored by God, keep in mind these folks didn’t HAVE a New Testament…because it hadn’t been written yet.

And that brings us to our next point. This letter from Paul WOULD BECOME… ‘scripture’. And while the Corinthians didn’t know that at the time… Paul did. We’ll see that later. Another thing we’ll see later is… this wasn’t the first letter that Paul had written to Corinth. It’s labeled FIRST Corinthians in our bibles only because the true first letter is lost. It’s really the second letter. And the letter we call SECOND Corinthians is really the third.

Confused yet? Sorry. There’s a point, though. What makes a letter from Paul…become Holy Writ? If Paul knew he was scribing Holiness (he did) and he knew it was his second letter (he did), then why didn’t he fight for the true (missing) first letter to become Holy Writ (he didn’t)?

‘Cause he knew it wasn’t Holy Writ….is the only answer that comes to mind. If you look at the Prophets of the Old Testament (like Ezekiel for instance)… they ALSO KNEW when they were being given Holy Writ. ‘Cause when God is talking to you and God wants you to tell folks about it… God makes sure you know it.

The church in Corinth was in trouble. There were no Gospels yet and while there WERE still plenty of eyewitnesses to Jesus, most of them were in Jerusalem, not Corinth. So they had only their own memories of Paul’s teachings to go by and they lived in a cesspool of a city (kinda like anyplace in America today that has a television)… with a wide variety of temptations. And they needed to grow spiritually in order to combat all the negative spirit around them. As people are prone to do, they floundered some. And found things to argue about. And some of them had trouble letting go of some sins….etc.

So Paul was writing to 1. Chew them out. 2. Encourage them to righteousness. 3. Instruct them on stuff they had either forgotten or did not know. 4. Fertilize & water them. And while he didn’t pull any punches, the letter also stands as a prime example of love & nurturing. Wait ‘til we get to Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter One really contains three separate thoughts. Verses 1 – 9 are the ‘howdies’. Verses 10 – 16 plainly declare that he’s sending a reprimand. Verses 17 – 31 comprise a passage that almost every Bible I’ve ever seen lists as ‘God’s Wisdom’, but I am just cheeky enough to disagree with that label. I believe it should be titled ‘God’s Style Points’ and I’ll explain why in Part Two. That third section of Chapter One…is IMHO…one of the most instructive passages in the Bible about…how to study the Bible.

For now, let me mention that while those ARE the three main divisions of Chapter One…each section contains individual little nuggets of Truth that stand alone as treasures in their own right. Beginning with the first verse.