Month: May 2020

This post continues materials for a Bible study I’m leading on 1 Corinthians.

Constructing the Building and Managing the Household: 3:1 to 4:7

In chapters 3 and 4, Paul moves deeper into a discussion about ecclesiology — that is, about the the nature of the church — in response to the divisions in the church at Corinth. Paul pictures the church first as a garden and then as a building. Leaders such as Paul and Appollos might have different roles — planting, laying a foundation; watering, building a structure on the foundation — but in either case they are working together. (The Greek term here is synergoi, from which our word “synergy” derives.) And, in either case, the true foundation of the church is Jesus Christ, so whatever the worker’s role, it is only to build on what Jesus has already done.

Verses 12-15 seem to provide some more mixed metaphors. At first Paul seems to say that, after a day’s work is completed on a building and everyone goes home for the night, the quality of the work might not immediately be evident, but it will become clear the next morning when it is inspected in broad daylight. But he then talks about the work being tested by fire — perhaps by a fire that breaks as the work is being completed, or perhaps as an intentional test of the final construction as a sort of building inspection. Verses 14 and 15 might refer to the wages the builder receives when the building is finished and a fine that could be levied against a builder if shoddy construction causes damage. The phrase “as through fire” was a common idiom, like “by the skin of your teeth.”

Many commentators over the ages have seen references in this part of the text to the final judgment. The “day” in verse 13 could allude to the “Day of the Lord,” a concept often used in the Hebrew Scriptures for to refer to a time of reckoning when God would judge the kingdoms of the Earth. We should be careful, however, about using this kind of text to support elaborate theories of the final judgment. Paul’s overall point here is not about individual judgment but about the church. This is evident in verse 16: the church, to which Paul is writing, collectively, is God’s temple, a temple not comprised of a literal building, but of a community of people. The issue for Paul in this section is how the church will fare when it is tested.

Verses 21-23 of Chapter 3 offer a kind of lyrical flight encompassing the cosmos that we often see in Paul’s letters: “For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world (kosmos) or life or death or the present or the future. All belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” Notice that Paul, Apollos and Cephas are subordinated to the Corinthian church, which in turn is subordinated to Christ, who is subordinated to God.

In the beginning of Chapter 4, Paul introduces an important concept for his idea of church leadership: leaders are “servants of Christ” who are “stewards.” The word “steward” here is oikonomous. The oikos was the Greek household, which was the basic unit of society. The concept Paul employs, then, is of a trusted servant who is the manager of a household.

Paul says he is not concerned about human judgment of his stewardship, and that he does not even judge himself. The only judge is God, and God’s judgment reveals the purposes of the heart, which are often concealed. He tells the Corinthians they likewise should not judge each other but rather should recognize God has given them gifts that are meant to build up the church.

These words about judgment, acquittal, and distinctions all come from the Greek word dikaioó. This is another important concept that shows up throughout Paul’s letters. It is the word from which we derive the theological concept of “justification.”

In his commentary on Chapter 3, Charles Campbell says:

Ministry is a bold and risky adventure in which Christians build as faithfully as we can without fully knowing the quality of our work. Most of us wonder from time to time, ‘What if I’m wrong?’ What if I do the wrong thing or speak the wrong word?’ It is an understandable question as one occupies the space between the ages with a ‘weak’ and ‘foolish’ gospel seeking to discern fitting words and deeds. Paul provides no clear assurances. Maybe we are building with silver and gold. Maybe we are building with hay or straw. All Paul offers is the proper foundation of trust in the Spirit. Ministry remains risky. (Campbell, 68.)

Some questions on this section:

• How does the concept of stewardship inform your understanding of your place in the community of the church? What synergies do you see in your role in the church in relation to others?
• Really listen to these words: “all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the cosmos or life or death or the present or the future. All belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” How does this make you feel about yourself? What insights does it give you about you role in the church, and in the universe?
• Do you judge others? Do you judge yourself — either negatively, or by seeking to justify yourself in front of others or God? What does might it mean for you to leave judgment to God?

Spectacle and Power — 4:8-21

Paul tells the Corinthians they have become “kings,” even without the Apostles’ help. Remember that the Corinthian congregation was mixed and would have included slaves and common laborers along with some more wealth members, so in cultural context this is an astonishing statement. Paul then says the apostles have become a “spectacle” and “fools.” The word “spectacle” is theatron. The apostles are like the comic relief in a stage play. Paul then uses some crude terms to describe the apostles, translated “rubbish” and “dregs” in the NRSV, that refer to the scum and crust scraped off of things during a cleaning and thrown out.

But in verses 14-21, Paul’s tone begins to shift. He says the Corinthians might have many “guardians” (paidagogos, teachers) in Christ, but that he, Paul, is their “father” in Christ. Paul says he plans to visit soon and find out “not the talk of these arrogant people but their power.” The kingdom of God, Paul says, “depends not on talk (logo, word) but on power (dynamei).” Verse 21 seems to suggest Paul might come to them with a stick to hit them with, but the term refers to the rod or staff carried by a ruler. Paul seems to suggest, then, that he could assert his authority as an apostle after all.

Some questions on this section:

• As a member of the Church, do you feel like a king? How might it change your perspective to realize that, as a steward of God’s household, you are like a king?
• There is a tradition in some mystical Christian circles of the “holy fool” — a person who does things that seem to make no sense in the oikonomia (economy) of the world. Have you ever felt like a “holy fool,” a player in a theater of the absurd? When is this concept helpful? When is it not helpful?
• Consider these words: “the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power.” How do these words sit with you? As you reflect, remember a key theme of chapters 1 and 2: “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1:25).

This short section is incredibly theologically rich. Paul refers to a theme that appears often in his letters: the contrast between God’s kingdom and the “rulers of this age.”

Paul and Apocalyptic

In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Charles Campbell notes that, in chapter 1, Paul developed “a dynamic apocalyptic theology of interruption.” In this “dynamic apocalyptic” theology, God breaks into the present with a new and very different future, but that future is not yet fully realized. As a result, Paul pictures a “liminal, threshold space between the ages, in which the church is being saved as it lives in the tension between the old age and the new.” (Campbell, 43 (emphasis in original)). This liminal space is explored further in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 (remember that the entire text is a letter — there were no “chapters” or “verses” in the original text).

The word “apocalyptic” here might call to mind a grim end-of-the-world scenario, particularly during these times of pandemic. It’s true that the genre of “apocalyptic” literature in the Bible often supplies fearsome imagery of judgment. There was in fact a significant amount of “apocalyptic” literature produced in Jewish communities in what historians call the “Second Temple” period, between about 516 BCE to 70 CE. A little bit of history helps put this literature in perspective.

The first Temple was the Temple of Solomon that existed in Jerusalem until it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. Construction of the Second Temple was begun by groups of Jewish exiles who were allowed to return to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon under a decree by the Persian King Cyrus issued in 538 BCE. The Second Temple was modest at first, but it was made into a magnificent structure by Herod the Great, ruler of Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth.

Herod was declared “King of the Jews” by the Romans, who controlled Judea. Jewish purists believed Herod and his sons had corrupted true Jewish worship and the true Jewish state. This tension is reflected among the various parties referred to in the Gospels, including the Pharisees, and in the ironic title “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” placed over Jesus on the cross. Herod’s sons were eventually replaced by Roman governors and the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in CE 70 under the Emperor Titus after a failed Jewish revolt. There was never a “Third Temple.” The Jews were dispersed (the “diaspora”) and the practices of Rabbinic Judaism centered on the local synagogue, without any King, Priests or central Temple, continued to develop, including into forms we are familiar with today.

The Second Temple period apocalyptic literature, then, can be viewed as a way in which different Jewish communities expressed the hope that the oppression of Greek and Roman rule, and the perceived compromise with wealth and power made by some other Jews, would come to an end through God’s judgment, and that a new and more just Jewish kingdom would be established under God’s rule. Some this apocalyptic literature, such as the book of Daniel, is found in the canon of the Hebrew scriptures. Some of it, such as 2 Ezra, is in the “apocrypha” — writings that only some Christians think are part of the canon of scripture or that some Christians think are valuable but not part of the canon. Many of the texts in the famous “Dead Sea Scrolls” are apocalyptic and other texts relating to a sectarian community that existed during Jesus’ time, some of which are part of the canon of the Hebrew scriptures or the apocrypha and some of which are not.

Paul began his career as a Pharisee, before his calling as an Apostle of Jesus, so he certainly was familiar with some of this literature and with the spirituality it reflects. Paul himself seems to have anticipated a sudden end to the present order in an act of Divine judgment. So, we shouldn’t be surprised to find echoes of this kind of thinking in Paul’s letters. Of course, we also find Christian versions of apocalyptic in the New Testament outside the Pauline corpus, most notably in the Apocalypse of John (Revelation), and there is plenty of Christian apocalyptic literature dating from the first few centuries after Christ that was not incorporated into the Biblical canon.

Unmasking the Powers

Although some apocalyptic imagery in the texts we have been discussing seems strange and violent to us today, in a broader sense, “apocalyptic” is a form of unmasking the pretenses of the present in the hope of a better, truer future. In 1 Corinthians, this way of thinking appears in Paul’s stark contrast between “God’s wisdom” and “the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish.” (1 Cor. 2:6 (NRSV)).

The word “age” in Greek here is aiōnos, and the word “rulers” is archontōn. You might notice some English words that have been derived from these Greek words (by way of Latin): “eon” from aion and the ending “-archy” from arkhḗ (as in “patriarchy,” “oligarchy,” or “anarchy”). “Eon” in English means an undetermined, very long period of time. In the New Testament, aion is often used to contrast the present age and the future age, so it is a term that relates to eschatology, that is, to the things to come. An archon in the New Testament can be an individual leader, such as the head of a synagogue, but it also often refers to spiritual rulers or powers. You could translate the phrase “archonton tou ainos” as “powers of this age.”

Paul’s picture of “rulers” or “powers” that are both earthly and super-earthly was consistent with how the Romans imagined themselves. This was a time when the was no “secular” space — everything tangible and visible was impregnated with the spiritual realm. The Romans believed that their society, including its politics, arts, commerce, and social order, depended upon relationships with their gods, including, eventually, a deified Roman Emperor. A claim that the Roman gods were false powers was equivalent to a claim that Rome’s authority itself was illegitimate. The Jews dispersed through the Roman empire made such a claim when they recited the shema — “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” — and they were warily tolerated in Roman cities, though as a people whose center of authority, the Jerusalem Temple, had been razed by Titus. Paul makes the same kind of claim when he says the cross of Christ belies the “powers of this age.” Paul does not rally around the hope of a rebuilt Third Temple against Rome, but he rallies around Christ raised up on a Roman cross.

Some discussion questions on this section

• What are some “powers” — “–archies” — you see at work in our world today? How would the cross of Christ defuse those powers?
• Do you think the “powers” at work today are entirely “material,” or do you think there are also “spiritual” powers? How can we in a modern, scientific, secular age relate to Paul’s ancient understanding of a world in which material and spiritual realities coincide?
• Paul declares that the “rulers of this age” are “doomed to perish” against the backdrop of a historical narrative that shaped his life — the history of Israel discussed above. What historical narratives shape us? In what ways does the cross of Christ call those narratives into question?

The Spirit, the Depths, and the Mysteries

In the remainder of chapter 2, Paul dives deeper into the ideas about knowledge and wisdom mentioned in chapter 1. In verse 7, Paul says, “we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (NRSV) — or in the NIV translation, “we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden . . . .” The NIV translation captures the Greek word mystēriō, a term often used by Paul to mean something God had not previously disclosed.

Paul offers here a kind of theology of history. God has a plan for the aionon — the ages — that differs from the plans of the “rulers of this age” and that is right, good, and glorious. God has not previously disclosed all of this plan but now it is being made known (or at least, an important part of it is being made known) in the cross of Christ. This plan is not merely otherworldly — a way for some people to “go to heaven.” It is a plan to bring history to a resolution.

The ekklesia to whom Paul is writing — the community centered on the cross of Christ — can perceive how God’s plan is working through “the Spirit that is from God” (NRSV), in contrast to “the spirit of the world.” The word Paul uses for “world” here is “kosmou” (the Greek kosmos, from which we derive our words cosmos and cosmic). Again, what Paul is describing is a temporal, material reality, but also a cosmic reality.

Notice that in the first section of chapter 2, Paul says he came to the Corinthians in weakness, without fine speech, but he quickly moves into this section addressed to “the mature” — in Greek, teleiois, from telos. This word reflects an important concept in ancient Greek philosophy (from which we get our words “teleology” and “teleological”). It meant the end to be achieved, the thing toward which a good person, or a good society, should be pointed. So the teleiois here are those who have achieved that end, who have become ethically perfected in virtue. Paul will go on to criticize the Corinthians, so he doesn’t, in fact, think they have yet “arrived.” Paul seems to be making a rhetorical move towards the disciples of Apollos, who think they are superior to others in the congregation and superior to Paul.

What can be discerned through the Spirit of God seems like foolishness to “the unspiritual” (NRSV) — to the “natural person.” Looking at the Greek words here is interesting again: the “unspiritual” or “natural person” is psychicos anthropos. Psychicos is from psyche — our words psyche, psychological, relating to the mind. For the ancient Greeks, there was no sharp distinction between the “mind” and the “soul,” and the word psyche referred to the “soul,” which included the capacities we today attribute to the “mind” (or perhaps for modern neuroscience, to the “brain”). Paul often contrasts the “spiritual” and the “natural,” what can be known through the Spirit and what can be known by the human mind or “soul” without the Spirit.

Also notice that in this section, Paul has referred to Jesus Christ, God, and the Spirit. Neither in 1 Corinthians nor in any of his other letters does Paul have a worked-out theology of the Trinity. There is no worked-out theology of the Trinity anywhere in the New Testament. Christian theology about the Trinity developed, often contentiously, in the early centuries of Church history, and what is considered “orthodox” thought about the Trinity only began to become codified in 325 CE at the Council of Nicea. I put “orthodox” in scare quotes here, because there is an enormous amount of historical baggage behind what did and didn’t become recognized by the Council, and there never really was, and still isn’t, full agreement about exactly what the doctrine of the Trinity means or how to express it.

But — we do see here the lineaments of Christian thought about the Trinity — a concept that is indeed central to all of Christian thought. Paul’s thought — and any deeply Christian thought — is entirely consistent with the Jewish shema — our God is “one.” And yet, Christian though must account for the person of Jesus Christ and the person of the Spirit as well as the person of God whom Jesus called “Father.” There is already a Trinitarian shape to Paul’s expression in 1 Corinthians.

Some discussion questions on this section

• Do you experience understanding, illumination, or knowledge from the Holy Spirit? How? How does the Spirit shape your psyche?
• How do you think about a “theology of history?” How do you see God at work in the broad sweep of events in the world? How do you see God at work right, now, in the pandemic?
• What liminal spaces are you inhabiting today? What hope do you have for the future? Is there a word of hope we might hear from the Spirit right now?
• Does the concept of the Trinity make any difference to how you see the world?

These are notes for a study on 1 Corinthians.

Greeting and Recognition: 1:1-9

In this opening section of the letter, Paul greets and recognizes the Corinthian church. Paul names Sosthenes as a co-author of the letter. Sosthenes could be the person referred to in Acts 18:12-17, which recounts events that occurred when Paul was first in Corinth:

When Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat [in Corinth], saying, “This fellow persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.” And when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or wicked crimes, O Jews, there would be reason why I should bear with you. But if it is a question of words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves; for I do not want to be a judge of such matters.” And he drove them from the judgment seat. Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue [in Corinth], and beat him before the judgment seat. But Gallio took no notice of these things.

It appears from Acts 18 that some members of the synagogue in Corinth became irate because of Paul’s teaching about Jesus and then resorted to violence against a synagogue leader they considered too tolerant when they could not get the civil authority to intervene. If this is the case, Sosthenes may have accompanied Paul after he left Corinth, or Paul could have been in contact with Sosthenes in Corinth about the contents of the letter before it was delivered. Other scholars think this is not the same Sosthenes who was the ruler of the Corinthian synagogue mentioned in Acts 19.

Paul’s greeting in verses 1-3 is theologically rich. In verse 1, Paul says he is “called to be an apostle of of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” An “apostle” is a messenger, a person sent on a mission. Paul’s status as a messenger of “Christ Jesus,” he claims, comes from being “called . . . by the will of God.” These are extraordinary claims!

In verse 2, Paul identifies his audience as “the church of God that is in Corinth.” We hear the word “church” and we think of a denomination and a building, but the word ekklésia has a richer meaning not necessarily tied to one building or place. Paul then offers some attributes of the ekklésia: its members are “sanctified in Christ Jesus” and “called to be saints.” “Sanctified” and “saints” are part of the same group of words meaning “holy” or “sacred” (hagios). Paul further extends the greeting of this letter beyond the ekklésia at Corinth: “together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” Paul thereby unites the ekklésia at Corinth with a broader concept of an ekklésia that goes beyond any one place.

In verse 4-9, Paul gives thanks for the Corinthians and notes that they have been “enriched [in Christ], in speech and knowledge of every kind” and “not lacking in any spiritual gift.” But as we’ll see in a moment, Paul will soon criticize the Corinthians for abusing their speech, knowledge, and gifts. This part of the introduction might serve at least two purposes: it may “butter up” the Corinthians a bit for the criticism that will follow; but it also may suggest that what the Corinthians need to heal their divisions is already present within them (see verse 8: “He will also strengthen you to the end. . . .”).

Some discussion questions on this section:

• What strikes you about Paul’s calling and title? Are there still “apostles” today?
• What do you seen in Paul’s “ecclesiology” — his vision of the church? How are we still “the church” today? What does it mean for us to be “the church?”
• What do you think is the purpose of Paul’s positive words to the Corinthians in verses 4-9? Could you hear Paul saying something similar to us today?

The Appeal: 1:10-16

Starting in verse 10 Paul turns to his appeal for unity. Paul has heard “from Chloe’s people” — probably servants (slaves) of a wealthy woman who was one of the leaders in the Corinthian church that had been dispatched to visit Paul in Ephesus — about divisions and quarrels in Corinth. In the Introduction to our study we noted the conflicts Paul was facing with Peter (Cephas) and Apollos. Paul says he does not want to be the leader of a faction, which is backed up by the fact the he did not personally baptize any of the Colossian church members except Crispus and Gaius — but then he also recalls he baptized the household of Stephanas and maybe some others. Some commentators suggest that Paul is being intentionally dismissive here — “who cares who I baptized, that’s not what I care about, it’s not about me.”

Epistemology and Community of the Cross: 1:17 to 2:5

In 1:17-25, in the context of disputing claims of the various Corinthian factions to superior knowledge, Paul offers an extraordinary epistemology — an understanding of “knowledge” — centered in Christ. He couples this epistemology with a vision of community rooted not in power but in weakness.

Verse 18 says “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” (NRSV). As the NRSV correctly translates, the words “perishing” and “saved” here are in the “middle” or passive voice. The action is occurring to the subject now, not something that happened in the past, nor something that will happen only in the future.

Where the NRSV and NIV use the word “message” here, the Greek word is logos. For those of you who were part of our Gospel of John Bible study, this word should resonate! Paul is not directly paraphrasing John 1 here, but it’s fair to see a common theological theme present in Pauline and Johanine literature, even if there was no actual cross-fertilization within these texts. The logos, the “word” that causes everything to be, the logic of all of creation, is Christ.

Paul says “it is written” that God “will destroy the wisdom of the wise” and thwart “the discernment of the discerning.” (1:19). This is a reference to the Greek version of Isaiah 29:14. This text in Isaiah speaks of God renewing Israel by raising the humble and destroying the proud:

Shall not Lebanon in a very little while
    become a fruitful field,
    and the fruitful field be regarded as a forest?
On that day the deaf shall hear
    the words of a scroll,
and out of their gloom and darkness
    the eyes of the blind shall see.
The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
    and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
For the tyrant shall be no more,
    and the scoffer shall cease to be;
    all those alert to do evil shall be cut off—
those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit,
    who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate,
    and without grounds deny justice to the one in the right

Isaiah 29:17-21 (NRSV)

Paul says that to the supposedly wise, the knowledge of Christ is “foolishness.” To the supposedly strong, the knowledge of Christ is “weakness.” In a great rhetorical flourish, Paul asks “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1:20).

In 1:26-31, Paul ties this epistemology to the social status of many of the Corinthian church members, and in 2:1-5, he ties this epistemology to his own weakness and fear as an apostle.

Passages such as this were important to the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther. Luther often spoke about a “theology of the cross” in contrast to a “theology of glory.” The “theology of glory,” for Luther, was about a person’s own power and good works, while a “theology of the cross” was a theology of a person’s weakness and need. Luther also emphasized how God is “hidden” in weakness, not least in the weakness of the crucifixion. Of course, Luther was not the first to notice these themes — they are present in many great earlier Christian thinkers and mystics.

There is an important stream of contemporary theology that takes up Luther’s idea of the “theology of the cross” and the “hiddenness” of God to ponder one of the central mysteries of our faith: the problem of evil. Why does a good God, creator of everything, allow evil? A theology of the cross doesn’t answer this question — in fact, a theology of the cross would say that any merely philosophical answer to this question is bound to be foolish. But a theology of the cross does suggest that the cross of Christ is somehow at the very heart of creation. This means creation’s suffering is known intimately to God and participates in the power of God’s salvation. Creation’s suffering, our suffering, is not meaningless, and is not the last word.

Some discussion questions on these sections:

• How would you define “knowledge?” Does Paul’s epistemology in this section challenge your definition?
• What does it mean that we are in the process of being saved — or, alternatively, that there are people who are in the process of perishing? What does it mean to live as a person, or a community, that is arriving but has not yet arrived?
• Does Luther’s idea of a “theology of the cross” in contrast to a “theology of glory” resonate with you? How can a “theology of the cross” help us in our present suffering through this pandemic?

I’m leading a Bible study on 1 Corinthians starting this week. One thing I love about leading Bible studies is digging into what I need to lead and teach. Here’s my introduction to the study.

Reading Paul Today

In this study we encounter the Apostle Paul: difficult and dazzling, pastor and preacher, theologian and teacher. Our text is a letter (“epistle”) Paul wrote to the Christian church in Corinth around 53-54 C.E. Like all of Paul’s letters, 1 Corinthians is “episodic” — that is, it addresses some specific episode, a specific time and place and specific questions and problems, facing the people to whom Paul wrote. We are literally “reading someone else’s mail” when we read any of Paul’s letters. But this letter, of course, is included in the canon of the Christian scriptures, so we also expect that, in some way, this letter still speaks to us, the Church gathered in Ridgewood, New Jersey, today.

Our study of this letter together therefore involves at least two things: first, trying to understand what Paul was communicating to those first century Christians in Corinth; and, second, trying to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to us in and through this letter as twenty-first century Christians in Ridgewood. Those are not necessarily the same things — after all, we don’t live in first century Corinth — but as we listen, study, and contemplate the text prayerfully and reflectively we expect themes and patterns to emerge that will guide our faith and lives in our time and place.

Ancient Corinth

Corinth is located in Greece, on the Gulf of Corinth, which separates the Peloponnese peninsula from mainland Greece:

Ancient Corinth was a very large and important city in ancient Greece. It was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, but was restored and rebuilt in 44 BC, after which it was made the Roman provincial capital of Greece. By Paul’s time, Corinth was a bustling port city with two large harbors, an amphitheater, and numerous temples. It was a center of trade, power, and politics, and an important location for the imperial cult — the political-religious worship of the Roman Emperor.

You can get a bit of a feel for what it must have been like to walk down one of the city streets in this photo:

Imagine bustling shops and stalls, smells of animals and cooking food, people talking and going about their business, political and military people hurrying to their meetings, pilgrims coming to the large Temple of Asclepius for healing, slaves buying things to supply the villas of their rich masters, sailors coming in from the ports bringing goods from around the empire, some of them also probably them looking for a brothel or a place to gamble, and on the Sabbath, Jews walking to the synagogue.

In the First Century CE — that is, within the decades after the death and resurrection of Christ — the church in Corinth was one of the early Christian communities that developed in cities in the Roman world, in what is today Greece, Italy, Turkey, and the Middle East. You’ll recognize some of the names of these cities from Paul’s letters — Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Philippi. These churches reflect Paul’s missionary activity, described both in his letters and in the book of Acts. Others you’ll recognize from the text of the book of Revelation — including Ephesus as well, but also Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicia. These may represent another stream of Christian communities originally associated with the Apostle John.

Within the New Testament corpus, you can see a strand of texts with a “Pauline” theology — Paul’s letters and other texts attributed to Paul — and another strand with a “Johanine” theology — the Gospel of John, the epistles attributed to John, and Revelation. There are also other texts with perhaps a different kind of “Jewish” wisdom emphasis — the epistle to the Hebrews, the author of which is uncertain, and James, attributed to the James the brother of Jesus, along with the letters attributed to Peter, which are strongly apocalyptic. (I put “Jewish” in scare quotes here because modern scholarship emphasizes the Jewishness of Paul’s letters as well.) Of course, the map also includes the Church at Jerusalem, a center of where the Jesus movement first began, as narrated in the Gospels and in Acts.

Paul and the Corinthians

Paul was an educated and zealous Jewish person, a Pharisee, who persecuted the early church. His life changed when he dramatically encountered Christ on the road to Damascus, where he had intended to arrest Christians (people “of the Way” in the language of Acts) present in the synagogue. (See Acts 9.) Contemporary scholars debate whether to call this event a “conversion” or a “calling” or “commissioning” of Paul. Paul did not renounce Judaism, but understood the revelation of Christ as belonging to the Jews first, so Paul was not really converted “away” from Judaism (see Romans 1:16). Yet, Paul did consider himself an emissary, and Apostle, of God’s mission of reconciliation in Christ to the Gentiles — “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16).

Paul’s missionary activities eventually took him to Corinth. In his excellent survey The Writings of the New Testament, Luke Timothy Johnson explains that

Paul established the first Christian community in Corinth (1 Cor. 4:15). . . . Paul came to Corinth from Athens and met Aquila and Priscilla (see 1 Cor. 16:19), who had recently been expelled from Rome with other Jews by [the Emperor] Claudius (Acts 18:2). Paul joined them [in their trade of] tentmaking, and began preaching in the synagogue. Rejected there (18:6) and rejoined by [delegates he had previously sent to Corinth] (1 Thes. 3:6), Paul moved next door to the house of Titus Justus (Acts 18:7). He converted Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue (Acts 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:14), and stayed in Corinth some eighteen months (18:11). During that time, he was brought before the proconsul Gallio (Acts 18:12). When Gallio dismissed the case, a Jewish crowd beat Sosthenes, whom Acts refers to as a ‘ruler of the synagoge’ (18:17) and who appears as Paul’s ‘brother’ and co-writer in 1 Cor. 1:1.

Johnson, 262.

If this run-up isn’t dramatic enough, Johnson further explains the tension that will develop when Paul leaves Corinth to continue on his journeys:

When Paul left Corinth to return to Antioch, he took Aquila and Priscilla with him as far as Ephesus (Acts 18:18-21). In his absence, Priscilla and Aquila encounter the charismatic Apollos, instruct him, and support his journey to the province of Achaia (18:24-28).

Johnson, 262

Acts 18 describes Apollos as follows:

He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately. .

Acts 18:24-26

As we’ll see, Apollos’ influence in Corinth became troublesome. The Corinthian Christians were from mixed backgrounds — Jewish and Greek (pagan), lower class and wealthy. Some of the more refined members of the community apparently gravitated to Apollos’ intelligence and rhetorical skill. Others defined themselves against the “Apollos” faction by identifying with Paul or Peter. Further, some members of the community felt empowered by the freedom and charismatic gifts they were experiencing as Christians, and that empowerment slipped into spiritual elitism. On top of all that, tensions were simmering between community members from Jewish and Greek backgrounds over questions about how to live a holy life in a pagan metropolis. As Johnson puts it, “[t]he Corinthians’ faults came from over-enthusiasm, not tepidity.” (Johnson, 263.)

1 Corinthians was not Paul’s only correspondence with this community. Paul’s letter that we call 1 Corinthians responds to a letter he received from the Corinthian Christian community about how to respond to the problems they were experiencing. (See 1 Cor. 7:1.) There were at least five letters between Paul and the Corinthians, and as Johnson notes, “probably more,” including the other letter in the Biblical canon, 2 Corinthians, which might be a collection of several edited letters, as well as letters that have been lost. (Johnson, 264.) Therefore, in 1 Corinthians, we have one piece of a broader pastoral and theological reflection and instruction from Paul to this disputatious early Christian community that he founded and loved.

The Corinthian Correspondence in Context

It’s also helpful to note that 1 and 2 Corinthians also relate to Paul’s epistle to the Romans. Romans appears first in the order of texts collected in the New Testament, but that doesn’t mean Romans was written before the Corinthian correspondence. A common theme in the Romans and 1 Corinthians is a collection these and other churches are taking that Paul plans to deliver for the poor in the church in Jerusalem. (1 Cor. 16; Romans 15:25-28). In 1 Corinthians 16:1-4 Paul instructs the Corinthians to take up the collection, and in Romans 15:25-28 he says he is on his way to Jerusalem to deliver a collection, so the Corinthian correspondence seems to precede Romans.

Pauline scholar Douglas Campbell, in his interesting book Framing Paul: an Epistolary Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2014), argues based on the data in Paul’s letters alone that Paul likely wrote

• 1 and 2 Thessalonians in 40-42 CE — about 8 years after his initial conversion / calling / commissioning — followed by a ten-year period of travel and mission work, from which we have no surviving correspondence (which Campbell calls the “years of shadow”);
• Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon while imprisoned in the mid-50’s CE;
• 1 Corinthians in the Spring and 2 Corinthians in the summer of 51 CE, while Paul was visiting Ephesus;
• Galatians in the fall-winter of 51-52 CE and Philippians while imprisoned during that end of that period; and
• Romans in the Spring of CE 52 after being released from prison, after which Paul left to deliver the collection to Jerusalem.

Much of this timeline, including whether Paul himself actually wrote Ephesians or Colossians, is debatable (there is no serious debate, however, that Paul wrote 1 and 2 Corinthians). For our study, a very important, and contested, position Campbell takes is that 1 Corinthians is the “letter of tears” referred to in 2 Corinthians 2:4: “I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you.” This could frame 1 Corinthians as a harsher correspondence that Paul softens in some respects in 2 Corinthians after hearing that the first letter has caused great upset. But scholars disagree about this and propose various other chronologies and ideas about what the relationships between 1 and 2 Corinthians.

Also, unlike the narrative from Luke Timothy Johnson’s introductory survey, Campbell’s more detailed reconstruction does not integrate any information from Acts. Campbell says he is working on another book that will consider the timelines in Acts, but he notes that it is difficult for a number of reasons to know whether Acts always presents information that can be taken at face value chronologically. The most interesting question, for our discussion, is the often fraught relationship Paul had with the Church leaders in Jerusalem, including Peter. Acts at times seems to portray Paul in a more subordinate role to Peter, while Paul at times seems to offer a different picture. In Galatians 2, Paul vividly describes his perspective on the a conflict with Peter about the place of Gentiles in the church, which came to a head when the two men met in Antioch:

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray

Acts 2:11-13

This could add a little more flavor to the collection Paul wants to deliver to Jerusalem: it could be a symbol of goodwill and unity between these “Pauline” congregations and the Jerusalem church, and also a way for Paul to subtly reinforce his authority as an Apostle against various kinds of opposition he has faced. Paul may have been facing a personal crisis around 51-52 CE, when it seemed that conflict with Peter / Jerusalem over the role of Gentiles in the church (see Gal. 2:11-21) and opposition within his own church plants might cause his entire missionary project to crumble. 1 Corinthians is one of several letters from Paul that survive from this time of crisis in his life and ministry.