Bible Commentary / New Testament
1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians is Paul’s corrective pastoral letter to a gifted but deeply troubled church. He writes to address factionalism, pride, sexual immorality, lawsuits, marriage questions, Christian liberty, abuses at the Lord’s Supper, misuse of spiritual gifts, and denial or confusion regarding bodily resurrection. The let…
Literary units
1 Corinthians 1:1 - 1 Corinthians 1:9
Greeting and thanksgiving
Paul opens by naming himself an apostle by God's will and by addressing the Corinthians as God's church in Corinth: sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as holy ones, and joined to all who call on the Lord Jesus everywhere. His thanksgiving…
1:10-17
Divisions in the church and the message of Christ
Paul moves from thanksgiving to rebuke by naming the quarrels reported by Chloe's people. The Corinthians are sorting themselves into leader-tagged camps, and Paul answers that habit with three questions: Christ is not divided, Paul was no…
1 Corinthians 1:18 - 1 Corinthians 2:16
Wisdom of God vs. wisdom of the world
Paul answers Corinthian fascination with status and eloquence by centering everything on the proclaimed crucified Christ. The paragraph moves from the split response to the cross, to the Corinthians' own low-status calling, to Paul's delib…
1 Corinthians 3:1 - 1 Corinthians 4:21
Apostles and servants of Christ
Paul confronts the Corinthians' factionalism by showing that their party spirit proves spiritual immaturity, not wisdom. He reframes Paul, Apollos, and other leaders as mere servants and stewards under God's authority, while God alone give…
1 Corinthians 5:1 - 1 Corinthians 5:13
Immorality in the church and discipline
Paul addresses a publicly known incestuous union that the Corinthian assembly has tolerated with pride instead of grief. He orders the gathered church, acting in the name and power of the Lord Jesus, to remove the offender from fellowship.…
1 Corinthians 6:1 - 1 Corinthians 6:20
Lawsuits among believers and moral instruction
Paul carries the holiness argument of chapter 5 into two concrete failures in Corinth: believers dragging fellow believers before pagan courts, and believers treating sexual behavior as negotiable under slogans of freedom. In both halves o…
1 Corinthians 7:1 - 1 Corinthians 7:40
Marriage, singleness, and sexual ethics
Paul answers Corinthian questions about marriage, singleness, sexual duty, divorce, mixed marriages, social station, and remarriage. In continuity with 6:12-20, he rejects both sexual immorality and an ascetic [self-denying] overreaction.…
8:1-13
Food sacrificed to idols; conscience and knowledge
Paul takes up the Corinthians’ claim to 'knowledge' and grants part of it: idols have no real divine status, and believers confess one God and one Lord. But he refuses to let that truth settle the matter. Some believers, shaped by former i…
1 Corinthians 9:1 - 1 Corinthians 9:27
Paul's rights and example of ministry
Within the idol-food discussion, Paul first establishes that he truly has apostolic rights, including material support, and then insists that he has not used those rights at Corinth. The turn in verses 12 and 15 is the hinge: he would rath…
10:14-33
The Lord's Supper and self-examination
Paul brings the idol-food discussion to its sharpest point: they must flee idolatry. His argument turns on table participation. The blessed cup and broken bread are a real sharing in Christ, Israel's sacrificial meals join worshipers to th…
11:1-34
Orderly worship and proper conduct of women
Paul addresses two disorders that surface when the Corinthians assemble. In 11:2-16 he insists that praying and prophesying must display, not blur, the relations of honor and headship he names in 11:3, while 11:11-12 blocks any reading tha…
12:1-31
Spiritual gifts and the body of Christ
Paul begins by separating the Spirit's work from pagan ecstatic confusion: truly spiritual speech accords with the confession that Jesus is Lord. He then ties varied gifts, ministries, and effects to the one Spirit, one Lord, and one God,…
1 Corinthians 13:1 - 1 Corinthians 13:13
Love as the supreme gift
Set between the catalog of gifts in chapter 12 and their regulation in chapter 14, this paragraph overturns Corinthian measures of spiritual importance. Paul argues that the most dazzling speech, insight, faith, or sacrifice amounts to noi…
1 Corinthians 15:1 - 1 Corinthians 15:58
Resurrection of the dead
Paul recalls the gospel the Corinthians received: Christ died for sins, was buried, was raised on the third day, and appeared to many witnesses. On that basis he argues that denying the future resurrection of the dead unravels everything—C…
1 Corinthians 16:1 - 1 Corinthians 16:24
Final exhortations and greetings
Paul closes with instructions that make the letter’s concerns concrete: a regular and accountable collection for the Jerusalem saints, contingent travel plans, careful reception of Timothy and clarity about Apollos, a tight cluster of exho…