Garry gave an introduction to 1 Corinthians last night, which we will be studying in detail over the next few months (where ‘few’ probably means ‘many’ and ‘months’ may well turn to ‘years’!) As an introduction, we looked at Acts 18:1-19, which describes the birth of the church in Corinth.
Corinth was a city in Achaia (modern-day Greece), the main land route between the East and West, and as such a crucial and important city for the sea routes converged on two harbours there, making it a very prosperous city.
The proconsul from Rome (Gallio) was situated there, and whilst Athens was the intellectual capital of the area (causing great rivalry between the two cities), Corinth was significant because of its location. Goldthorpe owed much of its success in the past to its location on the main road between Barnsley and Doncaster, always featuring more prominently than Thurnscoe or Bolton-on-Dearne, but as the new bypass has shown, significance because of location can wane…
Corinth was also famous for its vice and licentiousness, for moral laxity and intellectual pride. The verb ‘to corinthianise’ meant to be completely without sexual morals. Clearly, Paul had his work cut out in teaching these people the basics of the Christian faith! His letters show that after 18 months of ministry there, there were still many issues which caused confusion and problems. Understanding where people come from is important when teaching, as these people had no prior knowledge of God as the Jews did. In our generation, people come from all kinds of backgrounds and a basic knowledge of Christian doctrines and morals cannot be assumed.
1 Corinthians was written to address the divisions and disorder in the church (1 Cor 1:10), to correct specific problems (1 Cor 1-6) and to address questions asked of Paul. Paul’s problems came from various groups with tendencies leading to an inadequate understanding of Christianity (such as libertarians who misunderstood Christian freedom, ascetics who were too rigid in their approach to Christian behaviour and ecstatics who allowed their spiritual ‘experiences’ to lead to disorder.)
Other issues Paul tackles in this letter include:
- power struggles in the church
- people who thought they were spiritually or intellectually superior to others
- immorality
- exercising rights
- sex and marriage
- respecting one another’s personality and gifts
- how our understanding of eternity makes a difference to how we live together today