To start off on the background of Corinthians - there is no good reason to think that Paul isn’t the author of these letters.  Originally we think there were 4, but we only have 2 of them.  Corinth was an economic hub of this time period, in the early to mid 50s AD.  It sat in the center of a major sea-bound thorough-fair, which made it a center of various cultures and peoples; it was very diverse.  Corinth was also a center of entertainment - at this time, one of the things that was popular was ticketed events to see orators who would teach, entertain, and philosophize.  When Paul got to Corinth, he befriended Priscilla and Aquila who were tentmakers by trade and who took Paul in as he launched his ministry.  Later Paul bumps into Apollo, who was a skilled Christian apologist as well, and finds out that Apollos had been in Corinth around the same time as Paul.  So, there was definitely some action in Corinth at this time in terms of the spreading of the Christian faith.

In terms of the purpose of this letter, Paul had planted a church there and he was writing to them.  By ‘church’, I am meaning that he has gone and taught and a group of believers had formed and started meeting regularly to discuss the teaching and to examine their lives against the faith they were professing.  It is probably much more like what we would call a small group or something like a kind of Sunday school than a ‘church’.  At any rate, it sounds like things weren’t going all that well and that Paul had received communication about this, and about confusion from a previous letter he had sent to them, and that prompted Paul to write to them again in a more thorough manner - in this letter, he was giving instruction on how to apply their faith and to live a God-centered life.  The church in Corinth was plagued with an arrogance and an underlying tone of abuse as it relates to that free will that is given to Christians by way of God’s Grace.  I use the word abuse because the people were essentially using the gift of Grace as an excuse to live the way they wanted rather than a motivation for living the way God would have them live.  In this way, and in so much of these letters to this church, I see parallels with how many of us treat God’s Grace.  That makes these letters very relatable and applicable to us.

The way the letter is set up, Paul leads us through this letter that is divided into 5 sections, addressing 5 themes - divisions, sex, food, the gathering, and the resurrection.  And with each one of them Paul does the same thing, describing an element of the Gospel and then leading us through how to apply that truth in our lives.

Tomorrow morning, I am going to continue working through background before doing the read-through of Corinthians, and I will work through a study on 1 Corinthians from Lakewood church that Joel Osteen’s brother, Paul Osteen, does...it looks really interesting and I stumbled upon it this morning when doing some research for this - should be interesting.  The link to that is in the show notes below if you are inclined to watch it.

https://youtu.be/iDzKPAofh8c