1 Corinthians

Why it was written

Paul spent eighteen months planting the Corinthian church, and after he left, trouble poured in from two directions: alarming reports (factions around celebrity teachers, a scandalous case of immorality, lawsuits, chaos at the Lord's Supper) and a letter from the church asking about marriage, idol food, spiritual gifts, and the resurrection. First Corinthians answers both. Underneath every issue Paul diagnoses the same disease — the church was importing Corinth's status-obsessed, wisdom-loving culture into the body of Christ — and prescribes the same cure: the message of the cross, which looks foolish and weak but is the power of God.

Outline

1. IDivisions in the church and the wisdom of the crossch. 1–4
2. IIImmorality, lawsuits, and the body as the Lord'sch. 5–6
3. IIIMarriage, idol food, and freedom that serves lovech. 7–10
4. IVWorship — head coverings, the Lord's Supper, and spiritual gifts governed by lovech. 11–14
5. VThe resurrection of Christ and of the deadch. 15
6. VIThe collection, travel plans, and greetingsch. 16

Where it fits in the big story

First Corinthians shows what happens when the gospel of a crucified Messiah collides with a pagan Greek city — the church age in miniature, God's new-covenant people learning to be holy in a culture that celebrates the opposite. Chapter 15 anchors the whole Bible's hope: Christ is risen as "the first fruits of those who are asleep," the second Adam reversing the death the first Adam brought, guaranteeing the bodily resurrection and restored creation the story has been driving toward since Eden.

How to read it

This is occasional correspondence — you are reading someone else's mail, so reconstruct the situation behind each answer before applying it; "now concerning..." marks where Paul turns to the Corinthians' next question. Read whole sections, not verses in isolation: the famous love chapter (13) is not a wedding poem but the center of an argument about spiritual gifts. Notice how Paul reasons — he rarely just issues rules, but pulls every issue back to the cross, the resurrection, and what the church is: God's temple, Christ's body.