A Brief Introduction to The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians: 1st Corinthians

Here's a little introductory article I wrote for the Everyday Church in Monroe, WA for Pastor Andy Geer's new series on 1 Corinthians. Nothing to complicated... nothing to crazy. Just a brief simple introduction.


1st Corinthians was written by the Apostle Paul to church in Corinth most likely as a response to a letter the Corinthian church had sent to Paul. This letter of Paul is often very directed to specific trials that the Corinthian church was dealing with at the time of the letter. The very pastoral, direct teaching of Paul is very relevant to the modern church as he deals with many cross-cultural issues that all Christians despite their time period, socio-economic background, culture, or denomination can easily benefit from.


Paul wrote 1st Corinthians while he was living in Ephesus in the Roman province of Asia. Most scholars agree that it was written between or in 53, 54, or 55 A.D. Paul had previously been living in Corinth for 18 months teaching and establishing the Christian church there. (Acts 18:1-8)


The ancient city of Corinth was not too different from the culture we know in Seattle. Corinth was located on the isthmus that connects mainland Greece with the Peloponnese. (The peninsula that makes up the southern part of Greece) Located between Ionian and Adriatic seas on the west and Aegean Sea on the east, Corinth was a port city that had ports on both sides of it. . The city was a large metropolitan area with an estimated 400,000 people living there in time of Paul. This brought in the influences of many cultures and religions making a very conflicting culture to be a Christian in, thus Paul’s main focus in the letter: correcting a church who was learning to love God but was living in sin.


The Corinthian church seemed to consistently struggled with sexual immorality, and through the points Paul makes in this letter, the church seemed to have some major pride issues as they were trying to constantly “one-up” each other. Paul firmly but lovingly reminds the church in Corinth that Christians are meant to be set apart. There should be a difference between a Christian and another citizen in the world. Paul is never afraid to call sin what it is. One of his major themes in this letter is to deconstruct their worldview on spiritual gifts, and remind them that God grants his followers these gifts as a means to build up the church, not as a means to gain power.


In studying 1st Corinthians, we can use the wisdom that the Apostle Paul gives to this church to look at areas in our own lives where we may be arrogant instead of being obedient to the grace that God gave us through his son Jesus on the cross.