1 Corinthians

Dan Nighswander

• Publisher: Herald Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781513802459
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Christians in the bustling, diverse city of Corinth in 50 BCE quarreled about how to be faithful to Jesus. In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he calls the small band of new believers to unity and cautions against factionalism, themes that pastor Dan Nighswander unpacks for contemporary readers in this thirty-second volume in the Believers Church Bible Commentary series. Any Christians who experience division over loyalty to different leaders, who find it hard to agree on sexual ethics (or to live up to them), and who feel tension between their theological convictions and social context will find common ground with believers in Corinth. Home of the exalted "love chapter, " which roots all Christian action in the greatest gift, 1 Corinthians equips those who follow Jesus to craft true community with other believers, differences notwithstanding. With keen theological, biblical, and pastoral insight, Nighswander illuminates for readers the apostle Paul's challenge to the Corinthian church and calls Christians today to unity through the reconciling work of Christ.

Free downloadable study guide available here.

Introduction to 1 Corinthians

Life in Corinth in 50 CE was hectic. The busyness of a prosperous port, a productive agricultural region, and a manufacturing center drew a multitude of people from many parts of the Roman Empire. With the added attractions of the Isthmian Games, an active artistic community, and the practices of most religions known in the Mediterranean region, the city overflowed with activity, energy, and diversity.

There were a few Christians among its citizens—new Christians. They had been introduced to Jesus by an itinerant missionary, whose name was Paul. Eighteen months after his arrival, Paul moved on, and the believers in Corinth tried to carry on with their newfound faith. They were helped by occasional correspondence with Paul and by other visiting teachers. They were influenced by many other factors: experiences with other religions, social conventions and expectations, personal ambitions, economics, interpersonal relationships—all the stuff of life. Their understanding of Christian faith and their practice of it was flawed in many ways.

Why should we care about this stumbling assortment of Jesus-followers? First, for us who also follow Jesus, these are our people, and we are curious about them. But more urgently, we care because we and they have so much in common. Any Christians who experience division over loyalty to different leaders, any who find it hard to agree on sexual ethics or to live up to them, any who experience conflict between their theological convictions and their social context, any who debate gender roles or worship styles, any who live with spiritually arrogant fellow church members—all these will find common ground with believers in Corinth.

In this commentary we explore one of several letters that Paul, the founder of the Christian community in Corinth, sent to the believers there to sort out their differences, correct their errors, and encourage them in their life together. Throughout the commentary, I will regularly refer to the New Revised Standard Version Bible (NRSV) and New International Version (NIV), sometimes citing others.

However, before we launch into that letter, we need to understand some things about the city, Paul, the Christian assembly, and the letter.

Corinth

Location, location, location. That was Corinth’s advantage. Between central Greece and the Peloponnese, a narrow land bridge separates the Gulf of Corinth on the Ionian Sea from the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. Soldiers, merchants, and others traveling by land had to pass this way. Sailors could substantially reduce travel time and the risk of fierce Mediterranean storms if they could cross the isthmus, only four miles (six and a half kilometers) wide. (Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s [2002] St. Paul’s Corinth is a good introduction to the literature and archaeology of Roman Corinth. See also the extensive collection of images and the archaeological reports of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: see “Excavation in Corinth” on the ASCSA website.)

One way to transport goods was to unload a ship in Cenchreae, the Saronic Gulf port, move the goods across the isthmus, and load them onto another ship in Lechaeum, on the Gulf of Corinth—or vice versa. In fact, if the boat was small enough, it could be moved, fully loaded, by way of the diolkos, a roadway paved with limestone and grooved to accommodate a wheeled carrier. The diolkos had been created sometime around 600 BCE, since the alternative dream of a canal cut through the rock seemed impossible. That dream was revived in the first century; Emperor Nero started construction in 67 CE, but the project could not be completed until 1893.

Because of its strategic location, Corinth was a powerful and prosperous city from the eighth century BCE. In 146 BCE, however, it was destroyed in punishment for its role in a revolt against Rome. A century later, it was refounded on the order of Julius Caesar as a Roman colony, the political capital of the region. New citizens poured in—many of them freedmen and freedwomen, many more slaves. The growing city enjoyed a building boom, with many public buildings and great prosperity. Money flowed from shipping, trade, and related enterprises, from the agricultural produce of the surrounding region, and from manufacturing, especially of the famous Corinthian bronze, from which functional and beautiful products were made (Murphy-O’Connor 2002: 201–18).

Corinth enjoyed the prestige and the financial benefit of being an athletic center. The Isthmian Games, second only to the more famous Olympic Games, were held biennially, and other games were held in between. With a constant flow of people from every part of the known world, Corinth was also a center of religious pluralism. Most prominent was the worship of Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, whose temple crowned the mountain that looms dramatically over the city, the Acro-Corinth.

Within the city, many temples honored various goddesses and gods. Of particular interest is the temple of Asclepius (Gk. Asklēpios), god of healing. It was an extensive facility: besides areas for worship, it accommodated dining and relaxation, much like a modern health spa. Visitors showed their gratitude to Asclepius by leaving clay body parts representing the healing they had experienced; these can still be seen at the museum in Corinth (Witherington: 14–15).

Along with the worship of the classic Greek and Roman divinities, various mystery religions were practiced: the cults of Dionysus and Orpheus, the Eleusinian Mysteries, and others. As in all Roman cities, especially in a city refounded by Julius Caesar himself, the official state religion of the imperial cult in honor of living and dead emperors was a prominent reality in civic life.

Amid all these religious practices and beliefs were a few Jews. They had a synagogue. To this synagogue came a Jew who preached about the resurrected Jesus. His name was Paul.

Paul

Why should we care about Paul? The question may be part of the larger question, why does the Bible matter? But for some people the question is specifically about Paul. Some of the things he wrote—or how people interpret what he wrote—make people uncomfortable. This has especially been the case for those who perceive that Paul restricts women’s ministry, a restriction they find unacceptable, and for those who reject his restrictive sexual ethics, both heterosexual and homosexual. Some people try to reread Paul to align his writings with their own views. Others simply dismiss him as a less significant voice on theology or ethics. One way to do that is to emphasize the differences between Jesus and Paul and to side with Jesus. However, thoughtful reflection makes it clear that this “solution” is not sufficient. Paul’s influence on our understanding of Jesus is inestimable. His letters, the earliest writings in the New Testament, shape how we read the Gospels, the Old Testament, and subsequent church history. Anyone who wants to follow Jesus has to come to terms with Paul.

Everything we know about Paul we learn from two sources. The primary documents are a collection of letters that he wrote. They include a few autobiographical passages and give insight into his ideas, passions, and personality. The secondary sources are the stories and comments written not by Paul but about him. Prominent among these is a collection of stories about Paul written by Luke in the book of Acts. Both primary and secondary sources have limitations. The letters are written for specific occasions and to people whom Paul knew, so they do not include everything he might have wanted to say, and they are not systematic in presenting his “memoirs.” Luke had his own agenda in selecting and presenting the stories he tells (see Luke 1:1-4). Part of his agenda seems to have been smoothing over controversies and defending Paul while also convincing those who did not know or believe “the truth concerning the things about [Jesus]” (Luke 1:4) and encouraging those who did believe (Faw: 19–21). Of course, ancient sources never answer the questions we might expect a modern biography to answer about the psychological and sociological factors that shape a person’s life.

The first time Luke introduces Paul to his readers, he is called by his Hebrew name, Saul, and he is standing by, approvingly, at the stoning of the first Christian martyr, Stephen (Acts 7:58; 8:1). Since the stoning was instigated by “the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and others of those from Cilicia and Asia” (6:9)—which includes Paul’s home city of Tarsus (21:39; 22:3)—we can assume that Paul was affiliated with that synagogue. This may suggest that Paul was a freedman, perhaps even descended from a former slave, though scholarly opinion on the meaning of this synagogue name is divided.

More important to Paul are his Jewish credentials: “circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Phil 3:5-6). Luke adds that he was a Roman citizen from birth (Acts 16:37; 22:27-28; 23:27) and that he had received part of his education in Jerusalem from Gamaliel, one of the great rabbis (22:3).

Something prompted Paul to become zealous in attacking followers of Jesus. From observing the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58; 8:1; 22:20) to violent home invasions (8:3) to attacks outside Jerusalem (9:1-2; 22:4-5), his passion for eradicating the sect grew beyond any of his peers (Acts 26:9-12; cf. 1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13, 23; Phil 3:6).

Amid this religious fervor against the way of Jesus (Acts 22:4), a dramatic event changed Paul. It is commonly called his “conversion,” and it clearly transformed his mind and behavior, but that is not how Paul wrote about it in the letters that we have (Shillington 1998a: 154–63). He says that Christ appeared to him (1 Cor 15:8) or simply that he had seen Jesus (1 Cor 9:1), who was “revealed” to him (Gal 1:16). In his preaching and face-to-face conversations, Paul may have told the story in much the way that Luke told it (Acts 9:1-20; 22:6-16; 26:12-18), but in his letters he speaks simply of his “calling” to preach to the Gentiles (Gal 1:15-16; cf. Stendahl: 7–23; Peace: 27–29; Segal: 5–7). This encounter with the risen Christ, reinforced by experiences with followers of Jesus (Gal 1:17b-19; Acts 9:10-19; 11:25-26; 13:1-5), was a transformative event for Paul. It caused him to reevaluate his previous life and convictions and provided him a new community and mission (Segal: 3–33, 72–75).

For a pious Pharisee, the idea that Gentiles could become part of God’s people without becoming Jews was radically new. But because of his encounter with Christ, Paul devoted the rest of his life to fulfilling his calling to share that “mystery” with Gentiles wherever he had opportunity (Shillington 2011: 164–81), and opportunity eventually took him to Corinth.

Paul and the Corinthians

Luke tells us more about Paul’s ministry in Corinth than Paul himself writes. In his correspondence with the believers, there obviously was no need to tell them what they already knew from their own experience.

Sometime in the spring of 50 CE, Paul arrived in Corinth (Acts 18:1-18). There he met Aquila and Priscilla and set up a business partnership with them, using his trade as a tentmaker to earn a livelihood. On the Sabbath, he practiced his real calling: proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah in the Jewish synagogue. Acts reports that Paul consistently spoke in synagogues when he arrived in a new city but was forced out by a hostile response, and so it was in Corinth. His message was met with strong opposition. When it was no longer possible to preach in the synagogue, he either left town or moved into a private home to continue his preaching (Acts 13:14; 14:1; 17:1, 10, 17; 18:4, 19; 19:8). In Corinth he left the synagogue and moved his ministry to the house next door, which was owned by Titius Justus, a Gentile who worshiped in the synagogue but had not converted to Judaism (Acts 18:7). Several people believed and were baptized, and the Christian assembly grew.

Eventually the opposition flared into a public attack that brought Paul before the proconsul, Gallio. From other sources we know he was in office in 50–51 CE or 51–52 (Murphy-O’Connor 2002: 161–69). The case was thrown out, but soon afterward Paul, together with Aquila and Priscilla, moved on to Ephesus. He had been in Corinth for a year and a half (Acts 18:11).

Paul’s initial visit to Corinth was the beginning of an extended interaction that included visits, letters, and emissaries going both ways between March 50 CE and May 56 CE. The letter that we know as 1 Corinthians was part of that interaction. Details of the relationship are debated, but as likely as any is the following reconstruction adapted from that of Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (2002: 173–74).

March 50–September 51	Paul arrives in Corinth and remains for eighteen months (Acts 18:1, 11).
September 52	Having passed through Ephesus, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Galatia (Acts 18:18-23), Paul arrives in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8, Acts 19:1), where he stays for two years and three months (Acts 19:8-10).
Summer 53	Paul writes an admonitory letter (now lost) to Corinth (1 Cor 5:9), probably as the result of information brought by Apollos on his return to Ephesus (1 Cor 16:12).
April 54	Chloe’s staff arrive in Ephesus and seek out Paul, reporting to him some scandalous behavior in the church at Corinth (1 Cor 1:11).
May 54	Paul sends Timothy to Corinth to check on the well-being of the faith community there (1 Cor 4:17; 16:10-11). A delegation from Corinth arrives in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:17), bearing a letter to Paul from the assembly (1 Cor 7:1). Paul writes 1 Corinthians.
June 54	Timothy returns to Ephesus and informs Paul o...