Delve Into Luke-Acts & Paul's LettersSample

DAY 6 – 1 CORINTHIANS II

Finally, they also wanted him to describe how they could collect the offering he’d asked them to take to assist the poor and how they could be sure this offering would reach those it was intended to help. 

Three members of the Corinthian church, Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, carried this letter to Paul in Ephesus. Around the same time, some servants of a woman named Chloe returned from doing business in Corinth and told Paul about some further problems. For one thing, the Corinthians were dividing into factions loyal to one or another of the leaders who’d helped establish their community: Paul, Apollos, or Peter (who Paul calls by his Aramaic name, Cephas). Others were claiming to be loyal to Christ alone, in a way that the others, by implication, were not. 

Chloe’s servants also told Paul about another situation. It appears that at an earlier point Paul had written to give general advice on how to correct people who were living openly immoral lives. His counsel was to exclude these people from the community until they changed their ways. The Corinthians seem to have misunderstood or misapplied this advice. They began to avoid unbelievers they considered immoral, while tolerating immorality on the part of community members. This applied both to personal relationships and to such habits as visiting temple prostitutes. Ironically, even as they were discouraging sex within marriage, they were promoting sex outside marriage. Chloe’s relatives reported to Paul that the “toleration” in their church had reached the point where even a man who was involved in an incestuous relationship remained in good standing. The Corinthians were seeing unrestricted sexual activity as an expression of Christian freedom, spouting the slogan, “I have the right to do anything.” They argued that sex, just like eating, was a mere bodily activity that would cease with death: “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both”; and by implication, “Sex for the body and the body for sex, and God will destroy them both.”

As if these problems weren’t already bad enough, Chloe’s servants also reported that the Corinthians were taking one another to court in lawsuits; that there was a dispute in the church about wearing head coverings in worship; and that when the community gathered for the Lord’s Supper, which was supposed to be a shared meal, the rich were eating by themselves, leaving the poor to go hungry. 

Paul addressed all of these matters in the letter we know as 1 Corinthians. In general, he first took up the things he’d been told about and then replied to what the Corinthians had written to him about. But he discussed head coverings and the Lord’s Supper, things he’d heard about, later in the letter because they related to worship, a topic that the Corinthians had written about.

In response to what Chloe’s servants have reported to him: 

Paul explains to the Corinthians that they shouldn’t compare their teachers to the philosophers of the day, who try to gather a loyal following into an exclusive “school.” Rather, he, Apollos, and Cephas (Peter) are all servants of Jesus Christ, working together to build up their community. 

• He deals with the case of incest by clarifying what he wrote in his earlier letter about not associating with those who are immoral. He explains that he meant believers, not unbelievers. He repeats his instructions to expel openly immoral people from the community until they change their ways. 

• He scolds the Corinthians for embarrassing themselves by taking one another to court, insisting that there must be people among them who are wise enough to settle their disputes. 

• He urges them to stop visiting temple prostitutes and to “flee from sexual immorality.” He explains that physical unions are also spiritual unions and tells the Corinthians that their bodies need to be reserved for God, who has redeemed them and will raise them from the dead. 

PRAYER: Thank you for the wisdom of Your Word. Help me to walk blamelessly, according to Your law.