Proclaimer Blog
The Corinthian Question
I am about to start teaching 1st Corinthians to the second year students. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the mass of commentaries that have been written on this letter. And it is equally easy to feel confused by the chronology of events. It seems that over a seven year period, the apostle Paul made 3 visits and wrote 4 letters to Corinth:
Visit 1 (Acts 18) Paul founds the church in Corinth c 50 AD
Letter 1 (‘previous’ 1 Cor 5:9) – now lost
Letter 2: 1st Corinthians
Visit 2 (‘painful’ 2 Cor 2:1)
Letter 3 (‘tearful’ 2 Cor 2:3-4; 7:8,12; 10:8-11)
Letter 4: 2nd Corinthians
Visit 3 (Acts 20:2-3) c 56 AD
One of the most helpful books I have read on Paul’s relationship with ‘the church of God that is in Corinth’ is Paul Barnett’s The Corinthian Question: Why did the Church in Corinth oppose Paul? (IVP: Apollos 2011). He traces in a linear way Paul’s seven years of anguish over the church he had planted. It is a wonderfully lucid work which brings out many treasures and clarifies a number of issue. Here’s what he says on page 213 Paul was trying to do by writing 1st Corinthians:
“Paul was determined to establish at least four changes of attitude among the Corinthians:
1. their appropriate respect for Paul’s authority as an apostle, notwithstanding his determination to continue to support himself as one who ‘worked with his own hands’;
2. their need to disengage from involvement in the cults of Corinth, including related sexual activities, and to discipline wayward members;
3. their recognition of the centrality of the cross of Christ as the means of their redemption, but no less as the template for truly loving others, others-centred relationships, especially towards the non-elite members;
4. their correct understanding of eschatology to challenge the elites, on the one hand, and aspirational non-elites, on the other.”
Whilst not strictly speaking a commentary, I would heartily recommend this book for anyone preaching or teaching 1st or 2nd Corinthians.