1 Corinthians chapter 1

Here I go, longest book I've ever tried. I'm going to be trying to focus on church worship. We all in our churches seem to have so many problems with how to do things, so I want to try and concentrate on looking at what Paul has to say about the principles of the things he instructs.

vs 1

Ok, so Paul I know, but who is Sosthenes? He is mentioned one other time, and a million points if you know who he is without looking.

He is, quite possibly, the synagogue leader of the Jewish synagogue at Corinth. I think that is pretty awesome. He gets the crap beaten out of him when the Jew's legal action against Paul fails, and perhaps he then went and became a Christian. Or perhaps he was leaning that way already. Anyway, it could be another Sosthenes, but then you'd wonder why Luke would mention him by name in Acts.

vs 2

This letter is fairly widely addressed. Firstly, to the church in Corinth, easy enough. Secondly, it is called to those sanctified in Christ, who we could still assume are those in the church in Corinth. But then it gets a lot wider, and goes to all those everywhere who call on Christ.

Now this is interesting, because 1 Corinthians is accepted by scholars to be the second letter Paul has written to Corinth. And yet here it is obvious that it was written for a very wide audience. With the amount of criticism in the book, you would think that the church at Corinth might supress this letter - that may be what happened to the other letters! - but we have it, perhaps only because it was circulated.

1 Corinthians is generally read as a letter written to a church full of friends of Paul. But it could also be that Paul is writing to a church that has a lot of people attacking Paul in it, and he is defending himself against those attacks. Let's see how we go.

vs 3

Typical Paul stuff.

vs 4

Again, a fairly typical Paul entry. Note that Paul is immediately speaking in the first person, so Sosthenes has become a lesser player (perhaps amenuensis?).

vs 5

Paul is praising the ability of those in Corinth to speak and in their knowledge. Of course, all this comes from God, so he is praising God for it.

vs 6

Paul made testimony about Christ in Corinth, and he did it for ages. A year and a half or something, which is a long time for Paul. He's happy to see they are still there.

vs 7

The Corinthian church was also a church full of spiritual gifting, which is another great thing to thank God for. For those who know 1 Corinthians, you know that Paul is lining up a lot of stuff he's going to talk about later in the book. First knowledge, then spiritual gifts.

vs 8

Another thing the Corinthian church is doing is waiting eagerly for Christ's return. And here they are confirmed that when that day comes, Jesus will have kept them strong so they will be blameless.

vs 9

It's not because of their own strength or becuase they are really keen, or because of their knowledge or anything else that makes their last-day assurance. It's because God is faithful, and he is the one who called them into fellowship.

vs 10

Now we start getting into some meat. There are divisions in the church, and that's just not the way church is meant to be. Paul is calling for a perfect unity, in "mind and thought".

Nous means the perceiving, understanding, judging and feeling mind.

Gnome, in this context, means the things you do with that faculty. So the thoughts, opinions, understandings etc. So Paul is saying here that we should be alike in both faculty and use of said faculty. I'm keen to find out what Paul's solution to make this happen is, because I don't see many churches where this is perfect, and certainly my own church could use some similarity in mind and thought.