Table of Contents
1 Corinthians
Paul writes to the church at Corinth from Ephesus, and unlike Rome, this is a congregation he planted himself, spending a year and a half there in person (Acts 18). What has reached him since he left is not good: reports of factions splitting the church behind rival teachers, a case of open immorality the members are actually proud of, believers suing one another in pagan courts, chaos at the Lord’s Supper, competing claims about spiritual gifts, and doubts creeping in about the resurrection itself. Corinth was a booming, wealthy, thoroughly pagan port city, famous across the empire for its vice, and its young church is visibly struggling to leave that world behind.
This series reads 1 Corinthians chapter by chapter, immediately following this site’s own studies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and Romans — the second epistle on the site. As with Romans, there is no single dedicated Ellen White commentary on this book; her own comments are gathered here from across her whole body of writing, with The Acts of the Apostles — which covers Paul’s Corinthian ministry directly — supplying more material than any other single source, wherever a specific verse of this letter is directly in view.
List Of Articles
Now I Beseech You, Brethren
paul planted this church himself, spent a year and a half inside it, and now opens his letter to it with a rebuke — reports have reached him in ephesus of a congregation splitting into rival fan clubs around paul, apollos, and cephas, and his answer reaches all the way back to the cross itself: a message that looks like foolishness to greeks and a stumblingblock to jews, entrusted on purpose to nobodies so that no one standing in the church at corinth could ever glory in anything but the lord
1 Corinthians 1Not With Enticing Words Of Man's Wisdom
chapter 1 tore down the idea of glorying in any preacher's name; chapter 2 explains what paul did instead on the ground in corinth — after watching his best philosophical arguments accomplish almost nothing in athens, he deliberately changes course, preaching nothing but christ crucified in what he calls weakness, fear, and much trembling, so that the faith it produces stands on the power of god rather than the skill of the man delivering it
1 Corinthians 2Ye Are Yet Carnal
the same divisions chapter 1 named are now paul's proof that this congregation is still spiritually immature, fed milk instead of meat — and from there the chapter widens into two of its most quoted images: ministers as nothing more than fellow-laborers planting and watering while god alone gives the increase, and the church itself as a building with only one foundation anyone can ever lay
1 Corinthians 3Stewards Of The Mysteries Of God
paul draws the personal conclusion three chapters of doctrine have been building toward — ministers are stewards accountable to one master alone, not rivals to be ranked — and then, almost without transition, lets the corinthians see exactly what that stewardship has cost him: hunger, nakedness, homelessness, and a public reputation as a fool, while the very believers he wrote it all for sit comfortably calling themselves rich
1 Corinthians 4Put Away From Among Yourselves That Wicked Person
a case of incest inside the corinthian church — a relationship even the pagan city around them would have found shocking — and the congregation's actual response is pride rather than grief; paul's answer runs in two directions at once, removing the offender for the sake of the whole body while reminding them exactly what that body already is: unleavened bread, because christ their passover has already been sacrificed
1 Corinthians 5Know Ye Not That The Saints Shall Judge The World
believers are dragging each other into pagan courtrooms to settle disputes, airing the church's business in front of the very unbelievers the letter has already said know nothing of god's wisdom — and from there the chapter widens into one of its most striking arguments, that the human body itself, purchased at an actual price, has become something too significant to hand over carelessly to sin
1 Corinthians 6It Is Good For A Man Not To Touch A Woman
answering a question the corinthians apparently asked him directly, paul refuses two easy extremes at once about marriage, singleness, and devotion to christ — neither treating marriage as something inferior to celibacy, nor treating either state as more spiritual than simply serving god faithfully wherever a person already stands
1 Corinthians 7Knowledge Puffeth Up, But Charity Edifieth
corinth's meat markets sold cuts routinely offered first on a pagan altar, and the corinthians had apparently asked paul whether a believer with clear knowledge that idols are nothing could eat it freely — paul's answer is correct in its theology and unwilling to stop there, warning that knowledge technically right can still do real damage if it tramples a weaker conscience on the way to being proven
1 Corinthians 8Who Goeth A Warfare At His Own Charges?
chapter 8 asked the strong to lay down a right for a weaker brother's sake; chapter 9 shows paul doing exactly that with a right of his own on a much larger scale — as an apostle he has every claim to be financially supported by the churches he serves, argues for that claim at length from scripture and plain logic, and then declines to use it, because giving the gospel away free matters more to him than being paid fairly for delivering it
1 Corinthians 9Ye Cannot Drink The Cup Of The Lord, And The Cup Of Devils
israel's own wilderness generation is paul's warning — baptized, fed, and given drink by miracle, and still overthrown through idolatry, fornication, and complaint — and the very privileges corinth now enjoys are no guarantee against the same fall, unless they actually flee the idolatry israel did not
1 Corinthians 10This Do In Remembrance Of Me
two very different problems in corinthian worship, joined by one thread — how believers treat each other and god when the whole congregation gathers — first a question of head coverings tied to an order of headship reaching back to creation, then a far more serious failure: the lord's own supper turned into a divided meal where the wealthy feast and the poor go hungry, prompting paul to record, in this very letter, the earliest written account of the words christ spoke over the bread and the cup
1 Corinthians 11Now Ye Are The Body Of Christ
corinth had begun ranking believers by which spiritual gift they possessed, prizing the more dramatic ones and quietly looking down on the rest — paul's answer is the most sustained image of the church in the whole new testament, a single body with one spirit distributing many different gifts to many different members, each one genuinely necessary and none of them optional
1 Corinthians 12Though I Speak With The Tongues Of Men And Of Angels
chapter 12 promised a more excellent way; chapter 13 is that way — thirteen verses that have outlasted every other argument this letter makes, because without this one thing paul says none of the rest amounts to anything at all, and every gift chapter 12 just spent a whole argument defending comes up short without it
1 Corinthians 13Let All Things Be Done Decently And In Order
chapter 13 named love as the more excellent way; chapter 14 applies it directly to the dispute that opened chapter 12 — tongues, prized in corinth as the most impressive gift, set against prophecy, which paul ranks higher because it actually edifies a hearer instead of only the speaker — closing with a principle broad enough to cover far more than tongues and prophecy alone: god is not the author of confusion, but of peace
1 Corinthians 14O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?
some in corinth, shaped by greek philosophy's own discomfort with a physical resurrection, had begun denying the dead rise at all — paul's answer is the longest sustained argument in this whole letter, building from the historical evidence for christ's own resurrection to a vision of the last trumpet, ending in the single most quoted shout of victory in the whole new testament
1 Corinthians 15Let All Your Things Be Done With Charity
after fifteen chapters correcting divisions, discipline, marriage, meat, worship, gifts, and the resurrection itself, paul closes this letter the way any real letter closes — with practical business and personal names — and in the middle of it all sits one final command, the same one that has quietly run underneath every argument since chapter 1: let all your things be done with charity
1 Corinthians 16