1 Corinthians 3
Notes
Transcript
About Corinth
About Corinth
Despite being at the center of Greece, Corinth was destroyed in 146 BC by the Romans, who killed all the men, sold all the women and children into slavery, and burned the city to the ground. Because of it’s geographical importance, Julius Caesar ordered Corinth re-founded in 44 BC, not long before his assassination. The colony appears to have been well-funded, as an amphitheater was built that same year. The Corinth that Paul went to in AD 49 (Acts 18) was new, modern, and very pro-Roman.
In Corinth, there were multiple temples for Aphrodite (goddess of love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and fertility). Aphrodite was the “guardian” of Corinth, and the patron goddess of prostitutes. After New Testament times, the Acrocorinth Temple rose to be the most important Aphrodite cult in the Greek-speaking world.
The second most popular cult in Corinth was for Demeter (goddess of grain, birth, and marriage). The third most popular cult in Corinth was for Persephone (goddess of the underworld, Spring, grain, marriage, and childbirth).
Corinth was on both sea and land trade routes, and a canal across the isthmus was finally built in AD 67. It should not surprise us that a “Corinthian woman” was Greek slang for “whore”. Although, often that was said with a positive spin. In the Roman world, in few places were women more sexually liberated than in Corinth. Scholars disagree on the amount of prostitution that took place in Aphrodite’s temples, but it was certainly no place for prudes.
We should keep this background in mind when we read Paul’s letter to them. Paul has some words about relationships, sex, and gender that needed to land on new Christians in this city.
About the Corinthian Church
About the Corinthian Church
In chapter 1:
Paul emphasizes the need for unity in the church. He discourages divisions and urges the Corinthians to be united in mind and judgment. Rather than identifying with different leaders, Paul emphasizes that it was Christ who was crucified for them. Paul highlights that the message of the Cross may seem foolish to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to those being saved. God's wisdom confounds worldly wisdom, and His strength surpasses human strength. These gospel-centered themes will continue throughout the book.
In chapter 2:
Paul emphasizes that true wisdom comes from the Holy Spirit, not human intellect. He contrasts worldly wisdom with God’s hidden wisdom, which the Spirit reveals. The chapter encourages believers to seek Spirit-driven wisdom and discern truth through the Holy Spirit.
For my part, brothers and sisters, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready, because you are still worldly. For since there is envy and strife among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans? For whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not acting like mere humans?
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
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According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work.
If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved—but only as through fire.
Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are.
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool so that he can become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness; and again, The Lord knows that the reasonings of the wise are futile.
So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours—whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come—everything is yours, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.