1 Corinthians 1:1-9

1 Corinthians is a letter written 2,000 years ago. Yet Christians across the world, in hundreds of countries and over 2,000 languages, read this letter, and they take it seriously. They believe it has things to say to them. They treat it as Holy Scripture. So over the next many-many-many weeks, we’re going to read it together. Today I’m going to cover the first few verses, and my main focus will be to give a bit of an overview, so that we can get the most out of this series!

Who wrote this letter?

GET ANSWERS.

Well done. You don’t need to be an expert to know that - it says it in the first line. When I write letters, I put my name last. In Paul’s culture, the name of the sender came first. So it’s from Paul, and Sosthenes.

Let’s look at who Paul and Sosthenes are. What does the letter tell us?

1 Corinthians 1:1 NIV

1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

That’s quite a claim. It’s similar to the way Paul introduces himself in some of his other letters. He’s an apostle - that’s from a word that means someone who is sent with authority. Whose authority? Christ Jesus. Christ is a title given to Jesus - it means the anointed one that God had promised to send. And there’s an extra layer - Paul says that he has been appointed by the will of God.

Two ways to read it

I guess there are two ways to read this. We could read it cynically. Paul is kicking things off by telling them ‘don’t you know who I am?’ I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. As we read on, we will build a picture of a man who isn’t proud, of a man who really wants to bring glory to God and not himself. I read it as him saying ‘I’m only here because God chose to send me, not on my own merit.’ We’ll come back to that.

What else do we know about Paul and Sosthenes? Again, I want us to focus on the stuff that any old person with access to a Bible can find out - you don’t need to be an expert for any of this. I’m going to summarise some stuff today, but if you want some references give me a shout. I think it’s worth spending a bit of time on this.

Imagine if someone found Paul’s CV kicking around somewhere under Rome...

SLIDE with CV

Name

Paul has two names. You can see it mentioned casually in Acts 13:9. There’s not much in that. It was really common at that time. Living under a Greek-speaking, Roman Empire, lots of people would have a name from their own ethnic background, and a Greek name. Shaul was a good old Jewish name, and Paulos is a good Greek name even today.

Age, Gender, Ethnicity, Nationality

We first meet Paul as a young man:

Acts 7:57–58 NIV

57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

There he is. He’s participating in the first religiously motivated killing of a Christian. And in case we are tempted to think he’s an innocent bystander, a nice boy who just happens to end up standing by a pile of coats...

Acts 8:1–3 NIV

1 And Saul approved of their killing him. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2 Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3 But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

Paul is convinced that these people (they’re not yet called ‘Christians’) are a threat to the One God. He believes he is doing his duty to that God by putting a stop to what they are doing. The believers scatter, and he goes to the High priest for letters of authority - kind of becoming an apostle for the High priest, ironically. An apostle of death.

Then the Damascus Road. On his way to lock up more of them.

There’s a bright light. Paul is blinded. He has a vision of Jesus. He is still blind. God sends a Christian to him, someone who was terrified that Saul would arrest him.

Acts 9:13–18 NIV

13 “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. 14 And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.” 15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” 17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized,

And then Paul goes on to do exactly what God has said. He travels around to a lot of places, staying in some of them quite a while. The young man who carried the coats is not so young any more by the time he visits Corinth. But clearly from his self-introduction, that commission from God has stayed with him. He was an apostle of death who became an apostle of Jesus.

Paul was Jewish by faith and also by ethnicity.

Romans 9:2–3 NIV

2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race,

And he was a Roman Citizen. That meant he had certain rights and privileges, which saved his skin once or twice:

Acts 22:25 NIV

25 As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”

As for Paul’s marital status… we don’t know. He doesn’t mention having a wife. He might have been a bachelor. He might have been a widower. He might have been divorced as a young man.

A huge amount of the New Testament was written by, or about Paul. That’s because, after his Damascus Road encounter with Jesus, he became one of the great travellers of the Eastern Mediterranean. He was on the move a lot, talking with Jewish people and philosophers and whoever would listen about Jesus. He started churches, trained up leaders, and formed really close friendships. He was jailed multiple times, stoned, beaten, shipwrecked, miraculously freed, and carried on. He wasn’t a superhero. He struggled with despair, was hurt by friends and colleagues who let him down. He was frustrated by other Jewish Christians who were trying to apply some of the Jewish law to Gentile Christians.

That’s Paul. He had a deep knowledge of the Hebrew Bible, and had trained under a prominent rabbi. He spoke Greek and Aramaic as a bare minimum. And he loved people, deeply. He was seriously angry if anyone tried to mess with young believers, teaching them nonsense and distracting them from the Gospel of Jesus.

All that I’ve just said is from the New Testament. One thing that we know from outside the New Testament is that very early on, people treated Paul’s letters as scripture. Within a couple of decades, other people, like Clement, were quoting this very letter as authoritative, as God’s word.

Who is Sosthenes?

Anyone?

It’s ok, I cheated and looked it up.

When Paul first visited Corinth, things went well for a while, and then it kicked off. He was brought to the Roman proconsul, or chief magistrate, and accused of leading people astray. The proconsul is totally not interested. He is super patronising:

Acts 18:15–16 NIV

15 But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law—settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.” 16 So he drove them off.

So...

Acts 18:17 NIV

17 Then the crowd there turned on Sosthenes the synagogue leader and beat him in front of the proconsul; and Gallio showed no concern whatever.

And that’s Sosthenes. Former synagogue leader in Corinth. Presumably not the synagogue leader any more, after the beating incident. We don’t know anything else about him. But obviously at some point he left Corinth, and he now joins Paul in writing a letter to them.

OK that’s the senders. There are also two recipients.

The church of God in Corinth

The word translated as church is a word sometimes used in the Old Testament for the general gathering of God’s people. It’s not the building, it’s the people. But it’s clear here that it’s the gathering of God’s people IN CHRIST JESUS.

Corinth is a city in Greece. You can go there today, though you’ll have to take a Covid test. I’ve been there as a teenager when our church took the youth on a mission trip. It’s nice. The main thing I remember was being taken to where Paul had preached, and seeing some ancient toilets, though the two have kind of merged in my brain and I remember it as seeing the toilets Paul used, which I don’t think was quite what the guide was trying to convey.

TOILETS

MAP

At the time that Paul visited, Corinth was a cosmopolitan place and quite an important city. Ships would come in from the East, goods would be carried 6 miles or so on their road, and then loaded into other ships going west, saving hundreds of miles of sailing around the Peloponnese. Corinth is close to Athens - about 50 miles. As well as the Greeks and Romans there, there were Jewish men and women from all over the Roman Empire.

You can read about Paul at Corinth in Acts 18. He spent a lot of time there. There was opposition, but Jesus appeared to him in a vision one night and told him to carry on,

Acts 18:11 NIV

11 So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

And now we’re here. He’s no longer with them. He has travelled onwards to Ephesus, back East in modern-day Turkey. At some point after leaving Corinth he writes them this letter. We’ll look at why in a moment.

But I want to say something about the second recipient.

1 Corinthians 1:2 NIV

2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

Together with all those everywhere...

This is a letter written to a specific place at a specific time, but Paul and Sosthenes want to be clear that actually this is for all those everywhere who call on the name of the Lord Jesus.

OK one more general thing about Paul’s letters...

There tends to be a bit of a pattern with Paul. There will be a greeting and intro, like what we’re focusing on today. He will often spend some time going into really big theology, the nature of Christ, sin, humanity, the Law, glory, grace… and some time going into what that theology means in practice. How does it affect how we treat our family? Our job? Who we sleep with? What we do with our money? What we do about our neighbours’ religion? Who should be leaders in the church?

If you remember one thing from today that you take forward as we study 1 Corinthians, let it be this:

You can’t separate what you believe from how you live.

Paul did not write these letters simply so that we can know a load of things. Knowledge alone is meaningless. Perhaps the strongest case for that is made by another apostle, a guy called Jacob, or James:

James 2:19 NIV

19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

Demons can get 100% in their theology exam.

But it’s not all about doing, either. Jesus taught that the orientation of our heart towards others is as important to God as our actions.

As we read this letter, or any of Paul’s letters, if we come across some kind of theological statement, we need to be on the look out for the practical outworking. Why is he telling us this? And when we come across some kind of rule for life, we need to ask ourselves what is the theology behind it? That’s our task as we read this letter, and hopefully our preachers are going to help us do that each week.

Remember that English is a bit rubbish. Many other languages have a different word for one of you and lots of you. Cockney has yous and American has y’all. 'You’ comes up 153 times in this letter, and all but 6 times it’s plural. Good news-bad news. Good news if you think you’re left out - this is for you. Bad news if you think you’re a special snowflake and the world revolves around you - this is for more than just you. And bad news if whenever you get to a hard bit of scripture and immediately start thinking about who else needs to read it. This is for yous. Maybe not every verse will describe your life right now, but every verse will have something for you to grow from.

Letter-specific

This letter is written to a church that has become divided. It’s written to a church where there is sexual immorality. It’s written to a church that is struggling to know how to live alongside their pagan neighbours. It’s written to a church of former and not-so-former sinners, people born with no status. A church struggling to know how to have orderly meetings where the Holy Spirit is present and active, and how men and women should relate and live in their God-given gender when some are questioning whether that even matters any more.

Does that sound useful to you? Have you ever experienced any of that?

But my colleagues are going to cover all of that. I pray particular grace for whoever gets the passage on head-coverings for the angels. I think I’m away that week.

I wanted to draw your attention to a couple of things from today’s intro to the letter. 9 verses. Telling us who the letter is from, who it is to, and emparting the grace and peace of God to them all.

The introduction sets the tone.

Calling is mentioned 4 times. Paul called to be an apostle (v1). The church called to be God’s holy people (v2), together with everyone else who calls on Jesus. And The introduction finishes with a reminder that God is faithful, the one who has called them (v9).

The emphasis is on the call of God. He calls us, and in response we call on the name of Jesus. Why are you here? Has God called you? Have you called on God?

There are a couple of hidden references to calling too. The first is in the word translated as ‘church’. It’s the called out people of God - the ekklesia. Called out from their surroundings. The second is in verse 8 - the word translated as blameless comes from the word call. It means without being called-in, without blame. Maybe that’s just a bit too much word geekery, or maybe by mentioning calling so much, and by using words that also contain the same word, Paul and Sosthenes are really highlighting this calling thing!

The other standout in all of this is that Jesus is Lord and Christ. Christ is mentioned 9 times. Almost in every verse apart from verse 5, but twice in verse 2 to make up for it. Sometimes it’s Christ Jesus and sometimes it’s Jesus Christ, because Christ isn’t his surname. It’s his title. And that title is really important to Paul, the former jewish zealot and Sosthenes, the former synagogue leader. Because Christ means that Jesus is the one that they have been waiting for, promised by God, bringing together the throne of David with the High Priesthood.

And Jesus is Lord. Paul’s Lord, the Lord of all the churches.

As we move through this series, as we go deep into a whole range of different issues of theology and ethics, I want to encourage you to look for the ways that Jesus is exalted. Paul has not hidden his agenda. He loves the church. He is always thanking God for them. And everything he wants for them is based on Christ.

If you come across something challenging, even confusing in this letter, look for Jesus. Look for how it relates to him. Be encouraged that if you call on him,

1 Corinthians 1:8 NIV

8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Whatever you’ve done, the Corinthian church had done it too. They had been up to all kinds of stuff. Yet still Paul is able to write in confidence that on the day of Judgement, the day of the Lord, they would be presented blameless. You’ll have to stick around until at least chapter 6 to find out more.

So let’s remind ourselves of the themes that have emerged in this introduction:

It begins with the call of God, and the result is that we call on the name of Jesus. The church is the gathering of those who have been called, and those who call on Jesus.

And Jesus is Christ, and Lord. Everything else proceeds from that.

We’re going to sing a song now that helps us to remember that everything we have, and everything we hope in, is in Jesus. If you’re here because you feel that God is calling you, but you don’t know what to do about that, or maybe you have already decided you want to call on Jesus and build your life on Him, you can speak to me or Simon, either now or after the service. Or contact our church office in the week.

I opened with a question on the title slide. Are we reading someone else’s letter? No. This is for us. It’s for yous.

Let me pray for us as our musicians come up:

Hear the call of God. Respond by calling on Jesus.

As we study, need God’s help.

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