HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 1398
1 Corinthians
“ B U T I T ’ S J U S T A L I T T L E F I B . What’s wrong with that?”
“I didn’t take very much. Why do you have to call it stealing?” “What’s
so bad about a couple dirty jokes?” “Is it really so bad to read those
magazines?” “You think the clothes I bought aren’t modest? But
everyone else is wearing the same thing.”
The basic issue in Paul’s letter to the church in
What you will be
Corinth hasn’t changed in two thousand years:
reading about
Why do Christians have to be different? Just how
1:1– 4:21
morally strict does a Christian have to be? What
Paul appeals for unity in the
church
makes a follower of Christ distinctive?
Corinth in Paul’s time was very much like any
5:1-13
major city today. Although there was some povPaul condemns immorality in
the church
erty, the city was basically an affluent, sophisticated, metropolitan center of about half a million
6:1-11
Paul’s warning against suing
people, with a little bit of everything. A port
other believers
city and major center of commerce, it received
6:12- 20
thousands of visitors from points all around the
The importance of purity
world. There were businessmen, sailors, educa7:1- 40
tors, and tradesmen. Corinth was a beautiful
Instructions on marriage for
Greek city, capital of the province of Achaia.
Christians
Corinth was also a center for sports, the host city
8:1– 11:1
for the Isthmian Games (similar to the Olympic
Developing sensitivity toward
Games).
others
Paul, during his second missionary journey,
11:2- 34
spent a year and a half in Corinth (Acts 18), supInstructions about worship
and the Lord’s Supper
porting himself by making tents. He lived with
Priscilla and Aquila, also tentmakers. Respond12:1– 14:40
Matters related to spiritual
ing to Paul’s teaching, a small nucleus of Chrisgifts
tians met together as a church, probably in a
home, and maybe even in the home of Priscilla
15:1- 58
Matters related to the
and Aquila.
resurrection of the dead
But by the time Paul was on his third mission16:1- 24
ary journey, he began hearing about problems
Paul’s final instructions and
at the church in Corinth. It had been about five
greetings
years since Paul had started that little church,
and now questions had arisen over specific moral issues involving a whole
range of lifestyle choices. The Corinthian church was struggling with an agepage 1028