5. Autograph conclusion (6:11-18). Summary of the Epistle. The glory of the Apostle is in the cross of Christ. Benediction.
THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS
The Church at Corinth was founded during Paul's second missionary journey (Acts 18:1-18). When the Apostle came to Corinth he found a home with Aquila and Priscilla and worked with them at his trade as a tent-maker. He preached in Corinth for over a year and a half. Although Paul was the means of converting Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, and his family, he had no large success with the Jews and consequently turned to the Gentiles. The Gentiles gladly heard him and there was a great ingathering into the church.
Paul's sole purpose was to preach Christ for he says, "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2).
The City of Corinth was the largest and most important city of Greece. The commerce of the world flowed through its two harbours. The population consisted of Greeks, Jews, Italians, and a mixed multitude; it was excitable, pleasure loving, and mercurial. In this city was held a perpetual vanity fair. The vices of the east and west met and clasped hands in the work of human degradation. The Greek goddess Aphrodite had a magnificent temple in which a thousand priestesses ministered to a base worship. While it was a center of wealth and fashion it was a city of gilded vice. In the philosophical schools there was an endless discussion about words and non-essentials and a strong tendency to set intellectual above moral distinctions.
THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS
Occasion and Purpose.-It was natural that the pressure of heathen customs and practices should be very great upon this young church. It was also to be expected that parties and divisions would arise. The immediate cause of this Epistle was that strifes and divisions had arisen in the church. It was the reporting of these matters to Paul by those "of the house of Chloe" (1 Cor. 1:11) that led him to write in the way in which he did. To settle the strifes of this church and to define the relations which Christians should assume towards the political, religious, and domestic institutions of the heathen was a matter of no little delicacy and difficulty. The mastery of Paul is shown in the laying down of principles, in accordance with the gospel of Christ, that were effective not only for the Corinthian church but which are applicable to-day to all such church difficulties and the conduct of Christians towards non-Christians.
A Former Epistle.—Previous to the one now called "The First," had been written to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 5:9) and "it appears that the church had replied and requested further explanation and instruction on certain points" (5:11; 7:1; 8:1; 12:1; 16:12).
Place and Time.—This Epistle was written during Paul's long stay in Ephesus (Acts 19:10; 1 Cor. 16:19) and the date is in all probability 57 A.D.
The Supremacy of Christ over all parties, His love as the touchstone of all service, and His resurrection are the great subjects of this Epistle.