Do you know what blows my mind? That with all the permissiveness and sinfulness of the Roman world, what the Corinthian Christians were doing shocked Paul. He said that the sexual immorality of one man among them was so bad that such was not even found among the gentiles. That’s quite an indictment! Today we’re Read more about 588 1 Corinthians in Context 5: Sexual Immorality[…]
Paul wrote extensively about worldly wisdom in 1 Corinthians. Due to the prevalence and esteem of philosophical schools, Paul probably felt a need to explain how Christianity measured up. In this lecture we’ll survey the five main philosophical options available to first-century Corinthians, including Platonism, Cynicism, Skepticism, Epicureanism and Stoicism. Then once we get a Read more about 587 1 Corinthians in Context 4: Philosophy & Wisdom[…]
Now that we’ve familiarized ourselves with the city of Corinth and Paul’s missionary activity there, we’re ready to dive into 1 Corinthians. As I mentioned previously, my strategy for this class is to focus on the major themes rather than covering every verse. Our first theme is the issue of divisiveness among the Christians at Read more about 586 1 Corinthians in Context 3: Factions & Status at Corinth[…]
How did Christianity come to Corinth in the first place? Although many times we are left speculating about how an ancient church got started, we have definitive knowledge about the Corinthian church from Luke, Paul’s traveling companion. In what follows we’ll work through Acts chapter 18 to see how Paul initially founded the church in Read more about 585 1 Corinthians in Context 2: Paul Founds the Church at Corinth[…]
Today we’re beginning something new. I’ve been working on this class on 1 Corinthians for months and months. I had taken classes on 1 Corinthians at Boston University twice. The first time we just read through the entire epistle in Greek. The second time was when we learned about what modern scholars said about Corinth. Read more about 584 1 Corinthians in Context 1: Corinth as the Context[…]