What the book is
Corinth was a busy, wealthy Greek port city, rebuilt by Rome a century before Paul came, and famous for its trade and its temples. Paul founded the church there and stayed a year and a half (Acts 18). Some years later, writing from Ephesus, he answers news he has heard from “Chloe’s people” (1:11) and a letter the Corinthians had sent him with questions (7:1). The church was proud of its knowledge and its spiritual gifts, and yet divided into parties, tolerating sexual sin, taking one another to court, and turning the Lord’s Supper into a place where the poor went hungry.
Paul’s answer brings everything back to the cross, to love and to the resurrection. Chapter 13 is its best-known chapter:
As things are, then, three things last: faith, hope and love. And of these three, the greatest is love.
Who wrote it, and when
No one doubts that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, with Sosthenes named beside him (1:1). He wrote from Ephesus, planning to stay there until Pentecost (16:8), most likely around AD 53–55. It is not his first letter to them: he mentions an earlier one that has not survived (5:9). His second letter, 2 Corinthians, came a year or two later.
How the book is laid out
- Divisions in the church (1–4): “I am for Paul”, “I am for Apollos”. God’s wisdom is the message of the cross, foolishness to the world, and the apostles are servants, not leaders of parties.
- Sex, lawsuits and the body (5–6): a case of incest the church has tolerated, believers suing one another, and the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
- Marriage and singleness (7): answering the Corinthians’ letter.
- Food offered to idols (8–10): knowledge and love, Paul’s own example of giving up his rights, and the warning of Israel in the wilderness.
- Worship (11–14): head coverings, the Lord’s Supper, the body of Christ and its many gifts, the way of love (13), and prophecy and tongues in the gathering.
- The resurrection (15): Christ raised, the first fruits of those who have died, and the body that will be raised.
- The collection and greetings (16), ending with an Aramaic prayer: “Our Lord, come!”
How Open Word Bible translates 1 Corinthians
The Corinthians’ own words. Paul often quotes what the Corinthians were saying and then answers it, but the Greek has no quotation marks. The draft marks the sayings it reads as theirs: “Everything is permitted for me” (6:12), and “It is good for a man to have no sexual contact with a woman” (7:1). Where it is unclear how far a saying runs, or whether it is a saying at all, the decision is marked uncertain and footnoted. See Punctuation the apostles never wrote.
The list of 6:9–10. Two Greek words in Paul’s list of those who “will not receive God’s kingdom” are rare and much debated. The draft translates them as “men who take the passive part in sex with men” and “men who go to bed with males”, and both decisions explain the evidence; the first is marked uncertain. The footnotes give the other readings: for the first, a broader sense of men lacking self-control, or boys and young men kept for sex; for the second, men who exploit others sexually. A further decision notes that the list describes ways of life persisted in, not sins beyond forgiveness: “Some of you once lived in these ways. But you have been washed clean” (6:11).
Head (11:3). Does “head” mean authority or source? The draft reads it as the one with the place of leadership, marks the decision uncertain, and footnotes “source”, as the head of a river. Verse 10, “because of the angels”, is one of the hardest lines in Paul, and its footnote sets out the readings.
Women speaking (14:34–35). These verses stand after verse 33 in the Greek text the draft follows, but in some manuscripts they come after verse 40, and some scholars think they were added to the letter later. The draft keeps them where its text has them, marks the decision uncertain, and footnotes both the other placing and the question of their origin. Further decisions explain what kind of speaking is most likely meant and note that Paul does not say which law he means.
Love (13). In 13:3 the manuscripts are divided between giving up one’s body “so that I will be burned” and “so that I may boast”; the draft follows its text and footnotes the other. What “the complete” is in 13:10 has been read as Christ’s return, the finished New Testament, or the church grown up; the draft takes the first and footnotes the others.
Baptized for the dead (15:29). The Corinthians knew what this practice was; we do not. The decision says so, and the footnote sets out the main guesses.