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Overview
- Cover the entire book of 1 Corinthians in 17 lessons
- Equip yourself to lead a Bible study
- Imagine the Bible’s historical world
- Study word origins and definitions
- Explore thoughtful questions on key themes
- Go deeper with optional projects
- Add your notes with extra space and wide margins
- Find the flexibility to fit the time you have
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780891095590 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tyndale House Publishers |
| Publication date: | 01/09/2018 |
| Series: | LifeChange , #1 |
| Pages: | 168 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.50(d) |
About the Author
The Navigators is an interdenominational, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people "know Christ and make Him known” as they look to Him and His Word to chart their lives.
Navigators have invested their lives in people for more than seventy-five years, coming alongside them life on life to study the Bible, develop a deepening prayer life, and memorize and apply Scripture, The ultimate goal is to equip Christ followers to fulfill 2 Timothy 2:2—to teach what they have learned to others.
Today, tens of thousands of people worldwide are coming to know and grow in Jesus Christ through the various ministries of The Navigators. Internationally, more than 4,600 Navigator staff of 70 nationalities serve in more than 100 countries.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Lesson One
OVERVIEW
Paul and Corinth
Founding the church in Corinth had been no easy matter for Paul, and maintaining it was proving to be just as challenging. He had planted the faith in the pagan soil of a bustling port city, and weeds persistently threatened to choke it. From Paul's correspondence with the Corinthian believers, we see how he applied the gospel to a host of issues, including sex, intellectualism, public worship, and gifts of the Spirit.
Saul the Pharisee
Some knowledge of Paul's background helps us understand his views on the issues being debated in Corinth. He was born in the first decade AD in Tarsus, a prosperous city on the trade route from Syria to Asia Minor. Tarsus was known for its schools of philosophy and liberal arts, and some scholars believe that Paul must have had some contact with these. Like most cities in the Roman Empire, Tarsus probably contained synagogues of Greek-speaking Jews who were often as devout as their Hebrew-speaking brethren.
However, Paul called himself "a Hebrew of Hebrews" (Philippians 3:5), which probably means that his parents spoke Hebrew and raised him in a strict Jewish home, isolated as much as possible from the pagan city around them. They named their boy "Saul" after Israel's first king, the most glorious member of the tribe of Benjamin, to which Saul's parents traced their ancestry (see Philippians 3:5). It was a rare Jew outside Palestine who could trace a pure lineage back to the ancient days of Israel, and fellow Jews would have envied the pedigree. Furthermore, Saul's family must have owned property and had some importance in the Gentile community as well, for Saul was born not only a citizen of Tarsus (see Acts 21:39) but also of Rome (see Acts 22:27-28).
Saul's parents had such aspirations that they sent their son to study Jewish Law in Jerusalem under the foremost rabbi of the day, the Pharisee Gamaliel (see Acts 22:3; Galatians 1:14). With Gamaliel, Saul learned a little about Greek rhetoric and oratory, and a lot about Jewish reasoning, arguing, and the Law. The Pharisees (the Hebrew word means "the separated ones") felt that God had set them apart to live by the Torah (the Law or Teaching of Moses). For them, this meant following the interpretations of the Torah laid down by generations of teachers. Some Pharisees held that a man was righteous if he had done more good than bad, but Saul apparently followed the stricter group who insisted that even the least implications of the Law must be kept.
The Pharisees expected a Messiah (Hebrew for "Anointed One"; Greek: Christ) who would deliver them from oppression and rule with justice. However, Jesus of Nazareth had infuriated many Pharisees by interpreting the Torah differently and claiming a special relationship with God. Thus, when some Jews began to proclaim Jesus as Messiah and Lord (Lord was a term usually reserved for God), strict Pharisees opposed them vehemently.
Saul helped lead the fight against the proclaimers of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem (see Acts 7:58–8:3; Galatians 1:13). When some followers of Christ were driven out, Saul obtained permission to pursue them to Damascus. But on the way there, Jesus confronted Saul in a blinding encounter (see Acts 9:1-19), revealing to Saul that he was persecuting the very God he professed to worship. From then on, Saul's understanding of God and the Torah began to change dramatically. He joined those Jews who were urging other Jews to believe in Jesus, and after some years God called him to proclaim Jesus as Savior to the Gentiles also. Saul took the Greek name "Paul" when he turned to work among Gentiles.
Paul the missionary
Paul spent ten years in the Roman provinces of Cilicia and Syria (see Galatians 1:21), probably preaching Jesus along with Greek-speaking Jewish Christians. Then a believer named Barnabas called him to Syrian Antioch, where by this time rapid conversions had made the church more Gentile than Jewish. After a while, the church in Antioch commissioned Paul and Barnabas to evangelize the provinces of Cyprus and Galatia. The two men succeeded in founding churches in several cities. Indeed, the mission to the Gentiles was so successful that the apostles in Jerusalem invited Paul and Barnabas to a council to clarify exactly what God expected of Gentile believers (see Acts 15). Paul spent the eight years after the council in Jerusalem planting more churches. He went first to Macedonia, where he founded churches in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea (see Acts 16:1–17:15). Trouble from the Jews in Macedonia drove him south to Greece. He received a cold reception in Athens, so he traveled on to Corinth, the capital of the Roman province of Achaia (modern Greece).
Paul and his mission team spent a year and a half in Corinth to found a church firmly in that important city (see Acts 18:1-18). When things looked solid in Corinth, Paul sailed back east to Antioch and Jerusalem, then traveled west again to plant a church in Ephesus, the capital of the province of Asia (part of modern Turkey). Meanwhile, the church at Corinth received a great blessing in the person of another stellar Christian leader. A former Jew named Apollos arrived to teach the faith and debate Corinthian Jews who opposed Christianity (see Acts 18:24-28).
Toward the end of his three-year stay in Ephesus, Paul began to receive disturbing news from Corinth. He wrote a letter (now lost) instructing the Corinthian believers not to associate with church members who practiced illicit sex (see 1 Corinthians 5:9). Sometime later, members of the household of a believer named Chloe brought news that the Corinthian church was splitting into factions, each of which claimed some prominent leader as its authority (see 1 Corinthians 1:11). Then three members of the church brought Paul a letter from the whole body (see 1 Corinthians 7:1; 16:17). This letter was full of questions about various issues, but the messengers also reported scandalous information: incest, class snobbery, and other problems were infecting the church. In response to these ills, Paul dictated a long letter — the one we call 1 Corinthians.
Corinth
Paul spent more time in Corinth and Ephesus than in any other city he visited (besides Rome and Caesarea, where he was imprisoned), for as two of the most important trading centers in the Empire, they were promising hubs for evangelism. A strong church in Corinth could spread the gospel not only throughout Greece, but through trading connections all over the known world. Likewise, a fractured or heretical church in Corinth could either collapse the gospel or spread a false gospel throughout the world.
The Romans utterly demolished Corinth in 146 BC for resisting Roman domination, but Julius Caesar rebuilt it a century later as a Roman colony. As a colony, it was populated primarily with Roman citizens, but as a commercial center, it was soon full also of Greeks, Syrians, Asians, Egyptians, and a large community of Jews. It is estimated that in Paul's day 250,000 free persons and some 400,000 slaves inhabited Corinth, not to mention the thousands of tradesmen, sailors, and tourists who visited. Because of its cosmopolitan flavor, Corinth was considered the least Greek of the Greek cities and the least Roman of the Roman colonies.
The source of Corinth's prosperity was commerce. The city sat astride the narrow isthmus that connected mainland Greece with the peninsula called the Peloponnese. Because weather and rocks made it hazardous to sail around the Peloponnese, it was far less costly for ships to go through Corinth. They would dock at the harbor of Cenchrea (east of Corinth on the Saronic Gulf). There, large ships would unload their cargo onto wagons, which would haul the cargo on a sort of wooden railway (the diolkos) to the harbor of Lechaeum (west of Corinth on the Corinthian Gulf). Smaller ships were hauled fully loaded across the three and a half miles of the diolkos. Thus, the most sensible way to get anything to Rome from Ephesus, China, or Egypt was through Corinth.
Corinth's prosperity led to luxury and licentiousness. Indeed, in polite Greek, the word "to Corinthianize" meant "to practice sexual immorality" or "to debauch." The most notorious of Corinth's dozen temples was dedicated to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. About a thousand female slaves staffed the temple to practice ritual prostitution with worshipers (including sailors and tourists). This was a profitable attraction and contributed both to Corinth's prosperity and her reputation. Yet Corinth also had prestige. In Greek jargon, a person who spoke "Corinthian words" had pretensions to philosophy and learning. The Isthmian Games, which were second in importance only to the Olympic Games, were celebrated every other year under Corinth's governance. And Corinth was both the capital of Achaia and its richest city. In short, wealth, loose morals, and intellectual pride were the Corinthian hallmarks.
First Corinthians
Predictably, wealth, loose morals, and intellectual pride lay at the root of the troubles in the Corinthian church. There were divisions between those members who liked Paul's simple style and those who preferred a more sophisticated and philosophical approach to religion. There was strife between those who thought freedom in Christ meant liberation from "outworn" taboos about sex and food, those who felt that Jewish and other rules must be kept strictly, and those who believed something in between. There was jealousy between those who possessed the kind of flashy gifts of the Spirit that suggested true enlightenment and those who did not. And there was bitterness between the rich and the poor. All this Paul addressed in his letter, at the same time dispatching his aide Timothy to help sort things out in person. First Corinthians is not a doctrinal treatise but a pastor's response to problems, yet it is the source of some of our most helpful information about Christian faith and practice.
First impressions
It is much easier to study a book passage by passage if you have first examined it as a whole. An overview is especially necessary if you have never studied the book before. Below are some suggestions for an overview of 1 Corinthians. Look over questions 1 through 5 before you begin.
1. What if you could have been one of the Corinthian Christians who just received this letter from Paul? Read it through once for the overall message, just as you might read any letter. Don't stop to unravel difficult pieces; just try to follow the big ideas.
As you read, keep a list of repeated words, phrases, and ideas that seem important to Paul's message. (For example, you'll notice that words like proud, arrogant, and puffed up appear often.) This list will help you notice the main issues Paul is addressing and the main ideas he wants to get across. It will also suggest questions you will want to answer when you study further. _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
2. Jot here any questions that came up during your first reading — any terms or passages you'd like clarified, for example. You can also write down any questions prompted by the introduction. _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
3. Below, we've suggested some ways in which you might group the sections of 1 Corinthians. Go back through the book and write down titles that you think express what each smaller section is about. Then write titles for each of the larger sections. (You can change any of the divisions if you like.)
1:1-9_________________________________________________________
1:10–4:21_______________________________________________
1:10-17_______________________________________________________
1:18–3:4________________________________________________
3:5–4:5_________________________________________________
4:6-21________________________________________________________
5:1–6:20________________________________________________
5:1-13________________________________________________________
6:1-11________________________________________________________
6:12-20_______________________________________________________
7:1-40________________________________________________________
8:1–11:1________________________________________________
8:1-13________________________________________________________
9:1-27________________________________________________________
10:1-13_______________________________________________________
10:14-22______________________________________________________
10:23–11:1______________________________________________
11:2–14:40______________________________________________
11:2-16_______________________________________________________
11:17-34______________________________________________________
12:1–14:40______________________________________________
15:1-58_______________________________________________________
16:1-24_______________________________________________________
4. What do you observe about Paul as a person from his letter to the Corinthians? (Is he proud, humble, intelligent, slow of mind, passionate, cool ...?) _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
5. How would you summarize what this letter as a whole is about? What are its main themes? What is Paul's overall purpose for writing it? _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
6. How is the overall message of 1 Corinthians relevant to your life? What actions or matters for prayer and thought does your first reading of this book encourage you to pursue? _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
For the group
This "For the group" section and the ones in later lessons are intended to suggest ways of structuring your discussions. Feel free to select what suits your group and ignore the rest. The main goals of this lesson are to get to know 1 Corinthians as a whole and the people with whom you are going to study it.
Worship. Some groups like to begin with prayer and/or singing. Some share requests for prayer at the beginning, but leave the actual prayer until after the study. Others prefer just to chat and have refreshments for a while and then move to the study, leaving worship until the end. It is a good idea to start with at least a brief prayer for the Holy Spirit's guidance and some silence to help everyone change focus from the day's busyness to the Scripture.
Warm-up. The beginning of a new study is a good time to lay a foundation for honest sharing of ideas, to get comfortable with each other, and to encourage a sense of common purpose. One way to establish common ground is to talk about what each group member hopes to get out of your group — out of your study of 1 Corinthians, and out of any prayer, singing, sharing, outreach, or anything else you might do together. Why do you want to study the Bible, and 1 Corinthians in particular? If you have someone write down each member's hopes and expectations, then you can look back at these goals later to see if they are being met. Allow about fifteen minutes for this discussion so that it does not degenerate into vague chatting.
How to use this study. If the group has never used a LifeChange study guide before, you might take a whole meeting to get acquainted, discuss your goals, and go over the "How to Use This Study" section. Then you can take a second meeting to discuss the overview. This will assure that everyone understands the study and will give you more time to read all of 1 Corinthians and answer the overview questions.
Go over the parts of the "How to Use This Study" section that you think the group should especially notice. For example, point out the optional questions in the margins. These are available as group discussion questions, ideas for application, and suggestions for further study. It is unlikely that anyone will have the time or desire to answer all the optional questions. A person might do one "Optional Application" for any given lesson. You might choose one or two "For Thought and Discussion" questions for your group discussion, or you might spend all your time on the numbered questions. If someone wants to write answers to the optional questions suggest that he or she use a separate notebook. It will also be helpful for discussion notes, prayer requests, answers to prayers, application plans, and so on.
Invite everyone to ask questions about how to use the study guide and how your discussions will go.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "1 Corinthians"
by .
Copyright © 2014 The Navigators.
Excerpted by permission of NavPress.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
How to Use This Study, 5,
One — Paul and Corinth (Overview), 9,
Map for 1 Corinthians, 9,
Timeline of Paul's Ministry, 11,
Two — To the Called (1:1-9), 21,
Three — Foolishness (1:10–2:5), 31,
Four — True Wisdom (2:6-16), 39,
Five — Fleshly and Spiritual Attitudes (3:1-23), 47,
Six — Apostles of Christ (4:1-21), 55,
Seven — Dealing with Immorality (5:1-13), 63,
Eight — More Moral Laxity (6:1-20), 71,
Nine — Marriage (7:1-40), 79,
Ten — Freedom and Rights (8:1–9:27), 87,
Eleven — Freedom and Temptation (10:1–11:1), 97,
Twelve — Propriety in Worship (11:2-34), 109,
Thirteen — Gifts of the Spirit: 1 (12:1-31), 119,
Fourteen — Gifts of the Spirit: 2 (13:1–14:40), 129,
Fifteen — Resurrection: 1 (15:1-34), 139,
Sixteen — Resurrection: 2 (15:35-58), 147,
Seventeen — Personal Words (16:1-24 and Review), 155,
Study Aids, 165,