- Chapters
- 16
- Verses
- 0
- Where it sits
- The Letters of Paul
What it is
Written from Ephesus around AD 53 to 55. Corinth was a rich port city, and its church had split into factions following rival teachers. Word had reached Paul from Chloe’s household, and the Corinthians had sent written questions of their own.
The list of problems is not abstract: a man living with his father’s wife, believers suing each other in pagan courts, the wealthy eating the common meal before the poor arrived, competitive display of spiritual gifts, and some of them denying that the body rises at all.
Paul takes them one at a time, and keeps pulling the argument back to the same two things: you are one body, and love outlasts everything you are showing off.
Known for
Chapter 13, which people who have never opened a Bible can quote. Chapter 15, on the resurrection. And 11:23–26 — the earliest written account of the Last Supper, older than any Gospel.
A note for Orthodox readers
Chapter 11 stands behind the words of institution at every Liturgy, and behind the warning about receiving unworthily. Chapter 13 is read at weddings.
Where it sits
Undisputed.
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