The sharp eyed among you might have noticed two things.

One is that this week, we’ve moved on in our bible reading plan from Acts to 1 Corinthians (Hopefully you shouldn’t have to be too switched on to have noticed that!)

The second thing, however, is that in this crossing over from Acts into 1 Corinthians, we’ve already covered some of this journey in our readings recently. Acts 18 talks about this community in Corinth:

 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 There he found a Jew named Aquila from Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3 and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. 4 Every Sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks….11 He stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.  – Acts 18:1-4,11  (NRSV)

Paul’s first visit to Corinth is believed to have been between 50-52 AD. This letter to the church in Corinth (that we call 1 Corinthians) is thought to have been written around 53-55AD, during Paul’s three year long stay in Ephesus after his time in Corinth.

Despite the name "1 Corinthians", this letter was not the first written by Paul to the church in Corinth- just the earliest that is included in our Bibles. 1 Corinthians is actually the second known letter of four from Paul to the church in Corinth. Paul mentions that he had sent a previous letter (1 Corinthians 5:9), which would be the first written letter. The other two would be what we call 2 Corinthians and another letter mentioned in 2 Corinthians 2:3–4, which Paul says he wrote “out of much distress and anguish of the heart.”

To make matters more complicated, we have copies of another text, which is called 3 Corinthians. This, however, is generally not believed by scholars to have been written by Paul, as the text claims. So we don’t need to worry about that for now.

What we see in such beautiful detail in the Acts of the Apostles, is the nature of Paul and the types of things he got up to as he went about on his missionary journeys. What 1 Corinthians offers us, then, is a picture of what happens next.

Corinth was a major city in Greece, known for being a hub of commerce, attracting traders, sailors, and travellers from across the Mediterranean. It was infamous for its lack of morality and its religious pluralism. It was home to numerous temples and cults, including the notorious Temple of Aphrodite. The church in Corinth was a mix of Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, which reflected the diversity of the society. This led to significant internal conflicts and misunderstandings about Christian teachings and practices.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians addresses these issues head-on. As we see from the outset of the letter, the church was plagued by divisions, with different factions claiming allegiance to various leaders (Paul, Apollos, Cephas/Peter, or Christ).

Paul lived in Corinth, with this community, for a year and half. His focus was to teach them, spread the word and support the growth of the Christian community that became the church in Corinth. A year and a half of direct contact with Paul, offering constant guidance, advice and encouragement. That’s a long time and, out of that, there would have been a particularly strong relationship between the community and Paul.

It is in the context of this relationship that this letter, 1 Corinthians, was written.

Paul wastes no time in addressing his concerns – which is not a surprise having just seen his behaviour in Acts! This is not a man who treads lightly.

After a brief ‘salutation’, jumps straight into the issue of church unity. He name drops Chloe, which suggests that she is a person of significance within the Corinthian church, and reminds them that he is very aware of their ongoings, even when he’s not there. Paul seems to have eyes and ears everywhere…

In these first chapters of this letter, Paul focusses on division in the church.

Pauls answer is as relevant to the global Church today as it was for the Corinthians for whom it was intended.

Unity can be achieved when we mutually agree to put Christ at the centre.

It might look different for us today, but have a think about the Church and the many ways in which it divides itself.

In the UK alone, we have Catholicism and Protestantism, plus others, and then within Protestantism we have a whole host of denominations which hold different teachings as more or less significant. Aside from theological differences, we see division of the church by race (ie. the Pentecostal movement rising up out of the exclusion of Black people from ‘White churches’). There is also division by geography - It is all too common for churches in the same areas of a region or city to feel they are in competition with one another, rather than being unified to serve a shared community.

Basically, there is no end to the things which can cause division in the Church. Just this week, the Church of England seems to be edging towards the brink of a huge split.

So perhaps we too ought to heed Paul’s teaching for the Corinthians. And as we journey into this letter to an ancient church, let’s keep our eyes open for other things that we might to need to consider for ourselves. We can’t just cut and paste Paul’s teaching to our context, but this letter enables us to look at our own church from a different perspective.

And, ultimately, that should help strengthen and unite us.