1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians is the forty-sixth book of the Bible and the second of Paul's letters by traditional ordering, though it was written before Romans. It is traditionally attributed to Paul and is generally dated to around AD 55, during his stay in Ephesus on his third missionary journey. Paul wrote it to a church he had founded in Corinth, a major Greek port city, in response to specific problems they had reported to him.

The letter addresses one issue after another. The Corinthian church was divided into factions claiming loyalty to different leaders; Paul tells them to stop. A man was sleeping with his stepmother and the church was tolerating it; Paul tells them to remove him. Christians were suing each other in court; Paul tells them to settle disputes internally. There were questions about marriage, about food sacrificed to idols, about head coverings in worship, about behavior at the Lord's Supper.

The most famous chapter, chapter 13, is about love: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love..." It sits in the middle of three chapters on spiritual gifts and how they should function in the church.

The closing chapters address the resurrection, which some in the Corinthian church had been denying. Paul argues at length that the resurrection is real and central to Christian faith. The letter ends with practical instructions and final greetings.