ALTHOUGH SEPARATED BY NEARLY two thousand years of history, there are many similarities between the church in Corinth and the world of today. As we read Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and Craig Blomberg’s excellent commentary, one underlying similarity stands out: the Corinthian church was riveted by factions that threatened to tear it apart. Paul had to handle strong differences of opinion among the Christians on such topics as marriage, lawsuits, meat sacrificed to idols, worship, and Christian doctrine. Similarly, the world today—and all too often the church as well—is in danger of a terminal fragmentation, a new tribalism.
Is it possible that some of the solutions Paul suggests to the Corinthians can help our dilemma today? Absolutely! To Paul, fostering division was a worldly and immature method of operating. What the church at Corinth needed above all was a unifying wisdom—a wisdom that might seem foolish, weak, and naive to the world, but in reality found its source in the God of all grace.
In the course of his commentary on this magnificent letter, Professor Blomberg details the issues Paul raises and provides an expert analysis of each one of them. In each case the world’s wisdom—human reason, unbridled freedom, litigation, no-fault divorce are modern equivalents—is contrasted with the values of God-given wisdom—purity, forgiveness, reconciliation, and mutual faithfulness. Believers then and now must learn that decisions should not be made according to some limited human ethical system but according to whether they will contribute to the building up of the kingdom of God.
Paul’s general approach also produces less judgmentalism and more of a “we’re in this together trying to solve this problem” approach. To him, if we would just acknowledge the ultimate source of our allegiances, then we would have a much better chance of getting along.
Perhaps no image better personifies the whole purpose of this book than the beautiful image Paul uses of “one body, many parts.” We cannot deny we are different from other people in many ways. But Jesus Christ taught us that in the end we are all made and claimed by the same source. It is that source, that one body, to which we owe all that we are and can be. And that is what unifies us in the end.
—Terry Muck