Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Called to Be Saints
1 Corinthians 1:1-3
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, · WEB
Paul addresses a congregation he is about to spend sixteen chapters correcting as sanctified and called saints — and the greeting settles what he thinks they are before he says what they are doing.
Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes 1 Corinthians 1:1.
The first thing said about the author is passive: he was called, and it happened through the will of God. That matters in a letter written to people who were ranking their teachers 1 Corinthians 1:12 — the office is not an achievement to be compared with anyone else's, and the same participle will be used of his readers twice in the next verse. Sosthenes is named alongside him and never appears again; a man of that name had been the ruler of the synagogue at Corinth and was beaten in front of the governor Acts 18:17.
To the assembly of God which is at Corinth — those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints 1 Corinthians 1:2.
Every word of this is remarkable given what follows. This is the congregation with faction, a tolerated case of incest, lawsuits between members, drunkenness at the Lord's table and doubts about the resurrection — and Paul calls it the assembly of God, says its members are sanctified, and names them saints. He does not write to those who ought to be sanctified, nor to the assembly if it repents.
The grammar is the theology. Sanctified stands in the perfect: something already done to them, not a level they have reached. Their standing rests on what God did in Christ, and their behavior is the problem the letter addresses — but the behavior is never allowed to redefine the standing. Correction in this letter always proceeds from identity toward conduct, never the reverse: you were washed... you were sanctified 1 Corinthians 6:11 is the ground of the argument against immorality, not its reward. A reader who wants to know how to confront a church without unchurching it should notice where the letter starts.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ 1 Corinthians 1:3.
The standard greeting, and the two words are the letter's whole medicine. Grace — everything given, which is the argument of chapter four's question, what do you have that you didn't receive? 1 Corinthians 4:7. And peace, to a church at war with itself. Paul opens by wishing them the two things they most conspicuously lack.
settled What this mark means