*1:1 He acknowledges a junior partner.
†1:2 Since there were probably several local congregations meeting in homes in Corinth, not to mention “everywhere”, I have rendered ‘church’. Note that Paul obviously intended that his letter have a wide circulation, very wide.
‡1:2 If your life style is still that of the world, you have not been ‘sanctified’.
§1:2 Called by God.
*1:2 Clearly Paul knows that he is not writing just for the Corinthians. But just how is this letter going to get to believers “everywhere”? If Paul himself did not make copies, presumably the congregation that received the ‘original’ would set about making certified copies.
†1:2 “Yours” is the reading of the best line of transmission, as I see it, being part of 25% of the total of manuscripts. But the idea is a bit awkward, and the change of one letter solved the ‘problem’, as in the 75%—‘theirs and ours’ is straightforward.
‡1:3 Where ‘Lord’ occurs without the definite article, as here, I usually render ‘Sovereign’; with either ‘the’ or ‘our’ I usually render ‘Lord’.
§1:6 As the Message was progressively confirmed in them, they were progressively enriched with the things mentioned.
*1:7 It appears that the early Christians expected the Lord to return at any time, which would tend to have a sobering effect upon one's style of living.
†1:8 The “Day of our Lord Jesus Christ” includes the accounting for all those who are in Him. So the promise here is major, and verse 9 starts with ‘God is faithful’.
‡1:9 “Called into fellowship” sounds like an ongoing exchange.
§1:9 To the ‘Western’ mind it may seem like Paul was being a bit repetitious; but Paul was a Jew—he is making very sure that they know where he is coming from, and where he wants to take them.
*1:10 The name represents the person.
†1:10 They are not being told to repeat things like parrots, but to be in essential agreement about important points.
‡1:10 They have drifted.
§1:11 Paul cites his source.
*1:17 If water baptism were essential to salvation, I fail to see how Paul could have expressed himself in this way—he is clearly implying that water baptism is not an essential part of the Gospel. In the early Church people were baptized immediately, not after weeks of ‘preparation’, because the convert was publicly breaking with Satan and his kingdom and formally placing himself under Christ's protection. Such baptism is an important procedure, and its value should be explained to any new convert.
†1:17 Dear me, is eloquence the enemy of power? Does not eloquence give glory to the speaker rather than to Christ? Perhaps not inescapably, but the tendency is definitely there.
‡1:18 We are accustomed to ‘perishing’. The verb here has a considerable semantic area and can be rendered—destroy, kill, deprive, void, lose, perish—depending on the context, but I believe the root idea is ‘waste’. The only way to fulfill the purpose for which you were created, to realize your potential, is to turn your life over to Jesus. The alternative is to waste your life, both now and forever. Of course the enemy works to make people think the opposite.
§1:19 See Isaiah 29:14.
*1:23 To the Jews, their Messiah would be a conquering king, and since death on a cross was viewed as a curse (Deuteronomy 21:23, Galatians 3:13), a crucified Messiah was simply unthinkable. What did the Greeks want with someone else's Messiah, especially a dead one—sheer nonsense!
†1:25 We like to forget this, but it is best not to do so. Arrogant servants of Satan often use stronger terms than ‘foolishness’—they will use ‘repugnant’, ‘ridiculous’, ‘intolerable’, etc.
‡1:29 This is the bottom line. Several times the Text declares that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. “Flesh” here refers to human beings.
§1:30 We receive Christ's righteousness to get started; the sanctification is to keep us clean along the road; the redemption is the final victory. Now really, isn't that a wonderful salvation? Thank you, Jesus!
*1:31 See Jeremiah 9:24. Since God has given us all we have, to glory in self is wrong.