Corinth was a wealthy port city, full of trade, culture, and also immorality. It was there that Paul spent a year and a half preaching the gospel and saw a church born, full of spiritual gifts, abilities given by God to serve the church.
Years later, now living in Ephesus, Paul received troubling news. The church in Corinth was divided into rival factions and tolerated sins that would have shamed even its pagan neighbors.
The church itself had also sent a letter with questions about marriage, food offered to idols, and the proper use of spiritual gifts. Paul answers each point with pastoral clarity.
The letter corrects with frankness, but never with coldness. Paul confronts sin without giving up on the church he himself had helped form in Christ.
In the middle of the correction stands one of the most beloved passages in all of Scripture, the chapter on love. There Paul teaches that no gift, however impressive it may seem, has value without love.
The letter also firmly defends the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Without that historical fact, Paul says, all preaching and all Christian faith would be useless.
1 Corinthians shows that the gospel changes not only what a person believes, but also how they live: in marriage, at work, in worship, and in dealing with a brother or sister weaker in faith.
It is a letter written to a real church, imperfect, but loved by God. It is worth reading slowly and letting it also correct and console the heart of the reader today.