89 Fun Facts About 1 Corinthians

Which prime minister read 1 Corinthians 13 at the Westminster Abbey funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales?

Tony Blair read it in 1997, though Paul wrote this wedding favourite to correct a church where showy gifts such as speaking in tongues had become marks of status.

Which event gets its earliest written account in 1 Corinthians 11, with the words 'do this in remembrance of me'?

The Last Supper's oldest written account comes from Paul, who was not at the meal and says he 'received from the Lord' what he passed on.

Which 1741 oratorio sets lines from 1 Corinthians 15, including 'Behold, I tell you a mystery', in its final part?

Handel's Messiah takes most of its final part from this chapter, chosen by librettist Charles Jennens, a devout Anglican out to answer deists who denied divine intervention.

Which word does the King James Version use throughout 1 Corinthians 13 where most translations say 'love'?

Charity comes from the Vulgate's Latin caritas, probably picked over amor to avoid a sense of earthly passion, though English 'charity' has since narrowed toward almsgiving.

Whom does 1 Corinthians 15 name first among the people the risen Christ appeared to?

Peter, whom Paul calls Cephas, heads the list, while Mary Magdalene, the first to see the risen Jesus in John's Gospel, goes unmentioned.

Which Greek comic playwright does Paul quote in 1 Corinthians 15 with the line 'Bad company corrupts good character'?

Menander's lost comedy Thais probably supplied the line, though the historian Socrates Scholasticus took it as proof that Paul knew the tragedies of Euripides.

Which church still performs 'baptism for the dead', a practice 1 Corinthians 15:29 mentions without explaining?

The Latter-day Saints perform it in temples, with living proxies, citing this verse, yet some commentators note Paul speaks of 'those' who do it, as if keeping his distance.

Where does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15 that he 'fought wild beasts', a line read literally or as a metaphor?

Ephesus is where Paul wrote the letter, and many commentators take the beasts as a metaphor, since his Roman citizenship would have spared him the arena.

In 1 Corinthians 13:12, 'for now we see only a reflection' in what, 'then we shall see face to face'?

A mirror is the image, rendered 'through a glass, darkly' in the King James Version, the phrase that gave Ingmar Bergman's Oscar-winning 1961 film its English title.

1 Corinthians 5 condemns a man 'sleeping with' whom, a sin 'of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate'?

His father's wife, presumably a stepmother, and Paul's anger is as much at the church's pride in tolerating it as at the man, whom he orders put out of the fellowship.

Which co-sender of 1 Corinthians shares his name with the synagogue leader beaten in Corinth in Acts 18?

Sosthenes may be the same man, beaten while the proconsul Gallio 'showed no concern whatever', though commentators have long disagreed.

Which two men are the only Corinthians Paul says he personally baptized, apart from one household, in 1 Corinthians 1?

Crispus and Gaius are named so that 'no one can say that you were baptized in my name'; Acts 18 calls Crispus the synagogue leader, and Romans 16 calls Gaius host to 'the whole church'.

Whose 'household' informed Paul of the quarrels at Corinth, according to 1 Corinthians 1:11?

Chloe's people reported that the church had split into parties each claiming a favourite preacher, and Paul answers with 'Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?'

Which couple, expelled from Rome under Claudius, greet the Corinthians 'warmly in the Lord' in 1 Corinthians 16?

Aquila and Priscilla took Paul in at Corinth because, like him, they were tentmakers, and by this letter a church was meeting in their house.

In 1 Corinthians 5, 'a little' of what works through 'the whole batch of dough', Paul's image for tolerated sin?

Yeast is the image, and Paul ties it to Passover — 'Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed' — so the church should be 'a new unleavened batch'.

What does 1 Corinthians 6 say believers who sue each other 'before the ungodly' have already been 'completely'?

Defeated is the verdict, and Paul's alternative is startling: 'Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?'

What does 1 Corinthians 11 say 'the very nature of things' teaches is 'a disgrace' for a man?

Long hair on a man is the disgrace, yet Acts 18 seems to have Paul himself cut his hair 'because of a vow', perhaps one that meant letting it grow first.

What does 1 Corinthians 6:19 call the believer's body, just before reminding readers that 'you are not your own'?

The Spirit's temple is the image, 'your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit', and Paul's reason to honour God with the body is that 'you were bought at a price'.

What does 1 Corinthians 7 say it is 'better to marry than to' do, advising those who 'cannot control themselves'?

Burn with passion is the NIV's reading of the King James 'to burn', and Paul's case for marriage is blunt: 'since sexual immorality is occurring', each man should have his own wife.

What status does Paul say he wishes 'all of you' shared, in 1 Corinthians 7's advice on marriage?

Unmarried 'as I do' is Paul's own state, and his reason is that an unmarried man 'is concerned about the Lord's affairs', while a married man's 'interests are divided'.

Which animal must not be muzzled 'while it is treading out the grain', a law 1 Corinthians 9 applies to preachers?

An ox is the subject of the rule from Deuteronomy 25, and Paul asks 'Is it about oxen that God is concerned?' to argue that 'those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel'.

Which festival beside Corinth, held for Poseidon every two years, crowned its winners with pine?

The Isthmian Games drew athletes from all Greece to the sanctuary of Poseidon on the isthmus, and the 'crown that will not last' of 1 Corinthians 9 would have been a familiar sight to Paul's readers.

What does 1 Corinthians 10 say 'accompanied' Israel in the wilderness and 'was Christ'?

A spiritual rock, Paul says, perhaps echoing a Jewish legend that the rock Moses struck followed Israel through the desert, and he reads that rock as Christ.

Which letter from Rome, written about AD 96, rebuked the Corinthians for deposing their presbyters?

First Clement already tells the Corinthians to 'take up the epistle of the blessed Paul', which makes it one of the earliest witnesses that Paul's letter was being kept and read.

Which preacher does 1 Corinthians 3 say 'watered' what Paul had 'planted' in Corinth?

Apollos watered, yet when Paul later 'strongly urged' him to go back to Corinth, he 'was quite unwilling to go now'.

Where does 1 Corinthians 10 say believers may eat 'anything' without 'raising questions of conscience'?

The meat market is safe because 'the earth is the Lord's', Paul says, but if someone points out that meat was offered in sacrifice, he says not to eat it, for that person's sake.

Why, puzzlingly, does 1 Corinthians 11:10 say a woman 'ought to have authority over her own head'?

Because of the angels is all Paul offers, and John Chrysostom used the verse to argue that the covering should be worn continually, not only at prayer.

What does 1 Corinthians 11 complain happens at the Corinthians' shared meals while 'one person remains hungry'?

Another gets drunk, because each went ahead with their own food while those who had nothing went hungry, which is why Paul says their meetings 'do more harm than good'.

What does 1 Corinthians blame for many in Corinth being 'weak and sick' and some having 'fallen asleep'?

Taking communion unworthily, 'without discerning the body', had left some dead, since 'fallen asleep' means died, so Paul says everyone 'ought to examine themselves' first.

In 1 Corinthians 12's body metaphor, which part says 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body'?

The foot speaks first, then the ear complains it is not an eye, and Paul's answer is that God 'has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be'.

Without love, 1 Corinthians 13 says even speaking in 'the tongues of men' makes one 'a resounding gong' or what?

A clanging cymbal, a 'tinkling cymbal' in the King James Version, is what even tongues amount to without love, though Paul later claims to speak in tongues 'more than all of you'.

Which teacher from Sinope, later branded a heretic, kept 1 Corinthians in a canon of just ten Pauline letters?

Marcion's canon kept ten of Paul's letters beside a shortened Luke but threw out the Old Testament, whose God he held to be a lesser, merely just deity.

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul would rather speak five intelligible words in church than how many 'words in a tongue'?

Ten thousand words in a tongue lose to five that instruct, because in church, Paul says, 'everything must be done so that the church may be built up'.

How does 1 Corinthians 14, closing its advice on church meetings, say all things should be done?

Decently and in order is the King James wording, and the reason Paul gives is that God 'is not the author of confusion, but of peace'.

Which household, the only one Paul says he baptized, does 1 Corinthians 16 call 'the first converts in Achaia'?

Stephanas and two companions had travelled to Paul, and commentators think they carried the Corinthians' letter of questions that he answers from chapter 7.

On which day does 1 Corinthians 15's creed say Christ 'was raised', adding 'according to the Scriptures'?

The third day comes in a formula Paul says he 'received', which many scholars date to within a few years of the crucifixion, making it older than any Gospel.

Why does Paul call himself 'the least of the apostles' in 1 Corinthians 15, not even deserving the name?

His past as a persecutor of 'the church of God' is the reason Paul gives, before adding that by God's grace he 'worked harder than all of them'.

What does 1 Corinthians 15:26 call 'the last enemy to be destroyed', after all 'dominion, authority and power'?

Death is the last enemy, and the King James line 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death' is carved on Harry Potter's parents' grave in Deathly Hallows.

Which figure completes 1 Corinthians 15's line 'as in ___ all die, so in Christ all will be made alive'?

Adam is Paul's contrast for Christ because, he argues, mortality came through one man, so resurrection had to come through a man as well.

Which phrase for an instant appears where 1 Corinthians 15 promises 'we will all be changed'?

The twinkling of an eye is how quickly Paul says the dead will be raised imperishable and the living transformed, a secret he unveils with the words 'Behold, I tell you a mystery'.

What does Paul say he has become 'to all men' in 1 Corinthians 9, so that he might 'save some'?

All things is Paul's summary of a missionary method: he lived like a Jew among Jews, like a man outside the law among Gentiles, and like the weak among the weak.

Which motto does 1 Corinthians 15 say makes sense 'if the dead are not raised'?

Eat and drink, tomorrow we die is the logic Paul grants his doubters: without a resurrection, risking his life every hour would be pointless. The saying itself comes from Isaiah 22.

What does 1 Corinthians 10 promise will come with every temptation, so that it can be endured?

A way of escape comes with every trial, Paul promises, since God is faithful and no temptation is unique: each one is 'common to man'.

Which trade did Paul work at in Corinth to support himself, in Acts 18's account of his stay?

Tentmaking gave Paul both a wage and a home in Corinth: Acts says he lodged and worked with a Jewish couple of the same trade while arguing his case in the synagogue every Sabbath.

In 1 Corinthians 3, what does Paul say he fed the Corinthians because they 'weren't yet ready' for more?

Milk was all they could take, Paul says, and their jealousy and quarrelling proved they were no more ready for grown-up fare on the day he wrote.

How does 1 Corinthians 16 tell believers to greet one another as the letter draws to a close?

With a holy kiss was the standard early Christian greeting, later known as the kiss of peace, and the New Testament gives the same instruction at the close of five different letters.

What does 1 Corinthians 15 say 'can't inherit God's Kingdom', so that the living must be changed?

Flesh and blood is Paul's shorthand for the perishable human body, which he says must 'put on' immortality before it can enter that kingdom.

In 1 Corinthians 4, what does Paul say he and the other apostles are 'for Christ's sake'?

Fools is Paul's sarcastic contrast: the apostles go hungry, homeless and insulted while the believers in Corinth carry on as if they already reigned like kings.

Which sport does Paul picture in 1 Corinthians 9 when he says he does not fight 'beating the air'?

Boxing joins running in Paul's sporting images: athletes train hard for a prize that perishes, he says, so he keeps his own body under strict discipline.

Into whom does 1 Corinthians 10 say Israel was 'baptized', 'in the cloud and in the sea'?

Moses led them under the cloud and through the parted sea, and Paul treats that crossing as a kind of baptism before warning that most of them were struck down in the wilderness anyway.

What does 1 Corinthians 3 say will test each builder's work, be it gold, silver, wood or straw?

Fire will show what each person built on the foundation: lasting work earns a reward, while a builder whose work goes up in smoke is saved, but only like someone pulled from the flames.

To which city were approved messengers to carry the weekly collection described in 1 Corinthians 16?

Jerusalem was where the gift was headed: Paul had told the churches of Galatia to save for it too, and he offers to travel with the couriers himself if that seems fitting.

For what does 1 Corinthians 10 say believers should do everything, right down to their meals?

The glory of God is Paul's rule of thumb at the end of a long argument about dinner invitations: eat whatever is served, unless doing so would trouble someone else's conscience.

From which city did Paul travel on to Corinth in Acts 18, having just addressed the Areopagus there?

Athens was Paul's last stop before Corinth, and the contrast is striking: Acts gives him one famous speech there, then has him settle in Corinth for a year and six months.

What does 1 Corinthians 15 compare the dead body to, answering those who ask how the dead are raised?

A seed is Paul's answer to anyone asking what a resurrection body will look like: a bare grain of wheat goes into the ground, and God gives it a body of quite another kind.

According to 1 Corinthians 8, what 'puffs up' while love 'builds up'?

Knowledge was the Corinthians' boast, and Paul answers that anyone who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought; what counts is being known by God.

Which letter of Paul, the longest he wrote, stands just before 1 Corinthians in the New Testament?

Romans comes first because Paul's letters are arranged roughly by length, longest to shortest, rather than in the order he wrote them.

Which co-worker, called a beloved child, does Paul say he has sent to Corinth in 1 Corinthians 4?

Timothy was sent to remind the Corinthians of Paul's ways, and the letter ends by asking them to put him at ease when he arrives and to let no one look down on him.

What does Jesus call the cup he takes after the bread, in words Paul hands on in 1 Corinthians 11?

The new covenant is what the cup stands for, and Paul adds that whenever believers share the loaf and the cup they announce the Lord's dying until he comes.

Food offered to what is the subject of 1 Corinthians 8, with its care for weak consciences?

Idols are nothing real, Paul agrees, since there is only one God, yet he would rather give up such food for good than make a believer with a tender conscience stumble.

In 1 Corinthians 6, how were believers acquired, a reason to honour God in the body?

Bought with a price is a phrase Paul likes enough to repeat: in the next chapter it becomes his reason for telling believers not to become 'bondservants of men'.

Which one-word command does 1 Corinthians 6 give for sexual sin 'against his own body'?

Flee is the whole instruction, and Paul's reason is that every other sin is 'outside the body' while this one is committed against one's own.

What may married couples abstain 'for a season' to give themselves to, in 1 Corinthians 7?

Prayer is the purpose Paul allows, and only for a season both partners agree on: then they should come together again, so that Satan cannot exploit a lack of self-control.

Which Jewish rite does 1 Corinthians 7 call 'nothing' beside keeping God's commandments?

Circumcision made no difference either way, Paul says: a convert should stay as he was when called, neither seeking the rite nor trying to reverse it.

What does Paul ask if he should bring to Corinth in 1 Corinthians 4, rather than 'love'?

A rod or a gentle spirit is the choice Paul leaves with the arrogant, promising to come soon and find out whether their power matches their talk.

In what state does Paul say he first came to Corinth in 1 Corinthians 2, without fine speech?

Fear and trembling, along with weakness, marked his arrival: Paul says he set clever rhetoric aside on purpose, so that their faith would rest on God's power and not on human wisdom.

Which creatures killed Israelites who tested the Lord, as 1 Corinthians 10 warns?

Serpents bit the complaining Israelites in Numbers 21, and Paul retells such desert disasters as examples written down to warn later believers.

Who must 'be careful that he doesn't fall' in 1 Corinthians 10's warning from Israel's past?

Whoever thinks he stands is the one in danger, Paul says, having just listed how a generation that saw wonders in the desert gave way to craving, revelry and grumbling all the same.

Which instrument's 'uncertain sound' readies no one for war in 1 Corinthians 14?

The trumpet is Paul's picture of speech nobody can follow: a bugle call that cannot be read sends no one to battle, and words that cannot be understood are spoken 'into the air'.

According to 1 Corinthians 14, God is 'not a God of' what, 'but of peace'?

Confusion was the risk when everyone spoke at once, so Paul has the prophets speak one by one and tells a speaker to stop when a revelation comes to someone sitting nearby.

Which response to a thanksgiving does 1 Corinthians 14 want outsiders able to say?

Amen was the listeners' way of making someone else's thanks their own, so words spoken in a language nobody knew left the newcomer shut out. The same word is the last one in the letter.

Which short confession does 1 Corinthians 12 say can be made only by the Spirit?

Jesus is Lord is the shortest creed in the New Testament, and Paul sets it beside its opposite: nobody speaking by God's Spirit, he says, calls Jesus accursed.

Which group does 1 Corinthians 12 rank third in the church, after apostles and prophets?

Teachers come third in Paul's list, ahead even of miracle workers and healers, while speaking in different languages comes at the very end.

Whom does 1 Corinthians 15 list as seeing the risen Christ just before 'all the apostles'?

James here is usually taken to be the brother of Jesus, which makes the meeting striking: John's Gospel says those brothers had not believed in him.

Which harvest term does 1 Corinthians 15 use for Christ among 'those who are asleep'?

The first fruits were the opening share of a crop, offered to God before the rest was gathered: so Christ's rising, Paul argues, means his people will follow 'at his coming'.

What are believers 'of all men' in 1 Corinthians 15 if hope in Christ ends with this life?

Most pitiable is Paul's verdict on a faith with no resurrection in it: if Christ was not raised, he says, the preaching is empty and the apostles are false witnesses about God.

On which day of the week were the Corinthians to set money aside, in 1 Corinthians 16?

The first day is Sunday, the day Acts 20 has believers meeting to break bread at Troas; saving a little each week meant no hurried collection when Paul arrived.

Until which Jewish festival does Paul plan to stay where he is, in 1 Corinthians 16?

Pentecost is the Greek name for the Jewish Festival of Weeks, kept on the fiftieth day after Passover, and Paul meant to stay until then because his work was thriving despite many opponents.

Which Aramaic phrase, roughly 'Our Lord, come', appears as 1 Corinthians 16 closes?

Maranatha occurs only here in the New Testament, spelled out in Greek letters instead of being translated, and it turns up again in the early church manual called the Didache.

Which proconsul, a brother of Seneca, dismissed the case against Paul at Corinth in Acts 18?

Gallio refused to rule on a quarrel about 'words and names', and an inscription at Delphi naming him as proconsul gives historians a fixed point for dating Paul's travels.

Which Roman refounded Corinth as a colony in 44 BC, a century after Rome had burned it?

Julius Caesar refounded the ruined city shortly before his assassination, so the Corinth that Paul reached was a young Roman colony that had become the capital of its province.

What does Paul say 'has opened' to him in 1 Corinthians 16, despite 'many adversaries'?

A great door, 'and effective', is why he will not hurry to Corinth: he plans to stay on where he is, then come for a long visit and perhaps spend the winter with them.

Which fellow missionary does 1 Corinthians 9 name beside Paul as working for a living?

Barnabas, like Paul, earned his own keep instead of drawing the support other apostles received: a right Paul defends at length and then says he has never used.

Which composer set words from 1 Corinthians 15 in the sixth movement of his German Requiem?

Brahms chose his own texts from Luther's Bible instead of the Latin funeral Mass, and in that movement the chorus hurls Paul's taunt at the grave before a closing fugue of praise.

Which episode lies behind 1 Corinthians 10's quote that the people 'rose up to play'?

The golden calf was the occasion in Exodus 32, and Paul cites the feasting and revelry around it to steer his readers away from pagan banquets.

Which image does Paul apply to himself in 1 Corinthians 15, as last to see the risen Christ?

An untimely birth renders ektroma, a blunt Greek word that normally meant a miscarriage, and Paul puts himself at the very end of the list of witnesses.

At which eastern port of Corinth does Acts 18 say Paul shaved his head because of a vow?

Cenchreae handled Corinth's trade to the east across the Saronic Gulf, while a second harbour on the other shore served the routes west to Italy.

Which prophet's book supplies 1 Corinthians 15's taunt asking Hades where its victory is?

Hosea asked Sheol where its destruction was; Paul reworks the line as a cry of triumph and sets it beside a promise from Isaiah 25 of victory over the grave.

Which book does 1 Corinthians 3 quote for God taking 'the wise in their craftiness'?

Job supplies the line, spoken there by his friend Eliphaz, and Paul follows it at once with a psalm on how worthless the reasoning of the clever is.