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First Corinthians is unavailable, but you can change that!

Paul's first letter to the Corinthians was addressed originally to a fledgling mission church in Corinth. Paul's absence from the church had allowed serious problems to arise within the Corinthian community, but the problems that he addresses in this letter do not always seem based in explicitly theological ideas. The brilliance of Paul, though, is that the frames the issues theological terms and...

The Corinthians have reproached Paul for failing to provide sufficiently advanced instruction in wisdom. Paul replies with a direct shot at their self-proclaimed status as pneumatikoi: “I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.” The metaphors used here (adults vs. infants and solid food vs. milk) are stock language in relation to philosophical and religious instruction throughout the ancient world. The assumption is that spiritual progress
Pages 48–49