The Letters
- When
- c. AD 53–55
- Written by
- Paul
- Chapters
- 16
The big idea
To a gifted but divided church Paul answers questions about factions, the body, marriage, idols, worship, the Eucharist, spiritual gifts, love and the resurrection.
Themes
- Unity in Christ
- Love
- The body is holy
- The resurrection
- The Eucharist
Memory verse
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Key passages
- 1:18–31The word of the cross
- 11:23–29The Lord’s Supper
- 12One body, many members
- 13Love
- 15The resurrection
Links to other Scripture
- Acts 18:1–18The church founded
- Matthew 26:26–28This is my body
- Romans 12:4–8Many members
- Isaiah 25:8Death swallowed up
Read the text
Choose a chapter to read it here in the King James Version. Verses with a dotted underline have notes from Bible scholars. Tap one to open them.
Notes from
Chapters
King James text and the commentaries of Henry, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Gill, Clarke, Calvin, and Keil and Delitzsch are in the public domain. Tyndale Open Study Notes are used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, from tyndaleopenresources.com. Texts were reformatted for this site.
Journal prompts
Keep a journal or notebook for your study. Write your answers there, in your own words.
- Where do you see Christ in this book?
- Paul says the cross looks like foolishness. What part of the gospel still sounds foolish to you?
- Read chapter 13 slowly. Where do you fall short of love, and where has someone shown it to you?
- Paul says the resurrection is the heart of the faith. What difference does that make to you on an ordinary Tuesday?
- In one sentence, this book is about…