Gordon Fee's work on I Corinthians is a contribution to The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Prepared by some of the world's leading scholars, the series provides an exposition of the New Testament books that is thorough and fully abreast of modern scholarship yet faithful to the Scriptures as the infallible Word of God.
Second Corinthians is the most personal and passionate letter of Paul’s correspondence. Written in the midst of a severe crisis that profoundly affected his relationship with the Corinthian community, the letter exhibits the full range of the Apostle’s emotions, from expressions of tenderness and love to outbursts of anger and resentment toward those who questioned his ministry.
Paul provides the Corinthians—and the contemporary Church—with a breathtaking exposition of apostolic ministry, portraying himself as the minister of a new covenant whose ministry is confirmed by his daily participation in the sufferings and death of Christ. As the minister of a new covenant, Paul allows people to "see" the glory of God on the face of Christ by "hearing" the paradoxical gospel of a crucified Christ who is the very image of God. As Christ’s ambassador, Paul calls people to embrace the reconciliation God offers the world through this crucified Christ in whom God makes all things new.
Focusing on the theological and rhetorical dimensions of this letter, and always attentive to its historical setting, Frank Matera provides a reading of 2 Corinthians that embraces the letter’s literary integrity. He maintains that Paul is addressing two crises at Corinth, one which has been resolved (the crisis of the painful visit) and one which still needs to be resolved (the presence of intruding apostles). In chapters 1–9 Paul deals with the first crisis and summons the Corinthians to complete the collection for Jerusalem. Building on this initial reconciliation and "boasting" in his weaknesses, in chapters 10–13 he responds to the charges that the intruding "super-apostles" and their Corinthian supporters have leveled against him. In this way Paul prepares the community for his third and final visit to Corinth.
First Corinthians provides a unique glimpse info the life of a young Christian community in a Gracco-Roman environment during the early decades of emerging Christianity. It supplies a range and richness of information about the early church that is unparalleled by any other New Testament document. Much effort has gone into reconstructing Christianity at Corinth; more recently, attention has focused on the Corinthian community itself. The scholarly picture of the Corinthian Christians throughout the period of modern interpretation has been far from constant, and their profile has altered as interpretive fashions have shifted.
This collection of classic and new essays charts the history of the scholarly quest for the Corinthian church from F.C. Baur to the present day, and offers the reflections of leading scholars on where the quest has taken us and on its future direction.
Includes essays by Walter Schmithals, C.K. Barrett, Nils A. Dahl, Gerd Theeissen, Richard A. Horsley, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, James D.G. Dunn, and many more.
Anthony Thiselton’s lengthy New International Greek Testament Commentary volume The First Epistle to the Corinthians (2000) has become a standard work on 1 Corinthians. In this "shorter" commentary Thiselton combines his excellent exegesis from that volume with a keen pastoral eye, enabling all to benefit.
Thiselton delves deeply into the context and text of Paul’s first Corinthian letter as he suggests, section by section, how the book applies to pastoral and practical issues. He draws vivid parallels between the growing church in Corinth and the twenty-first-century church, demonstrating that today’s church also faces a seductive culture of competition and consumerism. The church in Corinth preferred its self-centered theology to the cross-centered gospel of the wider apostolic church. Paul’s response in 1 Corinthians, amplified by Thiselton’s commentary, becomes a living, practical, transforming word from God for Christians today.
The Rhetorical Role of Scripture in 1 Corinthians, an exegetical analysis of all the explicit quotations and references to the Old Testament in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, examines the various authoritative roles that not only scriptural quotations but also other explicit references and allusions to scripture play in Paul’s rhetorical strategy in the letter. Through this careful examination Heil shows how each scriptural quote or reference speaks with the divine authority of the scriptures in general and affects the audience with its authority and rhetorical power. The end result is an enlightening portrait of the powerful impact that the Jewish scriptures exerted on Paul’s implied audience at Corinth.
This study shows that the common view of 1 Corinthians as mainly about "ethics" and therefore of little importance for "theology" needs correcting. Many other studies of the letter focus mainly on the details of the Corinthian situation and the moral teachings Paul conveyed to his congregation. While not ignoring these, Furnish's primary aim is to explore and clarify the theological orientation of 1 Corinthians, and what it can contribute to an understanding of Paul as a theologian. Furnish concludes that 1 Corinthians is important for both ethics and theology.
The resonances in the dialogue of Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians are difficult to detect unless the reader has some knowledge of the social, religious, and economic situation of the community to which the apostle was writing. In this lucid and clear survey, Father Murphy-O'Connor attempts to provide such background information, which he integrates skillfully into a flowing exposition of Paul's thought. St. Paul's theology thus comes to life as the complex interplay of factors that prompted him to write as he did to the Corinthians are examined and explored. In addition to providing a particularly accessible picture of the distinctive theological contribution made by 2 Corinthians, the author's book prompts new insights into the relation of Christ to the ministry of the Church.
