The Corinthian church was obsessed with image. They wanted others to look up to them with awe and respect. St. Paul writes the letter of 1 Corinthians to turn them away from these things, and this introduction to the letter summarizes many of the themes to which Paul returns in this letter.

What are these things? Paul hints at them with the words “speech” and “knowledge” and “gift.” The Corinthians had three things with which they struggled most. They looked up to the Sophists, a movement of charismatic speakers who gained fortune and fame by being eloquent. They looked up to the Stoic philosophers, who showed how great they were by their wisdom (St. Paul even quotes them in this letter). They looked up to those with impressive spiritual gifts, especially speaking in tongues and prophecy.

But the obsession with these gifts divided the congregation, the eloquent against those who stumble over their words, the wise against the foolish, the spiritually powerful against the spiritually weak. Is that what the Christian church should be like?

St. Paul tells them that the only gift that matters is Jesus, and God supplies us with every speech, every kind of knowledge, every kind of gift through Jesus’ grace.