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1 Corinthians Chapter 1
1Co_1:1-3 After saluting the church at Corinth,
1Co_1:4-9 and thanking God for his grace toward them,
1Co_1:10 Paul exhorteth them to unity,
1Co_1:11-16 and reproveth their dissensions.
1Co_1:17-25 The plain doctrine of the gospel, how foolish soever
in the eyes of the world, is the power and wisdom of
God to the salvation of believers.
1Co_1:26-29 God, to take away human boasting, hath not called the
wise, the mighty, the noble; but the foolish, the
weak, the despised among men.
1Co_1:30,31 Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption.
Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ: our common custom is to subscribe our name to the bottom of our letters; it seems by the apostolical Epistles, that their fashion was otherwise: he elsewhere telleth us, that it was his token in every epistle, which makes some doubt, whether that to the Hebrews was wrote by him; but others think it is there concealed, for the particular spite the Jews had to him. He had the name of Saul as well as Paul, as we read, Act_7:58 9:1: whether he had two names, (as many of the Jews had), or Saul was the name by which he was called before his conversion, and Paul his name after he was converted, or after he was made a citizen of Rome, (for Paul is a Roman name, nor do we read that after his conversion he was ever called by the name of Saul), is not worth our disputing. He was a man of Tarsus in Cilicia, by his nation a Jew, both by father and mother; an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, bred up at the feet of Gamaliel, one of their great doctors; he was also citizen of Rome, as himself tells us, Act_21:39 22:3,27 Php 3:5; by his trade a tent maker, Act_18:3; a great zealot for the Jewish ceremonies and law, and upon that score a great persecutor, consenting to the death of Stephen, and breathing out threatenings against Christians. Of his miraculous conversion we read, in Act_9:1-43, as also of his being called to be an apostle, not one of those first sent out by Christ, but yet called: he gives king Agrippa a full account of his calling, Act_26:12-19.
Through the will of God; so as he was an apostle by the will of God, God's special revelation from heaven: he did not thrust himself into the employment, but was sent of God in an extraordinary manner; not only mediately, (as all ministers are), but by an immediate call and mission.
And Sosthenes our brother: in the salutation prefixed to this Epistle, he joineth Sosthenes, whom he calls his brother. Of this Sosthenes we read, Act_18:17; he was a chief ruler of the synagogue, but converted to Christianity; Paul disdaineth not to call him his brother.