First Corinthians: Christianity In A Hostile Culture (Twenty-First Century Biblical Commentary)

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Summary: How Can you Live for Christ in This Sinful World--from AMG
Review: The Church at Corinth was far from the ideal model of a first-century apostolic church. It had been planted in one of the most difficult and challenging cities in the Roman world. The Greek word korinthiazomai (literally, "to act the Corinthian") in fact came to mean "to commit fornication." It was to this burgeoning young church, with all of its potential and all of its problems, that Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians.
The fundamental question Paul confronted wherever he carried the gospel was this: "How can those who have been called to belong to Christ be faithful to their new Lord while they must still belong, in so many ways, to this present age?" What church of any age has not struggled with this question?
The challenges facing the new community of believers in Corinth were not unlike the challenges facing the twenty-first century church. The issues of church unity, sexual immorality, marriage, divorce, litigiousness, modesty, authority, spiritual gifts, and hope are issues every church deals with while confronting the day-to-day problems of modern-day Christians who still struggle to live clean in Corinth. As the great apostle speaks to them regarding matters of Christian faith, life, and ministry, so he speaks clearly and loudly to us with them. thus he would remind us of the gospel "by which . . .[we] are saved" (15:2). Then he would challenge our generation to be "stedfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord" (15:58).

Dr. Daniel R. Mitchell is Associate Dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and professor of theological studies. Dan has been in full-time ministry since 1964, serving as a chaplain, pastor, and seminary professor. He has been with Liberty since 1976. He is a graduate of Washington Bible College (B.A.), Capital Bible Seminary (ThM), and Dallas Theological Seminary (STM, ThD). He was general editor of the King James Study Bible (Nelson) and consulting editor of the recently published KJV Study Bible (Zondervan). He has pastored two churches in Virginia during which time he preached through I Corinthians in anticipation of writing the present volume. In addition to Liberty, he has taught at Western Seminary, Tyndale Theological Seminary (Amsterdam, Holland), and the Associacao Brasileira de Ensino Cultura, Assistecia E Religiao (ABECAR) in Sao Paulo, Brazil.