Second Sunday after Epiphany

The grace of God encompasses our past, present, and future

Commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Bryan J. Whitfield

The Sundays after Epiphany in Year A offer us several opportunities to engage the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul’s second letter (see 1 Corinthians 5:9) to a church he had established during his stay in the Roman capital of Achaia, in the southern part of Greece (between 50 and 52 CE; see Acts 18:1–18). Oral reports and a letter from some members of the congregation had come to Paul regarding serious problems they were facing. Paul addresses specific problems later in the letter (1 Corinthians 5–15), but in the initial four chapters, he seeks to unify the congregation, rekindle his relationship, and reestablish his ability to instruct them.

Paul’s greeting

Today’s passage includes both the salutation (1:1–3) and the thanksgiving (1:4–9) of the letter, the first two components that then lead into the body. In his salutation, or greeting, Paul follows the standard components of a Hellenistic letter—sender, addressee, greeting—but expands each element.

In identifying himself, Paul stresses God’s call that shaped his ministry as “an apostle of Christ Jesus” (1:1), a role grounded not in self-assertion but in divine initiative. Along with Paul, Sosthenes—possibly the same Sosthenes who had been “the official of the synagogue” at Corinth (Acts 18:17)—sends the letter.

Paul also expands the second part of the salutation, identifying the letter’s recipients not only as “the church of God that is in Corinth” but also as “those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1:2). As God’s call establishes Paul’s identity, it establishes theirs as well. Through union with Christ, God has sanctified them, or made them holy. They are set apart for relationship with God as agents of God’s mission in the world, echoing Israel’s covenant relationship as God’s holy people (Leviticus 11:44; 19:2; 20:26).

Yet the addressees include not only the believers in this one city but also “those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:2). In the biblical tradition, the practice of calling on, or invoking, the name of the Lord begins in the primeval and ancestral periods (Genesis 4:26; 13:4; 21:33). In the development of Israel’s faith, this act of calling on God indicates a posture of worship and prayer (1 Chronicles 16:8; Psalm 99:6; 105:1; 116:13, 17; Isaiah 12:4; Joel 2:32).

Yet here that worship and prayer are addressed to “our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:2), a characteristic practice that marks the early church (Acts 7:59; 9:14, 21; 22:16; Romans 10:12–14; 2 Timothy 2:22). Paul includes all who worship the Lord Jesus, regardless of physical location, as the letter’s recipients, framing this letter to the Corinthian church within the broader scope of the church universal.

To this audience, Paul extends grace “and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3). He changes the traditional Hellenistic word chairein (“greeting”) to charis (“grace”), echoing its sound but adding theological depth. To that foundation, he adds the traditional Jewish greeting of peace. These blessings come, not from Paul, but from God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul thus uses the familiar threefold form of salutation but recasts it, filling each element with theological significance that stresses a ground in God’s action, not human work. God calls Paul and the Corinthians. God sends Paul out as an apostle, and God sets the Corinthians apart through their union with Christ. The initiative, from start to finish, is an act of God’s grace.

Paul’s thanksgiving

In Paul’s letters, apart from Galatians, a prayer of thanksgiving follows the greeting. These prayers often point to themes that Paul will take up in the body of the letter and so always reward close examination.

Here, Paul’s prayer focuses once again on the divine initiative of grace. Through Christ Jesus, God gave grace and enriched the Corinthians “in every way” (1:5), including speech and knowledge, two attributes they value highly. Their abilities, Paul subtly reminds them, are not self-generated but come from God. God also has confirmed the testimony about Christ in their hearts so that the Corinthians lack no gift of grace (1:7).

Like the gifts of speech and knowledge, all their gifts come from God, including the ones they prize most highly (1 Corinthians 12–14). God’s grace leaves no room for self-congratulation or boasting, because God, not the Corinthians themselves, is the source of their giftedness (1 Corinthians 4:7, 8).

Furthermore, God’s work is not yet complete. The Corinthians still await “the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:7). This future day of Christ’s coming will not only be a day of hope but also a day of judgment. Yet the Corinthians should not be fearful, because Christ will also strengthen them so that they “may be blameless” on the day he returns (1:8).

Their future hope is sure, for “God is faithful” (1:9). In the Hebrew Scriptures, God is the God of steadfast love, loyal to the covenant promises made to Abraham and, by extension, to his heirs, the people Israel (Deuteronomy 7:9). In the same way, the Corinthians now can rely on God as well, for God has called them “into the partnership of his Son” (1:9). Paul’s language here conveys not only their partnership with Jesus Christ but also their communion with one another as members of the fellowship Jesus creates.¹

This rich opening of the letter offers us several avenues for preaching. One possibility is to craft a sermon that is itself in the form of a greeting and thanksgiving that grounds proclamation in the grace of God. Paul’s words can lead us to give thanks for our own congregations as those whom God has set apart and gifted in every way for ministry. We, too, proclaim that “God is faithful” (1:9) and will strengthen them to the end (1:8), assured that the grace of God encompasses their past, present, and future.