1 Corinthians 01 Round Two: Family Therapy Session

A city that never sleeps. A church that can’t stop arguing. And a letter that calls everyone back to the one thing that actually holds. We sit with 1 Corinthians 1 and watch Paul step into Corinth’s noise—status games, charismatic leaders, and clever speech—and tune the room with the sound of the cross. Not a slogan, not a brand, but the power of God that levels pride, heals division, and turns quarreling notes into harmony.

We start with the backstory: how a bustling port city shaped a young church and why Paul wrote multiple letters to address fractures that wouldn’t heal on their own. From there, we trace the core conflict: “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Peter,” and the subtle temptation to treat leaders like banners for identity. Paul refuses to play favorites. Instead, he lifts up the foolishness of the cross as wiser than the brightest rhetoric and stronger than the toughest willpower. Jews wanted signs, Greeks wanted wisdom; God offered Christ crucified, the only message deep enough to save and simple enough to unite.

You’ll hear a working picture of unity that actually fits real life. Unity isn’t cloning; it’s harmony. Different notes, same key. We explore how spiritual gifts thrive when centered on Jesus rather than status, why remembering our calling dismantles boasting, and how “boast only in the Lord” becomes a practical habit for teams, families, and churches. If you’re tired of drama or stuck in a cold war with people you love, this chapter offers a map: stop fighting to win; start fighting for the relationship. Find common ground at the cross and build from there.

If this resonates, share it with someone who needs a reset, subscribe for daily chapter breakdowns, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. What’s one place you can choose harmony this week? Let us know—we’d love to cheer you on.

Contact us-

Ask a Question
Send Encouragement

Take a Next Step-

SOAP Bible Study Method.
Bible Reading Plan.
Free Weekly Newsletter.

Socials-

Facebook.
Instagram.
X.
YouTube.

The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Today’s Focus
• 0:45 Community Support And Invitations
• 1:39 Corinth’s Backstory And Culture
• 3:25 Why Paul Wrote Multiple Letters
• 4:55 Harmony Versus Unity Explained
• 6:02 Issues Paul Will Address
• 7:38 Reading 1 Corinthians 1: Greeting
• 9:16 Gifts, Calling, And Gratitude
• 10:25 Report Of Divisions In Corinth
• 11:32 The Cross Over Cleverness
• 13:05 Jews, Greeks, And God’s Wisdom
• 14:30 Boast Only In The Lord
• 15:48 Applying Harmony To Relationships

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, First Corinthians chapter one. And if I had to give this one a title, it would be Family Therapy Session. You know, the overall idea of this is a church that's divided finds harmony in the kingdom of God. And we're going to talk about what all that looks like because, man, if you want to talk about, you want to talk about an interesting book. We're going to, first and second Corinthians, we're going to get into that in just a moment. But if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel. And I want to say thank you. I've been seeing so many more of you are doing that. Please do me a favor, go on all your social media accounts and show them what we are doing. We're reading God's word every day. And I would love to share this with more people. Also on the podcast, thank you. I've been seeing all of you on Spotify who's starting to give us those five-star reviews, and it really does help us get the word out. And so I'm so thankful for that. Make sure you're leaving us a five-star review. And I would love for you to also leave us a comment on how you are connecting with God's word. And then the rally point for all of us is the Facebook group, Bible Breakdown Discussion. And I'm going to tell you something. Those people that are doing those devotions, they keep on taking it to next levels, and it is amazing. So thank you to the team. They're doing wonderful. And you are inspiring all of us to dig deeper in God's Word. And I'm excited to hear what they do with First Corinthians. So if you've got your Bible with you, you want to open it up to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, I want to talk to you a little bit, as we always do on chapter 1, about 1 Corinthians, and then we're going to dive in. So it was written about 55 A.D. So that's about 25 years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. What happened was is the Holy Spirit came down to the day of Pentecost. And then for a little while, everybody hung out in Jerusalem. But because of persecution and different things, the church started to scatter. And then God started reaching more and more people. And then a guy named Paul was not a fan, and his name was Saul at the time, and he was trying to destroy Christianity. But then Jesus got a hold of it. Jesus appeared to him on a road to Damascus when he knocked him off of his donkey, headed that way, and he became an amazing Christian. And over the course of Paul's life, he went on three different missionary journeys. And along his journey, he goes to one of the biggest cities in the Roman Empire. It was a port city. And if you know anything about, like, you know, like pirates, you know, like Pirates of the Caribbean, when they have like these port cities they would go to, and they were as wild and crazy and looked like a lot of fun, but also like a whole lot of chaos, like Las Vegas, right? That is the city that Paul goes to, and it's called the city of Corinth. And while he is in Corinth, he ends up starting a church. And from the beginning, Corinth looks like a place that's a lot of fun, but it's also a dumpster fire. It is just a conglomeration of different people from all over the world who are coming and going, bringing their cultures with them. And so it is just fireworks. Well, later he leaves Corinth after being there for, I don't know, a couple, three years, and he goes to a city called Ephesus. And Ephesus is wonderful. He's there, church is growing, great things are happening. I mean, it's just wonderful. And he starts to hear murmurs that all is not so well back in Corinth. It's a very vibrant place with this melting pot of all these different cultures are having divisions. And he really just wants to write to them and say, Can't we all just get along? Why can't we all just be friends? Well, the reason why is because we had so many people groups and all their other religions and all their other things. And it just was creating this headache for everybody. And so Paul ends up writing a total of four letters back to the church at Corinth. And what we now have is the inspired word of God as First Corinthians was not the first letter that Paul wrote. We can see that because later on in 1 Corinthians, he talks about, you know, as I told you in my previous letter. So likely what happened is God, not God, Paul wrote a letter to the church in Corinth. They responded by asking questions and telling him more about bad things that are going on. And then Paul writes back again, and that is what the Holy Spirit inspired to where now we have 1 Corinthians. We also lost the third letter that he wrote to them, and then we have the fourth letter that is what we now call 2 Corinthians. And what he is doing is he's answering questions and he's trying to basically bring a divided church into harmony together. And it really looks like almost like Pastor Paul has said, okay, church, all you people, like I want you to collectively come into my therapy office, get on the couch, and let's talk about it. And so he is doing a family therapy session, trying to bring just this, uh, just this uh harmony back into alignment. And I say harmony instead of unity because unity is when everybody is singing the same note. Everybody is on the same page. Harmony is when you may be singing different notes, but they go together. And that's one of the things we have to be careful to realize when it comes to church life, especially. We don't all have to be singing the same note. We just need to make sure that our notes are in alignment with one another. That we may not be singing the same, but they go together. And that's what Paul's saying. You guys are all different. That can be what destroys you, or it can be what brings you together. And so he is gonna spend time just bringing order out of chaos. We're gonna learn in 1 Corinthians about what we should do with marriage. What should we do when we get into division with one another? Should we take one another to court or should we try to do something different? What should we think about the spiritual leaders in our lives? It appears as though the people of Corinth didn't think much of their leaders. They come and go, so I don't really care. Is that how we should look at it? How should we conduct ourselves with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that we call the gifts of the Spirit? What should that look like in an everyday church service? What binds the gifts of the Spirit and the flowing of the gifts of the Spirit and a church service together? What is that one thing that binds it all together? What happens when we die? What does it look like in the afterlife? All of these different things, Paul is trying to bring order from chaos. And so as we read through this, one of the things I think is kind of interesting to do is imagine what Paul is correcting when he's saying this. Perhaps he's correcting how to properly use the gifts of the Spirit because people be at be acting like fools. They're doing the wrong thing. Maybe he's talking about what the afterlife looks like for a Christian because there's all kinds of ideas out there. Maybe he's talking about how to properly treat your leaders because they're not doing it right. As a matter of fact, there's a place where it says, I've tried to convince Apollos to come back to you, he don't want to come. According to legend, Apollos was trying to manage the church in Corinth, and he got so frustrated with them that he left. And when Paul, the Paul, asked him to kind of let it go and go on back, he said, No, I'm staying away. So this place was hard. This place was difficult, and that's kind of like what we all are, right? We all have our difficult moments. And so if you're ready now, giving you the background, we're gonna dive into chapter one, where Paul is basically kind of giving them an overview of what he's gonna do. So let's dive in and see what God's word has to say to us. Here we go. First Corinthians chapter one, verse one. This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Sosenes. I'm writing to God's church in Corinth to you who have been called by God to be his own holy people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did for all people everywhere who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. Pause. First of all, when you read the letters of the New Testament by Paul, this is a typical normal Roman greeting. Therefore, we're going to expect to see these throughout all of these. This is a very Roman first century way of just saying, What's up? So that's what he just said. What's up, everybody? It's me, your brother Paul. Here we go. Verse 4. I always thank my God for you and for the glorious gifts he has given you. Now that you belong to Christ Jesus, through him, God has enriched your church in every way with all your eloquent words and all your knowledge. This confirms what I told you about Christ is true. Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be free from all blame on the day our Lord Jesus Christ returns. God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. So in other words, he's saying, God has given you guys great ministry, great opportunities, and you are poised to make a difference in your world. Verse 10, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. For some members of Chloe's household have told me about your quarrels, my dear brothers and sisters. Some of you are saying, I am a follower of Paul. Others are saying, I follow Apollos, or I follow Peter, or I follow only Christ. Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not. I thank God that I did not baptize any of you jokers, except for Crispus and Gaius. Well, from now on, no one can say that anybody were baptized in my name. Oh yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanus, but I don't remember baptizing anybody else. For Christ didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the good news. And I did not, and not with clever speech, for fear that the cross of Christ would be law, would lose its power. For the message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction. But those who are being saved know that it is the very power of God. As scriptures say, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and disres disregard the intelligence of the intelligent. So where does this lead the philosophers and the scholars and the brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God and his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has made our foolish preaching to save our he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews who ask for signs from heaven. It is foolish to Jew to Greeks who seek human wisdom. So when we preach Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense. So pause again. Notice how a minute ago he says, hey, here's why I'm writing you. Because some people in Chloe's family came to me and said, It's crazy over here, Paul. It's just divided all over the place. And so he's saying, I'm writing because you need to find harmony. And then he's saying, understand that the rally point for all of us needs to be the gospel, because it is the simplicity of the gospel. Men and women are sinners. Jesus came to save sinners. We put our hope, our trust in him, and we find salvation. He's saying the Jews, man, they want a sign from heaven. The Gentiles want it to be more complicated. But it is in that that God has done it. He said, so we all have to find the one rally point, and it needs to be God. Verse 24. But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans. God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength. Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world's eyes, or powerful or wealthy, when God called you. Instead, God chose things that the world would consider foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose the things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and he used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God. God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit, God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God, and he made us pure and holy and freed us from sin. Therefore, as the scriptures say, if you want to boast, boast only about the Lord. So as we finish up today, what Paul is saying to them is, you guys have got to stop fighting. You have to find a rally point, a place where then you can go from. And I think that's wonderful wisdom for all of us. It's almost like Paul is bringing the entire church and he's saying, let's have a family therapy session so that by the time you leave here, we can have a place to go. And I know I've talked to people before that have dealt with issues with their kids or issues with their parents or issues with family members or spouses or whatever. And they go sit in therapy. And one of the first things they say is, let's find common ground to which we can build on. Even if the common ground is, I'm not going to stop fighting for this relationship. I'm going to stop fighting with you. I'm going to start fighting for this relationship. And that's almost what Paul is saying. He's saying, let's rally around one thing. And that is, if you want to boast, boast in the Lord. And so as we read through this together, I'll be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure what God is going to say to you and to me every single day. That's why after we finish reading this, we have some music that'll play for two to three minutes to give you an opportunity to soak on it and see what God would bring out to you. But nothing else. Maybe you're struggling in a relationship right now. Maybe there's some unforgiveness there, some unmet expectations there, or there's something there that's causing you some pain. What would it look like if you decided, as for me, I'm going to stop fighting with this person and I'm going to start fighting for this relationship? I'm going to start fighting for the things we have in common. I don't know. But what if instead of giving up for one more day, you did what Paul is telling the church of Corinth to do? I'm going to boast in the Lord and I'm going to find common ground. I don't know. Maybe that's not for you. Maybe it's for you to hold that. And at some point today, you're going to talk to someone who needs to hear it. But when we pray and ask God to give us wisdom as we move forward in 1 Corinthians. Father, thank you so much for your goodness, your mercy, your kindness. Well, there may be some people that are listening to this or watching this that they're going through the best season of their life. And maybe as they read this today, you're tucking away something in their heart that they can share with someone else. Or maybe they're going through a difficult season and they feel like they're fighting on every side. And that throughout 1 Corinthians, you'll speak to our hearts and you'll change our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen. My hope for you is our theme verse throughout this reading is 1 Corinthians 10 31 says, So, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for First Corinthians chapter two.