Mending What Is Broken: The Logic of the Cross in 1 Corinthians

In recent decades, scholars have come to see 1 Corinthians as a rhetorically unified response to the problem of divisions among Corinthian believers. This essay explores the ways in which Paul presents the cross as the organizing principle that can bind together three different forms of community division: the cult of the personality (1:10–4:21); the freedom to eat idol meat (8:1–11:1); and economic disparities when gathered for a meal (11:17–34). In each case, Paul appeals implicitly or explicitly to the cross as a remedy for the all-too-familiar strains on the fractured community. In the end, Paul’s countercultural message about the cross offers a word of exhortation for the American church today, as it navigates a society that shares much in common with first-century Corinth.