1 Corinthians 16 Footnotes

16:1-3 Two questions remain from the Corinthians’ letter. The first pertains to collection arrangements—Paul’s plans to come to Corinth to collect money for the impoverished Jerusalem church. The second refers to Apollos’s return to Corinth (v. 12). Apparently, Paul kept these answers until the closing stages of the letter to allow him to raise related matters, in particular Paul’s own plans to return to Corinth (vv. 5-9), the need to respect Timothy when he came (vv. 10-11), and the importance of submitting to local leaders: Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (vv. 15-18).

16:21-24 At the letter’s end, Paul took the pen from his amanuensis (scribe), concluding with these four sentences written in his own hand. Among these is the original Aramaic prayer Maran atha (“Come back, Lord”). This likely preserves the very words of the Jerusalem church’s invocation to the risen and ascended Jesus. This prayer indicates an early tradition known to Gentile Christians, which strongly supports an early belief of Jesus’s sharing God’s identity.

Paul’s curse on those who do not “love the Lord [Jesus]” (v. 22) picks up from 8:6, where Paul Christologically reconstructed the Shema (“Listen, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God … ” Dt 6:4-6). With Jesus’s resurrection and exaltation, the apostles, though Jews, now understood that the Lord Jesus is to be identified with Yahweh, the Lord, the God of Israel—something the Corinthian believers had been taught and indeed had publicly confessed at baptism (12:3,13). To reject that conviction now would bring God’s severe condemnation. Paul was not speaking here about the generality of unbelievers but about disbelieving church members.