PAUL’S LETTERS · OUR SHARED CALLING
One Lord.
One body.
1 & 2 Corinthians invite us to hear Paul’s words together—as believers in Jesus Christ, across denominations and congregations.
“with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both theirs and ours”1 Corinthians 1:2 · World English Bible Updated
THE CONNECTION AT THE HEART OF STAY AT THE TABLE
His question still reaches us:
“Is Christ divided?”
Read these letters as a whole. Their call joins belonging to Christ with truth, love, repentance, care, and shared service. This is the biblical foundation of our invitation to Christians in every denomination and congregation.
Listen with gentle harp music. The spoken words or passage glow red as you follow.
The address reaches beyond one congregation
First Corinthians begins with a local church and a wider fellowship: the believers in Corinth, together with all who call on Jesus’ name in every place. Second Corinthians is addressed to the church in Corinth with all the saints throughout Achaia. These are real letters to particular communities. As Scripture, they also instruct Christians today, across denominations and congregations. Applying them to our divisions is a Christian reading of their message; Paul was not naming denominations that developed later.
1 Corinthians 1:1–3 · 2 Corinthians 1:1–2
‘Is Christ divided?’ is a question for us
Paul confronts Christians who organize their loyalties around Paul, Apollos, and Cephas. He directs them back to the crucified Christ and the one foundation, Jesus Christ. The question for us is searching: have the names of our groups become more important to us than the Lord we confess? Stay at the Table invites Christians to bring their convictions into a conversation centered on Jesus, with the humility to receive correction as well as offer it.
1 Corinthians 1:10–17 · 1 Corinthians 3:1–11 · 1 Corinthians 15:1–4
One body means we need one another
Paul describes different gifts, different forms of service, and the same Spirit and Lord. The eye cannot dismiss the hand. The members who seem weaker are necessary. If one member suffers, all suffer together. This is more demanding than being polite: it calls us to notice Christians outside our familiar circles, listen to the gifts they bring, and share their burdens. The body’s unity is a gift in Christ that we are called to live out.
1 Corinthians 12:4–7 · 1 Corinthians 12:12–27
Love shapes the whole conversation
The chapter on love stands within Paul’s teaching about the church and its gifts. Knowledge, eloquence, and even extraordinary faith do not make us faithful neighbors without love. Love is patient and kind, and it rejoices with the truth. Paul also challenges sin, disorder, and denial of the resurrection. His call to unity asks us to pursue truth with love, examine ourselves, repent where needed, and build up the church through words others can understand.
1 Corinthians 8:1–3 · 1 Corinthians 13:1–13 · 1 Corinthians 14:26 · 1 Corinthians 15:12–20
A shared table carries responsibility
In chapters 10 and 11, Paul speaks specifically about the Lord’s Supper: one bread, one body, and the shame of a gathering where some go hungry while others indulge themselves. His instruction to wait for one another gives the image of a table real moral weight. This website uses that image for conversation and shared service. Churches’ teachings about Communion deserve careful attention; an online gathering cannot settle those sacramental questions. Here, we can begin by refusing indifference to one another’s needs.
1 Corinthians 10:16–17 · 1 Corinthians 11:17–34
Reconciliation begins with God and changes us
Second Corinthians carries the call through strained relationships, suffering, correction, forgiveness, and restored trust. Paul says that God reconciles us to himself through Christ and gives a ministry of reconciliation. Its center is the gospel: be reconciled to God. That grace also gives us reason to open our hearts to one another, reaffirm love, and work toward restoration. Paul’s closing appeal is to be restored, be of the same mind, and live in peace.
2 Corinthians 2:5–11 · 2 Corinthians 5:14–21 · 2 Corinthians 6:11–13 · 2 Corinthians 13:5–11
Shared faith becomes practical care
Paul brings congregations into cooperation through a collection for believers in need. Generosity is willing, proportionate to what people have, and handled honorably. This gives our shared action a practical direction: pray together, identify real needs, offer our different gifts, and serve freely. Stay at the Table exists to help Christians across traditions practice that kind of faithfulness together. The measure is how faithfully we follow Christ and love the people he calls us to serve.
1 Corinthians 16:1–4 · 1 Corinthians 16:14 · 2 Corinthians 8:1–15 · 2 Corinthians 8:20–21 · 2 Corinthians 9:7–13
READ THE LETTERS FOR YOURSELF
1 & 2 Corinthians
Choose either letter and a chapter, or listen to a complete letter. Settle into the words with light Christian devotional harp music, and follow the red glow as they are read. You can turn the music off at any time.
2 Corinthians 5
21 verses · World English Bible Updated (WEBU) · English
Listen with gentle harp music. The spoken words or passage glow red as you follow.
Chapter 5 · New creation and reconciliation
5:1 For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.
5:2 For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven,
5:3 if indeed being clothed, we will not be found naked.
5:4 For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
5:5 Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit.
5:6 Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord;
5:7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.
5:8 We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
5:9 Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him.
5:10 For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
5:11 Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are revealed to God, and I hope that we are revealed also in your consciences.
5:12 For we are not commending ourselves to you again, but speak as giving you occasion of boasting on our behalf, that you may have something to answer those who boast in appearance and not in heart.
5:13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. Or if we are of sober mind, it is for you.
5:14 For the love of Christ compels us; because we judge thus: that one died for all, therefore all died.
5:15 He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.
5:16 Therefore we know no one according to the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.
5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
5:18 But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation;
5:19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation.
5:20 We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
5:21 For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Scripture is reproduced from the public-domain World English Bible Updated, the same English text used in the Table’s Bible reader. Chapter themes are reading guides. Read the source and its footnotes ↗
A WELCOME FROM DANIEL
The invitation we begin with
The opening letter brings this shared calling into the welcome at Stay at the Table.
Listen with gentle harp music. The spoken words or passage glow red as you follow.
Paul opens 1 Corinthians by addressing the church in Corinth together with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place (1 Corinthians 1:2). Before he challenges their divisions, he reminds them whom they belong to.
Some were saying, ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas.’ Paul asks, ‘Is Christ divided?’ (1 Corinthians 1:12–13). These were factions in Corinth, before the denominations we know today. Yet his question speaks to every denomination and congregation wherever loyalty to a name or a leader overshadows our belonging to Jesus.
That is the connection at the heart of Stay at the Table. Every believer in Christ is called to hear these words. We may worship in different congregations, but we call on the same Lord. Jesus Christ is our foundation, and his death and resurrection are at the center of the faith we share (1 Corinthians 3:11; 15:3–4).
Paul describes one body with many members who need one another. When one suffers, all suffer; when one is honored, all rejoice. He then shows us the way of love: patient, kind, humble, and rejoicing with the truth (1 Corinthians 12:12–27; 13:4–7). These words ask something of the way we treat Christians beyond our own church walls.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul speaks of God reconciling us to himself through Christ and entrusting a ministry of reconciliation. He calls believers to open their hearts, restore one another, and live in peace (2 Corinthians 5:18–20; 6:11–13; 13:11). Faithfulness includes repentance, truthful teaching, and love that becomes practical care.
This is why this table exists: to bring Christians across denominations and congregations together around Jesus and Scripture, to listen carefully, speak truthfully, pray, and serve together. Our differences deserve honest attention. Our shared belonging to Christ calls us to approach one another with humility and love.
I hope you will read these letters with us and bring that willingness to the conversation. Let all that we do be done in love (1 Corinthians 16:14). Welcome to the table.
Daniel
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