--- title: "1 Corinthians: Summary & All 16 Chapters · Bless" url: https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/ description: "The First Letter to the Corinthians, a letter to a community in 16 chapters. Bp. Challoner’s summary of all 16 chapters, and the full text free." --- New Testament # The First Letter to the Corinthians The First Letter to the Corinthians is the seventh of the 27 books of the New Testament: 16 chapters and 437 verses. [Start reading: 1 Corinthians 1](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/1/) Chapters 1–16: [1](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/1/) … [16](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/16/) ## About 1 Corinthians About 1 Corinthians · Letter to a community First Corinthians is Paul's letter to a gifted, quarrelsome young church in a booming port city, answering reported scandals and written questions one by one: factions, sexual immorality, lawsuits, marriage, food offered to idols, disorder at the Eucharist, and confusion about spiritual gifts and resurrection. Written from Ephesus a few years after he founded the community, it was composed to reorder every gift around love. It preserves the earliest written account of the Lord's Supper and the resurrection appearances, and its hymn to charity. *1 Corinthians in Bless* | | | |---|---| | Testament | New Testament — book 7 of 27, 53 of 73 in the Bible | | Canon | Protocanonical (in every Christian canon) | | Chapters | 16 | | Verses | 437, as Bless numbers them | | Latin | Clementine Vulgate, every chapter | | Bp. Challoner | Summaries of all 16 chapters · 36 notes | | Catechism | 152 paragraphs cite it | Chapter by chapter ## All 16 chapters, *in brief.* Bishop Richard Challoner’s summary of each chapter, from his revision of the Douay-Rheims (1749–52). Open a chapter for the full text. 1. ### [1 Corinthians 1](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/1/) 31 verses He reproveth their dissensions about their teachers. The world was to be saved by preaching of the cross, and not by human wisdom or eloquence. 2. ### [1 Corinthians 2](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/2/) 16 verses His preaching was not in loftiness of words, but in spirit and power. And the wisdom he taught was not to be understood by the worldly wise or sensual man, but only by the spiritual man. 3. ### [1 Corinthians 3](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/3/) 23 verses They must not contend about their teachers, who are but God's ministers and accountable to him. Their works shall be tried by fire. 4. ### [1 Corinthians 4](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/4/) 21 verses God's ministers are not to be judged. He reprehends their boasting of their preachers and describes the treatment the apostles every where met with. 5. ### [1 Corinthians 5](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/5/) 13 verses He excommunicates the incestuous adulterer and admonishes them to purge out the old leaven. 6. ### [1 Corinthians 6](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/6/) 20 verses He blames them for going to law before unbelievers. Of sins that exclude from the kingdom of heaven. The evil of fornication. 7. ### [1 Corinthians 7](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/7/) 40 verses Lessons relating to marriage and celibacy. Virginity is preferable to a married state. 8. ### [1 Corinthians 8](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/8/) 13 verses Though an idol be nothing, yet things offered up to idols are not to be eaten, for fear of scandal. 9. ### [1 Corinthians 9](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/9/) 27 verses The apostle did not make use of his power of being maintained at the charges of those to whom he preached, that he might give no hindrance to the gospel. Of running in the race and striving for the mastery. 10. ### [1 Corinthians 10](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/10/) 33 verses By the example of the Israelites, he shews that we are not to build too much upon favours received but to avoid their sins and fly from the service of idols and from things offered to idols. 11. ### [1 Corinthians 11](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/11/) 34 verses Women must have a covering over their heads. He blameth the abuses of their love feasts and upon that occasion treats of the Blessed Sacrament. 12. ### [1 Corinthians 12](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/12/) 31 verses Of the diversity of spiritual gifts. The members of the mystical body, like those of the natural body, must mutually cherish one another. 13. ### [1 Corinthians 13](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/13/) 13 verses Charity is to be preferred before all gifts. 14. ### [1 Corinthians 14](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/14/) 40 verses The gift of prophesying is to be preferred before that of speaking strange tongues. 15. ### [1 Corinthians 15](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/15/) 58 verses Christ's resurrection and ours. The manner of our resurrection. 16. ### [1 Corinthians 16](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/16/) 24 verses Of collection of alms. Admonitions and salutations. Bp. Richard Challoner · chapter summaries In the comments ## What the saints *said.* 20 quotations from 17 saints linked to passages of 1 Corinthians in Bless. Each names the work it comes from. [St. Francis de Sales](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-francis-de-sales/) · on [1 Corinthians 7:17](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/7/#v17) On this theme > Devotion must be practiced in different ways by the nobleman and by the working man, by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl, and by the married woman. Introduction to the Devout Life, I.3, 1609 [St. Peter Damian](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-peter-damian/) · on [1 Corinthians 9:27](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/9/#v27) On this theme > Fasting is the guardian of chastity, the mother of purity, the teacher of virtue. Letter to Leo of Sitria, c. 1060 [St. Leo the Great](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-leo-the-great/) · on [1 Corinthians 10:13](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/10/#v13) On this theme > Virtue is nothing without the trial of temptation, for there is no conflict without an enemy, no victory without strife. Sermon 22 on the Nativity, c. 441 [St. Ignatius of Antioch](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-ignatius-of-antioch/) · on [1 Corinthians 10:16](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/10/#v16) On this theme > Breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death, that we should live forever in Jesus Christ. Letter to the Ephesians, 20, c. 107 [St. Augustine of Hippo](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-augustine-of-hippo/) · on [1 Corinthians 10:17](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/10/#v17) On this theme > Be what you see; receive what you are. Sermon 272, c. 408 [St. Leo the Great](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-leo-the-great/) · on [1 Corinthians 10:17](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/10/#v17) On this theme > Our sharing in the body and blood of Christ has no other purpose than to make us become what we receive. Sermon 63 on the Passion, c. 452 ### 14 more, on the chapter pages - [1 Corinthians 11:24](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/11/#v24) St. Thomas Aquinas - [1 Corinthians 12:18](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/12/#v18) St. Thérèse of Lisieux - [1 Corinthians 12:31](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/12/#v31) St. Thérèse of Lisieux - [1 Corinthians 13:2](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/13/#v2) St. Catherine of Siena - [1 Corinthians 13:3](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/13/#v3) St. Teresa of Ávila - [1 Corinthians 13:4](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/13/#v4) St. John Bosco - [1 Corinthians 13:4](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/13/#v4) St. Clement of Rome - [1 Corinthians 13:7](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/13/#v7) St. John of the Cross - [1 Corinthians 13:8](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/13/#v8) St. Bernard of Clairvaux - [1 Corinthians 13:13](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/13/#v13) St. John of the Cross - [1 Corinthians 15:9](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/15/#v9) St. Patrick - [1 Corinthians 15:53](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/15/#v53) St. Irenaeus - [1 Corinthians 15:55](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/15/#v55) St. John Chrysostom - [1 Corinthians 16:22](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/16/#v22) St. Alphonsus Liguori Coming up ## Read at *Mass.* From October 29, 2026 to October 28, 2027, 1 Corinthians is read at the principal Mass on 13 days in the US calendar. The next 8 readings: | Date | Celebration | Reading | Citation | |---|---|---|---| | [Mon, Nov 9, 2026](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2026/11/09/) | Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome | Second Reading | [1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/3/) | | [Sun, Nov 22, 2026](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2026/11/22/) | The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe | Second Reading | [1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/15/) | | [Sun, Nov 29, 2026](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2026/11/29/) | First Sunday of Advent | Second Reading | [1 Corinthians 1:3-9](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/1/) | | [Sun, Jan 17, 2027](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2027/01/17/) | Second Sunday in Ordinary Time | Second Reading | [1 Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/6/) | | [Sun, Jan 24, 2027](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2027/01/24/) | Third Sunday in Ordinary Time | Second Reading | [1 Corinthians 7:29-31](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/7/) | | [Sun, Jan 31, 2027](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2027/01/31/) | Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time | Second Reading | [1 Corinthians 7:32-35](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/7/) | | [Sun, Feb 7, 2027](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2027/02/07/) | Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time | Second Reading | [1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/9/) | | [Sun, Feb 28, 2027](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2027/02/28/) | Third Sunday of Lent | Second Reading | [1 Corinthians 1:22-25](https://blessbible.app/bible/1-corinthians/1/) | Citations as published in the USCCB liturgical calendar (principal Mass, first option). Dates after May 31, 2027 are computed by Bless from the US Lectionary cycle — confirm with your parish. [Previous book The Letter to the Romans](https://blessbible.app/bible/romans/) [Next book The Second Letter to the Corinthians](https://blessbible.app/bible/2-corinthians/)