1 Corinthians

 The big context of 1 Corinthians is that the Corinthians were dividing among themselves according to different teachers. Each one was claiming that their teacher was the best, and they were using this as a source of identity and pride. In other words, they were each replacing Christ with their chosen teacher. Paul was pointing out that this was a fleshly and worldly way of thinking - immature, and the way of thinking that existed among the Jews and the Greeks. And in this, like the Jews and the Greeks, the Corinthian Christians were seeking worldly power and worldly wisdom. But the way of Christ was different, being the way of the cross.

It’s worth noting in this that Paul was making the Jews and Greeks parallel to each other, as ways that were different from the way of Christ. In other words, Judaism was not an option, but rather on the same level in relation to God as paganism. What Paul held to be true was completely the opposite of what Dispensationalism proposes today.

The sort of fleshliness and worldliness that existed among the Corinthians in their sectarianism is always accompanied by other forms of sin. And Paul was also seeking to address that in the book. Rather than taking the approach of humility, love, and sacrifice for one another, their overall approach was one of pride, power, contention, division, and self-exaltation. This is why chapter 13 reads the way it does. It may get read at weddings, but much of what Paul says in the chapter, and the way it fits in the larger context of the book, is skated over in doing so.