Book Review: 1 Corinthians by Thomas R Schreiner

The book of 1 Corinthians has been the church's go-to guide when it comes to the holiness of the church. In this book, we see issues dealing with marriage, church discipline, and spiritual gifts. It also shows us that we use to be like those who live in the world and we have been bought with a price.

Thomas R Schreiner has written a commentary on 1 Corinthians that breaks down all the historical settings of the book and how it applies to Christians in modern times. He does go over the major theological issues of 1 Corinthians in the beginning of the commentary such as who God is, how salvation is received, and also the church. Schreiner also goes over Paul's relationship with the Corinthian church and why he wrote this letter to them. He spends about five chapters introducing us to 1 Corinthians before we get to the meat of the commentary, which is the text itself.

Schreiner goes through the text of 1 Corinthians and helps the reader understand the points that Paul is addressing. I have to confess that one of the reasons I was interested in this commentary is that Schreiner is one of the leading voices of cessationism, which is the belief that the apostolic gifts have ceased when the Biblical canon was closed. As he was addressing the gifts of 1 Corinthians, I did not see anything on cessation in this commentary unless I missed it somewhere or it was written in between the lines.

To review a commentary is very tricky. Cannot go over a great deal of length over the book, but I do have to say that Schreiner does handle 1 Corinthians very well and should be on every theologians bookshelf whether you agree with his conclusions or not.

Thanks InterVarsity Press for letting me review this book.