📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 1:7
What does 1 Corinthians 1:7 mean?
"so that you come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ;"
— 1 Corinthians 1:7 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
I always thank my God concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus;
that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge;
even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
so that you come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ;
who will also confirm you until the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
Explanation
1 Corinthians 1:7 comes near the beginning of Paul's letter, in a section where he is thanking God for the Corinthian church and reflecting on how richly God has blessed them. In plain language, the verse says that the believers in Corinth were not lacking any spiritual gift — they had been fully equipped by God — and that this equipping was meant to carry them forward as they waited expectantly for the return of Jesus Christ. Paul is not praising them for their own achievement here; he is praising God's generosity toward them.
To understand the context, it helps to remember that Paul is writing to a church he founded, a congregation in the bustling Greek city of Corinth known for its diversity, wealth, and moral and spiritual chaos. Despite the deep problems Paul is about to address later in the letter — divisions, pride, immorality, confusion over spiritual gifts — he opens with genuine thanksgiving. He acknowledges that God had given the Corinthians an abundance of spiritual gifts (charismata), such as knowledge, speech, and various manifestations of the Spirit, which he discusses at length in chapters 12–14. Verse 7 sits at the end of his opening thanksgiving (verses 4-9), which sets a tone of grace before he moves into correction.
Theologically, the verse highlights two important truths. First, spiritual gifts are gifts — they come from God's grace, not human merit, and the Corinthians' abundance in them reflects God's generosity, not their own spiritual superiority (a point Paul will stress later, since some
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