What was the purpose of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians?
The first letter to the Corinthians was written to upbraid and reprove that carnal congregation for its spiritual immaturity, especially its divisions. Paul addressed a church that had not grown into the deeper things of his teachings and whose members had split into four competing factions.
Les explains that Paul was writing the second letter to the congregation down at Corinth, located on the tip of Greece on the Mediterranean Sea, a little southwest of Athens. As seen in the first letter to the Corinthians, they were a carnal church, one of the congregations that had not begun to grow and envelop the deeper things of Paul's teachings. So that first letter was a constant upbraiding and reproving them of much of their carnality. One of their main problems was that they had divisions in the church. Even in that small group there were four distinct divisions: some said they followed Christ and His teachings, another group said they followed Peter, a third group said they followed Apollos, and a fourth said it was from the apostle Paul that they heard the gospel, became believers, and Paul was the one they would follow.