Paul in Corinth

 Paul had experienced God’s grace at work so far in his ministry in Greece. Since God had directed him to go there through the vision of the man of Macedonia, he had planted churches in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea with the help of Silas and Timothy and one in Athens by himself. He had waited in Athens for Silas and Timothy to come to him, but when they did, it looks as if they went on other missions and Paul moved on to Corinth. Timothy went to see how the Thessalonians were (Paul tells us that in 1 Thessalonians), and Silas may have stayed in Athens to help the new church. The agreement was that they would meet up in Corinth.

The cities that Paul had been in recently had their own characteristics, but none were as degraded as Corinth. Philippi was a privileged city where each inhabitant was a Roman citizen,  Athens was the intellectual centre of the area, Corinth was a commercial centre, noted for the immoral worship taking place in connection to its temples. To be a Corinthian was notorious in the ancient world for immorality. We should not be surprised that Paul in his later letters to the church mentions some features of the city’s life and add, ‘such were some of you’ (1 Cor. 6:11).

 

What was Paul feeling when he came to Corinth? He tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5: ‘And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.’ We need to bear this in mind as we reflect on the details that Luke mentions about Paul’s time there.

 

Meeting friends in providence

In Corinth, Paul made new friends, and two of whom were to be his close friends for the rest of his life. Priscilla and Aquila are not only mentioned by Luke as helping Paul here, but they also helped him in Ephesus when he left Corinth, and later on Paul himself mentions them as using their house as a location for some believers in Rome to meet together. Why were they now in Corinth? Luke says that they had been forced to leave Rome by the emperor because they were Jews. 

 

Luke does not say why the Jews were forced to leave Rome, but we know from Roman historians that in AD 52 they were forced to leave because of riots connected to someone called Chrestus. Some suggest that the Roman historian misspelt the name Christ. If that is correct, there were strong disagreements among the Jews over different claims about the Messiah. An easy answer to the problem was to tell all the Jews to leave Rome, and so Priscilla and Aquila were in Corinth. They were Christians, and some wonder if Aquila had been in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost because some of the converts at that time came from Rome. Anyway, it is a reminder that Christians can be affected by ethnic concerns.

So Aquila and Priscilla found themselves ousted from their home in Rome. Providence seemed to be against them. We are not told why they came to Corinth. It has been suggested that it would be a suitable place for tentmakers to work. Maybe they were concerned about the future. Would Corinth throw them out? If they had not thought about that before, they could have once Paul told them that there had been riots connected to the Jews following his missions in Thessalonica and Berea, and that he had basically been thrown out of those cities.

 

But they were Christians and Christians believe that Jesus is the Lord of providence. The primary reason for them leaving Rome was not the whim of the emperor but the will of Jesus. In his timing, he arranged for them to be there when another Christian called Paul was looking for a place to stay, and the rest of the story is history. Christianity would not be the same without them because not only did they help Paul, but later on they also corrected Apollos, another Christian leader, when they sensed his lack of knowledge about some things.

 

It was only providence for them, it was also providential for Paul to find them. Their home gave him a base to work as a tentmaker and where he could talk to people about the faith. They would also have encouraged him since he was feeling low when he reached Corinth after his experiences in other places in Greece.

 

Paul and the Jews

We are not told how long it took Silas and Timothy to find Paul. By the time that they did, he had spent several Sabbaths testifying that the Christ was Jesus. Indeed, by the time they arrived, things were coming to a head in the synagogue in Corinth even as they had previously in Thessalonica and Berea. One would have imagined that the Jews would have been glad to know that their Messiah had arrived. But they did not like the message that Paul was preaching or the description of the One that he said was the Messiah.

 

It is interesting to note how Luke describes Paul’s preaching style with the Jews: reasoned, persuaded, and testified. ‘Reasoned’ indicates that gave information for them to think about; ‘persuaded’ that he aimed to get them to respond; and ‘testified’ suggests that he used his personal experience of Jesus among the words that he said. 

 

No doubt, Paul based his addresses on the Old Testament because his listeners would have accepted its authority. There are numerous passages that he could have used to draw attention to Jesus as the Messiah. We can imagine him taking a passage like Isaiah 53 and pointing out how it described both the sufferings and subsequent glory of the Messiah and then indicated how the passage had been fulfilled in the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus. 

 

Of course, it is not enough to provide information. In addition, Paul would have asked them what they were going to do with the details he had explained to them about Jesus. He would have pointed out that the only proper response was for them to repent of their sins and ask God for mercy in light because he had sent Jesus to make salvation available for them.

 

His testifying was bound to have included some reference to his own experience, perhaps because it was widely known among the Jews that Saul of Tarsus had been an opponent of the church before becoming a follower of Jesus. Even if that was not the case, it is a powerful statement to claim to have met Jesus. What do you say to someone who says that? You can either agree with him or not. But why would they make such a claim if it was not true and not likely to bring them any financial or other worldly benefits?

 

Eventually, the Jews opposed Paul and verbally criticised him in very strong language, including blasphemous statements. He took that as an indication that there was no likelihood that they would accept his message and therefore no point in him continuing to visit the synagogue. His response is very striking when he informed them that their destiny was their own choice, that he was innocent of any blame for them being in a lost eternity, and from now on in Corinth he would focus on the Gentiles.

 

Paul and the Gentiles

Verse 7 indicates that Paul now started a church in a house that was next door to the synagogue, a piece of information that he and they did not try and be as far as possible from the angry Jews. Probably they changed to meeting on the Lord’s Day for worship and fellowship. Luke tells us two names of the initial members. There was the owner of the house, Titius Justus, a Gentile who had been attending the synagogue. The other person was Crispus who with his family became founder members of the church. Maybe that is all there were to begin with, along with Paul and his friends, but it was not long before others joined them from among the Gentiles. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 16:15 that the first converts in Corinth were the household of Stephanas.

 

In one way, Paul says nothing personal about those converts, but in another way he does when he says that they were baptised. What does that detail say about them? This is important for us to consider, even if we have been baptised because it is useful to remind ourselves of what it involves. Four details are clear.

 

First, we can say that their willingness to be baptised indicates a confession that they needed cleansing from their sins. The need of cleansing is portrayed in the use of water. Second, baptism indicates a commitment to be a disciple of Jesus Christ – this is obvious from the great commission in Matthew 28. As his disciples, they would learn his revealed will from those he has called to teach. Third, baptism indicates an intention to congregate with others who have been baptised to meet with God in worship. Fourth, in Corinth, households were baptised as we can see from 1 Corinthians, which is a reminder that children participated. 

 

There are other details that we can add about baptism. First, in Corinth, it required a degree of courage because it was a statement that you were forsaking previous religious affiliations. Second, it revealed a recognition to conform to the demands of Jesus that his disciples should be baptised as soon as they became his followers. There is no delays in the New Testament as far as baptism is concerned.

 

Divine and human protection

Luke informs us that despite his gospel success Paul continued to be afraid. Maybe the Jews were continuing to make trouble for him and perhaps some Gentiles were doing so as well. His previous experiences in Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea would have made him wonder if such opposition would also take place in Corinth. Whatever the reason for his fear, the Lord sent him a special message stating that no one would harm him and therefore he could go on speaking about the faith. How would that happen? What measures would be taken to ensure Paul would be safe?

 

The Lord in his providence arranged for Paul to receive legal protection without him having to ask for it. Around the year 55 (Gallio was proconsul there for only a year), the Jews brought a case against Paul claiming that he had started an illegal religion. Reading between the lines, it looks as another ruler of the synagogue called Sosthenes had been converted (later, when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, Sosthenes is with him, as we can see from the beginning of that epistle). Gallio refused to get involved in the case and dismissed it. The Jews assaulted Sosthenes because of his new allegiance, but the outcome was that Paul was legally allowed to continue preaching in Corinth. 

 

In a change from his previous method on his missionary travels, Paul stayed in Corinth for eighteen months, a much longer period than elsewhere. We don’t know at what stage in that period he was given legal protection. But the Lord had told him that he had many people in that city who needed to be taught. Perhaps the Lord was also saying that he had many who were still unconverted but who would yet become believers. The Good Shepherd was taking care of his sheep and providing for them.

 

Applications

There are several lessons that we can take from the account of Paul’s stay in Corinth. The first is providence, which is seen in the arrival of Aquila and Priscilla at the same time as Paul, as well as in the way Gallio refused to get involved in the attempt to hinder Paul’s mission. Neither of those examples happened in the other places Paul had been in recently. But here we are being told that Jesus can use political powers to favour his church when he wishes, since both these examples are connected to political decisions.

 

The second lesson is that conversions can occur in sinful cities. Corinth was noted for its vice, yet here there were many conversions as Jesus sought and found his lost sheep. We know that problems occurred later in Corinth, but we cannot ignore that God called the converts his people. The church in Corinth is a reminder that awful sinners will be saved by Jesus.

 

A third lesson is to note the significance of baptism as an identifying mark of belonging to the church of Jesus. No one is in the visible church until they have been baptised. Jesus instructed his followers to practice it, and the disciples in Corinth did so, as Luke indicates. They made their profession and many in Corinth would have known that those people had a new allegiance to the God of heaven.