Founding the Church in Corinth (Acts 18)

Corinth was one of the most influential and morally corrupt cities in the Roman Empire. Yet it became home to a growing church. In this episode, we study Acts 18 to explain how and why Paul founded a church in Corinth, what made Corinth strategic, and how God used unexpected partnerships to advance the gospel.

Series: 2 Corinthians: When Church Hurts

Series: 1 Corinthians: Pride & Prejudice in the church

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Transcript

Krisan Marotta 0:01

Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krissan Marata, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today we're going to study Acts 18, which covers Paul's time in Corinth. This podcast was originally broadcast before my series on 1 Corinthians. Next week we will launch a new study on 2 Corinthians, so I'm bringing you this Encore podcast as background for understanding Paul's letters to the Corinthian Church. I'm so glad you joined us today, and I hope you enjoy the news series. Before we get into Acts 18, I want to talk a little bit about the city of Corinth. Corinth was an exceptionally wealthy and important city in Greece at the time of Paul. It had access to both the Adriatic and the Aegean Sea. It was on an isthmus, this narrow strip of land that connected to the mainland. So ships could come in on one side, say they came in from Rome, and they could unload their goods and cart them across this narrow land bridge and then load them onto another boat and be on the other side on their way into Asia without going out into the open sea. You could think of it as kind of an ancient land version of the Panama Canal. If a boat was small enough, they could drag it from one side to the other on this specially built road. So Corinth was a very important hub for sea travel. It also had an important military outpost. It had three big harbors and a high hill that raised straight out of the plain, and on that hill there was a military fort. So Corinth was strategic for both commerce and for their military. They could control the isthmus and they could guard and regulate all the sea traffic that came into the area. In Paul's time, Corinth was the second most important city in the empire. The imperial family would visit Corinth for their vacations, and the city was known for decadence and sexual immorality. It had a reputation for being exceptionally wealthy and morally loose. You can think of it as kind of the Las Vegas of its day. One ancient author coined the term to Corinthianize, meaning to commit sexual immorality. That was how bad its reputation was. About 200 years before Paul wrote the first letter to Corinth, Corinth was destroyed by the Romans. It lay in ruins for a while and then was rebuilt in approximately 46 BC by Julius Caesar. It was the capital of the Roman district of Achaia. It had a population of about 200,000 free citizens and another 500,000 slaves. After the Romans rebuilt Corinth, they had to have someplace to send their freed slaves. So they said, Great, we'll give them this new rebuilt city of Corinth. So it had a large population of former slaves who were now free. The patron god of Corinth was Poseidon, the sea god, but they also had a big temple for Aphrodite. As with most of the ancient Greek gods, the temple had about a thousand priestesses who were basically prostitutes. You would worship Aphrodite by visiting a temple prostitute, and that's going to come up in the letter. It was a huge part of the temple culture and the culture of the city. The Corinthians were very culturally sophisticated and they know it, and they enjoyed their status as a cosmopolitan city of culture and commerce, very sophisticated and morally loose. Paul visited Corinth during his second missionary journey, probably around 50 AD. His first journey concentrated on the area we know as modern day Turkey, and in his second journey, he started from Antioch, revisited the churches in Asia and Macedonia, then he went to Athens, and from Athens he went to Corinth. So we're going to pick up the story in Acts eighteen. I'm going to start reading from Acts eighteen verse one and go to verse eleven. After these things he left Athens and went to Corinth. So speaking of Paul, after these things he left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they were working for by trade they were tent makers. And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads, I am clean, from now on I will go to the Gentiles. Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue. Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, were believing and being baptized. And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city. And he settled there a year and six months, teaching the Word of God among them. Apparently Paul's idea was to make a brief stop in Athens and in Corinth, but then God gave him a vision and told him to stay in Corinth. His typical plan when he went to a new city was to go first to the synagogue, and then when the Jews rejected him, he went to the Gentiles. He usually stayed for a while and then he moved on, and that's probably what he intended to do here in Corinth, to stay for a short while, like he did in most cities. We suspect Paul probably intended to go back to Berea where he had left Silas and Timothy. We learn from Acts 17 fourteen that he went on alone to Athens and then he went alone into Corinth. After this vision, he decides to stay in Corinth and he ends up staying for eighteen months. He contacted Silas and Timothy and said, You come to me instead of me going back to you, and then they come and join him in Corinth. It's in Corinth that Paul meets Aquilla and Priscilla. Let me read again Acts eighteen, two and three, and he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and they were working for by trade they were tent makers. We learn Aquila is a Jew from Pontus, which was a region in what's now the northern part of Turkey. There was a significant Jewish population in Pontus. His name is Latin for eagle, but he was a Jew. Aquila was a common name given to Jewish slaves, so scholars speculate that he was a slave in a household of Rome, but had been given his freedom and was now in Corinth. His wife Priscilla, we're not sure if she is Jewish or not. Her race isn't mentioned. It could be it's not mentioned because it's just assumed. Or she might have been a Jew by conversion, not by birth. We just aren't told. Paul lives and works with them because they practice the same trade. It's not clear if Priscilla and Aquila were already believers when they met Paul in Corinth, or if they came to faith after he met with them and worked with them. Certainly they are believers by the end of his visit. Many scholars argue that both Priscilla and Aquila are tent makers, but it could be that only Aquila was the tent maker, and Priscilla could have been a homemaker or mother, the they in 1803 could mean Paul and Aquila only, or it could mean all three of them. It's just not clear. The region where Paul's hometown of Tarsus is located was famous for a type of hair cloth made from goats, and that cloth was a favorite material for tent making, and that could be how Paul learned his trade. Priscilla and Aquila are an interesting couple in that her name often comes first, which is unusual for the writings of the time. Now a lot of scholars make a big deal out of that, but we have to be careful, it's really all speculation. There could be any number of reasons why her name would be listed first. For example, her name could come first because of the connection. We tend to mention the person closest to us first. So when we're talking about our family, for instance, I would refer to my son first and then his wife, but I would refer to my daughter first and then her husband because we tend to mention the closer family connection first. And it could be that Priscilla's name comes first simply for that reason. Maybe she was better known to the community, more famous for some reason, or she had a closer relationship with Paul. Maybe she'd become a believer first and had been a believer longer and therefore had a closer connection to Luke and to Paul. There could be any number of reasons why her name comes first. Of course, my favorite reason is that her name comes first because she was the more gifted teacher and evangelist. But that's all speculation. Perhaps she simply had more time to teach because their children were grown and Aquila was busy supporting them through tent making, and so she became the better known teacher. But again, we don't know. Later in the chapter we learn that when Paul leaves Corinth for Ephesus, Priscilla and Aquila go with him, and then when he leaves Ephesus, Priscilla and Aquila stay in Ephesus and lead a house church there. Eventually, a fellow teacher named Apollos came to Ephesus. Apollos was a believer, but he appeared to only understand half the gospel. It appears from the text that it is Priscilla who takes the lead in setting him straight, although both their names are mentioned. It could be that her name is first here because she's the more gifted teacher and the more talented speaker and straightens him out. But when all is said and done, we don't know for sure. There could be a number of different explanations, and we're really not given enough information to know for sure. From Acts 18 2, we learn that Priscilla and Aquila are in Corinth because the Jews had been forced out of Rome. And we know from history that in 49 AD, Claudius issued an edict requiring all Jews who were not Roman citizens to leave the city. An early Roman historian wrote that the Jews were commanded to leave because of disputes arising over the Crestus, which is the Latin form of Christ. Riots were breaking out among the Jews over whether or not Jesus was the Christ, and the Roman emperor finally got tired of it and kicked them out of Rome. Riots seem to be the case everywhere the gospel was preached. As you read through Acts, you'll notice that Paul sparks a lot of riots over his teachings. There is a riot in almost every city he visits, and in fact, we see a riot erupt in Corinth. In 184 it says he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. So that raises the question, why are there Greeks in the synagogue? That reference to Greeks here is probably to God fearers. These were Gentiles who were not Jews by birth, but they wanted to be, they came to the synagogue regularly and they wanted to listen and learn. They tended to be the most receptive audience to Paul's message, so they were kind of hangers on. They weren't Jews, they hadn't converted to the Jewish religion, but they were certainly sympathetic to it. Then in 185, but when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. So we see Paul's pattern here. He worked at his craft throughout the week, but he stopped working on the Sabbath and argued in the synagogue. Silas and Timothy had been in Berea. Paul mentions that he received a financial gift from Macedonia, that's the area where Berea is, and he mentions this in his other letters. When Silas and Timothy come, they bring this sizable financial gift from the believers, probably in Thessalonica and Philippi, and that allows Paul to preach full time. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul expresses his gratitude for a gift, and it's probably this gift mentioned in Acts 18. The gift allows Paul to stop working and then to teach full time. The tradition of the Jewish rabbis was not to take payment for teaching. They thought that to peddle the Word of God and get paid for it, that was just considered morally wrong. Now, they didn't have a problem living off the patronage of others, but they didn't see it as wages for services rendered. So they didn't have a problem taking gifts from patrons who wanted them to be free to teach, but they thought that the law was to be taught free of charge. You weren't charged to teach the gospel. And Paul appears to be following that tradition. He doesn't believe the gospel is something he can charge for. He supports himself by working to enable him to preach, and then later when he has the means not to work, we see him quit working and preach full time. So in this chapter, he does both. He works when he needs to work, and he is grateful when gifts allow him to teach full time. And then in 186, but when they, that is the Jews, when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads, I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles. The Jews resisted Paul's message. The text says they blasphemed, that is, they rejected the gospel. They rejected the truth of the gospel revealed by the Spirit of God through Paul, and Paul shakes out his garments and says, Your blood be on your own head, and he goes to the Gentiles. And this is one of the first times in Paul's journeys that we see a strategic statement to go to the Gentiles. Perhaps that's based on his recent experience in Athens where the Gentiles responded well, but at any rate Paul realizes the mission field among the Gentiles is ripe and they are ready to hear. Picking up in verse 17, then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God whose house was next to the synagogue. Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, were believing and being baptized. And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city. And he settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. When he leaves the synagogue, then Paul goes next door to the house of Titius Justus, a Gentile who was interested in the things of God, and he teaches in this man's home rather than in the synagogue. Interestingly though, Crispus, a Jew and a leader of the synagogue, came to belief, but he seems to be one of the few Jews, it says many of the Corinthians also came to faith, and I assume that's referring to Gentiles. Then Paul gets the vision that confirms his plans to stay, and he stays for eighteen months. Going on then in verse twelve, but while Galileo was pro council of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat, saying, This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law. But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Galileo said to the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or a vicious crime, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you. But if there are questions about words and names and your own law, look after it yourselves. I am unwilling to be a judge of these matters. We are only given this one scene during Paul's eighteen months in Corinth. Gallio is the brother of Seneca, the well known Roman Stoic philosopher. Seneca was the tutor of the Emperor Nero and Gallio then is Seneca's brother. Apparently the charge against Paul is that Paul is proclaiming an illegal religion, and this was a very serious charge. You could be put to death for preaching an illegal religion. Rome had an approved list of religions, and if you preach something on the list, that was great, but if you preach something not on the list, you could be severely punished or put to death. Judaism was on the list, it was a legal religion of the day. And at this point, Christianity was considered a kind of sect of Judaism and was therefore legal. Now that's going to change in the coming years, but Gallio says, look, I'm not going to settle disputes over issues of Judaism. Decide which of your sects, which of your philosophers, which of your teachers are right and wrong, legal or not. You seem to be debating the finer points of your own law and your own rules, and I'm not going to get involved. It's likely that Luke recorded this incident because Gallio's ruling set a precedent that gave Christianity legal protection for another decade or so. Now eventually that protection's going to run out and Rome will begin persecuting the Christians, but for now Gallio's decision sets the precedent that the fight between Jews and Christians is a fight within one legal religion. So this ruling gives the apostles some legal protection for another decade or so. Going on in Acts 18 16, and he drove them away from the judgment seat. And they all took hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and began beating him in front of the judgment seat, but Galia was not concerned about any of these things. Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren and put out to sea for Syria, and with him were Priscilla and Aquila. So we see the crowd gets frustrated that Galio won't intervene and they have to do something, so they grab hold of the new leader of the synagogue, Sosthenes, and they begin beating him up, expecting that that will get a rise out of Galio, but he ignores them. I'm inclined to think that this is the Sosthenes mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1 1, although this was a fairly common name at the time. But when Paul mentions Sosthenes in 1 Corinthians, he doesn't give any other identifiers like, oh, Sosthenes from Athens or the son of somebody. He expects the Corinthians to be familiar with this man, and the most likely reason we know of that they'd be familiar with him is because he's this man mentioned in Acts 18. I'm also inclined to think he has now become a believer, which would explain why the Jews would single him out to beat him. Certainly by the time Paul writes 1 Corinthians, Sosthenes is a believer because Paul calls him Sosthenes our brother. Now why would the Jews beat the leader of the synagogue? Most likely because he'd converted. We're told that Crispus converted, this man probably replaced him, and now he's converted too. They want Paul stopped, but Paul's a Roman citizen, so they can't beat Paul up without confronting the Roman soldiers. So Sothenes becomes the next likely candidate as he probably doesn't have that protection. And since he's become a believer, they beat him up instead. In 1818 we're told Paul leaves Corinth with Priscilla and Aquila, and eventually he makes his way back to Antioch. He will start his third missionary journey, which takes him to Ephesus, and we learn from Acts 19 that Paul spends about two years in Ephesus, and it is from Ephesus that he writes 1 Corinthians, probably around 55 AD. He then writes 2 Corinthians about a year or so later, probably from Macedonium. Paul wrote his first letter to Corinth while he was in Ephesus because some people arrived from Corinth and brought him a letter full of questions. In addition to their written letter full of questions, they bring him personal observations and comments about the spiritual situation of the church in Corinth, and Paul refers to them as individuals from Chloe's household. So they brief Paul on the spiritual condition of the church in Corinth and the problems there, and then 1 Corinthians is Paul's response to both their written letter and the briefing he got from the members of Chloe's household. So in 1 Corinthians, Paul is responding to the issues that they have raised, both written and verbal. Now we don't have the letter Paul received, so we don't always have the exact question he's responding to. We have to guess at it, but we do have the answer. And it is that QA kind of structure that gives us the outline of the letter. Each answer is fairly. Self-contained, and so it's easy to study large kind of chunks and sections of Corinthians as self-contained units. Unlike Romans, say where he develops an argument and he carries that argument through the letter, in 1 Corinthians he switches topics. He says, now concerning the matters which you wrote, and he starts responding to them one by one. The questions are not necessarily related to each other. The connection between them is that they were all raised by the same church. So it's easy to divide the letter into segments and study each segment. So to summarize, Corinth is an incredibly decadent city. It's very sophisticated and wealthy. And the Corinthian church there is a mixed church of Gentiles and Jews, but probably predominantly Gentile. The Corinthians need to learn this connection between discipleship and the pursuit of righteousness. They need to learn that you cannot claim to be a believer and to love Jesus and the gospel without that changing your life. Your values have to change and your morals have to change. So a claim to faith means you want to live a different kind of life, and that's going to be a big issue in the church at Corinth. Apparently they have trouble learning that, which is not surprising considering the culture they were immersed in. For those of us who were blessed to grow up in a stable family with a lifestyle that was protected from, say, drugs and theft and promiscuity, it makes it easy for us to transition from that kind of middle class moral lifestyle into a pursuit of godliness. But for people who come from a background where, say, lying, cheating, stealing, promiscuity, those are all natural and taken for granted and just part of the culture, it's much harder to change. The temptations are there, the habits that you've learned are there that you have to overcome, and the Corinthians fall into that camp. They were deeply embedded in an immoral culture and they were surrounded by it. Now I know there are versions of the gospel that claim if you come to faith in Jesus, you will never be tempted again, but I don't think those are right. The promise of the gospel is not that you will be so automatically pure and good that you will never feel a sinful urge again. That's just not in Scripture. Texts like Romans 7 and experience suggests that we are not completely freed from sin and temptation until God takes us home. And Paul's going to argue that those sinful urges and passions no longer define you. Yes, you'll have them, but you have been cleansed and forgiven and sanctified. So thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, you have a new resolve, a new commitment, and a desire not to act on those urges, and you grieve and repent when you do fail in those areas. Now I think we all secretly fear that we're not really believers because we still see and feel all this garbage and sin inside of us. And so there's probably some level all of us worry, maybe I'm faking it. Nobody else seems to have the struggle, or at least they're hiding it. So what's wrong with me? But I think every genuine believer has a struggle with sin. We may hide it from each other, but who we are is not defined by the sinful passions any longer, but by our response to them. The question is when we struggle with sin and when we fail in sin, how do we respond to that? Do we grieve, do we repent, or do we say, no big deal, that's just being human? And one of the marks of faith and the gospel is that we now grieve and repent over our sin. That's the result of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. And as we're going to see, that struggle for a new lifestyle is going to be an issue in Corinth. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. This is the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. If you've been blessed by this podcast, I hope you'll leave a comment on Apple Podcasts and please share this podcast with someone you think will benefit from it. You can find out more or hear previous episodes on the website, just go to Wednesdayintheword.com. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krissan Morata, and I hope I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.