The Corinthian Church
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2023 · 6 August 2023
Paul gave some great advice to the Thessalonians when he wrote from the city of Corinth. He wrote this advice while he was experiencing what we’re going to study this evening. And he was really writing out of his own experience. Because as he arrived in the city of Corinth, he was weary. His message was ‘do not be weary’. And maybe we have all been weary in well doing.
But God is in the business of encouragement. And we’re going to see how God encourages a weary servant, and at the same time preaches the Gospel in the city of Corinth. Now, Paul, had been chased halfway around the world. He started out in Antioch of Syria with Silas, confirmed some churches in the area near Syria, and went through Galatia and continued west.
He was driven by the Holy Spirit. He finally crossed over from Troas and entered into Philippi, and there he preached, and again was hassled, and chased out of town. Then he arrived in Thessalonica, and there he was persecuted terribly, had to run for his life, and he got to Berea. And he finally found himself all alone in the city of Athens. And he preached there and was weary.
And the Gospel presented at Athens was clear, but there was no persecution, however there wasn’t any reception to speak of. It was minimal. And so he packed up and he left Athens. Then he arrives in the city of Corinth, and he’s discouraged. And he’s weak, and he may have been even physically ill. And it’s at that point that God moves in to give encouragement to him.
And it is from Corinth that he writes to the Thessalonians and says, “Brethren, be not weary in well doing.” Now, when we saw him in Athens, we saw him in the intellectual city. We saw him in a city of culture; of information, of learning. And he’s gone from Athens to Corinth. And Corinth is sin city. It was the most debauched and debased city in the world of that day.
In fact, the word Corinthian means immoral. If you said, “Joe is a Corinthian kind of guy,” you meant he was immoral. To say that that woman is a Corinthian woman meant she was a prostitute. Corinth was vile to the core. It wasn’t just the slaves or the middle class, it was the upper crust. It was a center of trade and travel, and sailors and caravans were going through it all the time.
The city of Corinth existed 50 miles from Athens. Anybody who went from northern Greece to southern Greece or vice versa, had to go through Corinth. That city was called the bridge of Greece; because of its north-south traffic and also its east-west traffic. Ships wanting to go from the western shore of Greece to the eastern shore would not sail around; they would shortcut it through here.
It was also a 200-mile shortcut to go this way. So, Corinth was in a strategic location. In the city of Corinth, there was a giant fortress called the Acropolis. But the Acropolis was more than just a fortress on a hill; it was a temple. And it was built for the goddess Aphrodite, who was the goddess of sexual activity. There were a thousand priestesses, who were in the ministry of prostitution.
If Athens glorified the mind, Corinth glorified the body. Now, Corinth was also important politically as the county seat, or the provincial capital. This meant that the proconsul of Rome stayed there. You can read 1 and 2 Corinthians, and you can find how the vileness of Corinth seeped into the church. There were certain church members who were proud that they were having sexual relations with their parents.
So the Corinthian church had a tough time keeping the garbage of the city from leaking in. And Paul had to write two letters to straighten them out. God can always do a lot with rotten sinners. Paul stayed long in Corinth, and it became a base of operation for the Gospel. It was from Corinth that he wrote 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Romans. And it was back to Corinth that he wrote 1 and 2 Corinthians.
God encourages Paul in four ways. One, companionship, God brings some friends into his life. Two, apostleship, God brings some converts into his life, and that’s encouraging. Three, fellowship, God Himself comes and fellowships with him and encourages him. And fourth, hardship, his enemies. Did you know you can be encouraged by your enemies? Well, we’ll see that next week.
Companionship in verses 1 – 5, “After this, he left Athens and went to Corinth, 2 where he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul came to them, 3 and since they were of the same occupation, tentmakers by trade, he stayed with them and worked.
4 He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade both Jews and Greeks. 5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself to preaching the word and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah.” Then God said, “You need some friends, I’m going to comfort you with some companionship.” So God brought two people into his life.
Look at verse 2, “a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus.” Pontus was a province just on the southern edge of the Black Sea, north of modern Turkey. He lately had come from Italy with his wife Priscilla.” We don’t know whether she was a Jew or a Gentile and had come to Corinth.” They became two of the most beloved friends of Paul. They were there because they had been kicked out of Rome by Claudius.
Aquila and Priscilla were Christians already by the time they met Paul. There was a Christian church in Rome long before Paul got there. Paul wrote Romans from Corinth. And when he wrote Romans 1:7, he said, “To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints.” So, there’s already a church there that had grown where the faith of those Christians had spread all over the world.
Claudius, in 49 A.D., banished all Jews from Rome altogether because they were involved in constant riots. But the Gentile Christians remained, and the church had remained with the Gentiles. Verse 3, “And since they were of the same occupation, tentmakers by trade, he stayed with them and worked.” Paul apparently was also a leather worker because tents came from goats’ hide.
Some historians tell us that in synagogues it was common to divide people in sections according to their trade. Maybe that is where Aquila and Priscilla met Paul. He just moved right in with their business. And he lived there. They had hospitality. That’s a great Christian virtue. And so, he moved right in, and he became a part of their lives. And, you know, he worked hard.
God wants people to work. In 2 Thessalonians 3:8 Paul says, “We did not eat anyone’s food free of charge; instead, we labored and toiled, working night and day, so that we would not be a burden to any of you.” The apostle Paul didn’t want anything from anybody. God will take care of the man of God. And God expects the church to support ministries that are effective.
But many times the church doesn’t wait to see what’s effective. If you and your life have accredited your ministry before God, God will bring you to the place where you have full support, if that’s what He desires. Look at verse 4, “He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade both Jews and Greeks.” He reasoned with people only on every Sabbath. And he worked the rest of the time.
Paul was proving some things. He didn’t come to intrude on them and demand from them; he came to give himself to them. And secondly, he was allowing the time for the accrediting of his ministry so that God could free him up to do it full time when the time was ready. That’s how God works. And, it’s so exciting to see somebody with a fruitful ministry and to see that ministry developing.
Every Sabbath Paul was reasoning in the synagogue. And the verb to reason means to discuss by question and answer; it means to convince, to dialogue. It’s an imperfect tense, which means he continually did it over and over again. And you notice he was persuading them. Paul was trying to persuade those Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. That was always what he was doing for the Jews and also the Greeks.
And God said, “Well, I want to give you two new ones; and I want to give you two old ones.” So in verse 5, “When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself to preaching the word and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah.” When Timothy came with joy, and Silas came with a love offering, Paul quit making tents and devoted himself to the Word.
Paul worked when he had to work. But, that doesn’t mean that every preacher is supposed to work manually. And it is also the same with Paul, who says in 1 Corinthians 9:7, “Who goes to war at his own expense? Or who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or feeds a flock and doesn’t drink the milk?” In other words, the support comes from within, from what you’re doing.
Verse 11, “If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it too much if we reap material benefits from you?” Verse 12, “If others have this right to receive benefits from you, don’t we even more?” Verse 13, “Don’t you know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the offerings of the altar?”
Verse 14, “In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel.” That means if you’re going to preach the Gospel, you should live from your preaching. In other words, the church should support the one who preaches and teaches. And that’s indicated in 1 Timothy 5:17, “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor.”
The word “double honor” has a monetary connotation, giving him additional support for his faithfulness, especially those who labor in the Word and doctrine. God says the church has to carry his support. If his friends were a comfort, so were his converts. You finally get there, and you go and speak, and you just can’t get generated, and when it’s all over, 15 people get saved.
Often God uses, in the lives of his servants, the companionship of beloved friends from the past. He gives you fruit just when you need it the most. That’s what happens to Paul. Just when he really needed it, these companions from before came with much joy and money; they freed him up totally to preach the Word. And isn’t that what the apostles are supposed to do?
Apostleship, Paul was free to be an apostle. He didn’t only preach on the Sabbath, he took off doing it every day. And what did he say? Verse 5, “He testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.” Verse 6, “When they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his clothes and told them, “Your blood is on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
The Jews came to an ultimate final decision that Jesus was not the Messiah. And they blasphemed Christ. That is one of the most dramatic scenes in his life. When Jews shook of the dust off their feet, it was used in bad reference to Gentile countries. Well, Paul turns it around. And he takes his cloak off, and he just starts shaking the dust out of it, and saying in effect, “I don’t want Jewish dust on my cloak.”
And then Paul made a statement, “Your blood be upon your own heads.” That’s again a statement that the Jews made. Remember in Matthew 27:25 that the Jews cried out, “His blood be upon us and our children.” They wanted to accept the responsibility for Christ’s death. And Paul says here, “I fulfilled my responsibility; I delivered the Gospel; I did my job. You are responsible for what you do.”
Verse 7, “So he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.” He lived in Titus Justus’s house. He was a Gentile, a God-fearer who attended the synagogue. And, he’s the same apparently, as the man called Gaius in Romans 16:23. And in 1 Corinthians 1:14, Paul says, “I baptized only two, Gaius and Crispus.”
And his Roman name would be Gaius Titus Justus. So, this man became a Christian. They had a church in his house next door to the synagogue. And he began to bear fruit. Now, look at verse 8, “Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, along with his whole household. And many of the Corinthians, when they heard that, believed and were baptized.”
Can you imagine the fury that’s going on now among the Jews? And Gaius whole house believed. It says, “Many of the Corinthians hearing that believed and were baptized.” And the Bible even names them: Stephanas and his whole house; Erastus, who was the city treasurer; there was Quartus, Fortunatus, Chloe, Tertius, Achaicus, and a whole lot of names. And the church was established.
At the end of verse 8, “Hearing that they believed, and were baptized. Notice the sequence. That’s the order of salvation. You hear the Gospel; you believe it. Then you publicly proclaim it in baptism. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing a speech about Jesus Christ.” Beloved, that’s salvation. And next time we’ll see how God encourages Paul with fellowship and hardship. Let’s pray.