This Sunday we start our time looking at Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, and what a fascinating and relevant letter it is. You may find it helpful to read right through it (and possibly his second letter as well) at some time in the coming week.
Corinth was a port city, a trading centre at the crossroads of Greece. Everyone and everything that needed to go from northern Greece to the south had to pass through the narrow strip of land (just 4 miles wide) that Corinth was built on. And this was also true of all east/west trade between Rome and its empire as well, which was brought by sea up the long Saronic Gulf and then transported across the isthmus before being reloaded on to ships that would set off for Turkey and all points further east.
The church in Corinth was a very young church – when he wrote this letter it was just three or four years since Paul had founded it on his second preaching tour in AD 50 (see Acts 18). He had arrived in Corinth straight from an unsuccessful mission in Athens: exhausted, still recovering from the beatings he had received in northern Greece and perhaps rather depressed; the prospect of preaching in a rough port city with a reputation for immorality frightened him. He stayed there for 18 months, making tents for a living and preaching, first in the synagogue and then in the house next door when he was thrown out by the Jews. A tiny church began to grow, made up of a very mixed bunch of people – as you would expect in this cosmopolitan town.
We can see from his letters that Paul grew to love them and to care for them; all together he wrote to them four times and visited them three times, more than any other church he founded.
Many of the issues Paul writes to them about still affect us today: cliques and factions, leadership, living in a pagan society, marriage, worship, our common life together, and many others. I think we will have much to learn from this letter.
Jeremy Taylor
Corinth was a port city, a trading centre at the crossroads of Greece. Everyone and everything that needed to go from northern Greece to the south had to pass through the narrow strip of land (just 4 miles wide) that Corinth was built on. And this was also true of all east/west trade between Rome and its empire as well, which was brought by sea up the long Saronic Gulf and then transported across the isthmus before being reloaded on to ships that would set off for Turkey and all points further east.
The church in Corinth was a very young church – when he wrote this letter it was just three or four years since Paul had founded it on his second preaching tour in AD 50 (see Acts 18). He had arrived in Corinth straight from an unsuccessful mission in Athens: exhausted, still recovering from the beatings he had received in northern Greece and perhaps rather depressed; the prospect of preaching in a rough port city with a reputation for immorality frightened him. He stayed there for 18 months, making tents for a living and preaching, first in the synagogue and then in the house next door when he was thrown out by the Jews. A tiny church began to grow, made up of a very mixed bunch of people – as you would expect in this cosmopolitan town.
We can see from his letters that Paul grew to love them and to care for them; all together he wrote to them four times and visited them three times, more than any other church he founded.
Many of the issues Paul writes to them about still affect us today: cliques and factions, leadership, living in a pagan society, marriage, worship, our common life together, and many others. I think we will have much to learn from this letter.
Jeremy Taylor
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