Corinth #84

Corinth was a prosperous commercial city on the narrow isthmus connecting mainland Greece with the Peloponnese, and it was the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. Paul founded a church there on his second missionary journey, and two of his longest letters, 1 and 2 Corinthians, were written to it. The founding is recounted in Acts 18:1-18.

Biblical Significance

Paul arrived in Corinth from Athens and met Aquila and Priscilla, Jewish believers who had recently left Rome under an edict of the emperor Claudius. Like Paul, they were tentmakers, and he stayed and worked with them (Acts 18:1-3). He reasoned in the synagogue each Sabbath until Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, after which he devoted himself fully to preaching and, when opposition grew, turned to the Gentiles and moved next door to the house of Titius Justus. Crispus, the synagogue ruler, believed with his household (Acts 18:4-8). Encouraged in a night vision, Paul remained a year and six months (Acts 18:9-11). When Jewish opponents brought him before the proconsul Gallio, Gallio refused to judge the matter as a religious dispute and dismissed the case (Acts 18:12-17).

The church that resulted was gifted and troubled. In 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses factions that claimed loyalty to different leaders (1 Corinthians 1:10-13), moral disorder, lawsuits among believers, questions about marriage and food offered to idols, disorder in worship and the Lord’s Supper, the use of spiritual gifts, and the resurrection (chapters 5 to 15). The letter includes the well-known chapter on love (1 Corinthians 13). Some of his readers had come from lifestyles Paul describes bluntly, yet he reminds them that they “are washed” and “sanctified” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). In 2 Corinthians he defends his ministry and speaks of strength in weakness. Paul later wrote his letter to the Romans from this region, and mentions the hospitality of Gaius and the city treasurer Erastus (Romans 16:23).

Today

Ancient Corinth lies below the mountain of Acrocorinth in southern Greece. Rome destroyed the older Greek city in 146 BC, and Julius Caesar refounded it as a Roman colony in 44 BC, which is the city Paul knew. Excavations have uncovered the forum, shops, the raised speaker’s platform often identified with the bema of Acts 18:12, and a paved area with an inscription naming an Erastus. Whether this is the same Erastus mentioned by Paul is debated. An inscription found at Delphi mentioning Gallio helps date his time as proconsul to about AD 51 to 52, one of the firmest anchors for the chronology of Paul’s life.