In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

161 Chapter 8 1 Corinthians: Life in the Body How Are New Believers to Live? Imagine being part of a group of twenty people gathered in the home of a wealthy person. You are there to sing God’s praises and to learn. You live in an important city—Corinth, in the province of Achaia.1 The past few weeks have been exciting but confusing. You recently came to believe that Jesus was God’s chosen and sent one. But how are you to live now? The same as before? Freer? Or more restricted? Why, just today your neighbor invited you to go to the health spa connected with the temple of the god Asclepius. Should you go? Your small group of Christ-believers has talked about such questions. Elsewhere in town, other small groups of Christ-believers have come up with their answers, too.Your group leader announces that a letter has come from Paul, the founding missionary of the congregation . Maybe he will have some answers. After a few minutes, you hear these words:“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? . . . For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body”(1 Cor 6:15a, 20). Our imaginary first-century follower of Jesus is trying to live her life in the way God wants her to live.But within even the few house churches in Corinth,believers are 162 | Paul: Apostle to the Nations coming up with different responses on how to live in their multicultural,pluralistic world, and the different views are starting to divide the Corinthian believers from each other. In response, Paul writes the letter we call 1 Corinthians.Together with 2 Corinthians, it forms the most extensive correspondence between Paul and one group of congregations to have survived antiquity. In this correspondence, Paul makes significant theological insights while dealing with the everyday problems his people are facing.2 Founding of the congregation In the letter itself, Paul makes only general comments about founding the congregation :“I planted,Apollos watered,but God gave the growth”(3:6).Based on Acts 18, Paul came to Corinth in the winter of 50–51 and stayed until the summer of 52, for a total of eighteen months (Acts 18:11). In Acts, we are told that he met fellow Christ-believing tentmakers Priscilla and Aquila, Judean believers recently expelled from Rome. Paul worked with them and supported himself (Acts 18:13 ; 1 Cor 4:12; 9:1-15). According to Acts, Paul spoke in the synagogue to both Judeans and Greeks.When opposition arose,he left the synagogue—only to move his ministry next door to the home of a God-fearer named Titius Justus. Many people believed and were baptized, including two synagogue officials, Crispus and Sosthenes (Acts 18:8, 17; 1 Cor 1:1, 14). Judean opposition remained strong enough, however, that Paul was hauled before the Roman official Gallio (Acts 18:12-17).3 Shortly thereafter, Paul left Corinth (Acts 18:18). Why corinth? Missionary work in Corinth helped Paul meet his objectives. First, as we have seen previously, Paul liked to set up shop in a large urban area. Shop included his practical need to earn a living, which, as a leatherworker, he could do much better in a city than in a village.Corinth,with a population of 70,000 to 80,000,provided that opportunity. In addition, the Isthmian Games (second in importance only to the Olympic Games) were held nearby every other year and, together with the flood of tourists who came to the games,would have provided business for a leatherworker . Other smaller games were also held. The constant flow of goods and people into this port city in general would have created business opportunities for itinerant artisans such as Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila.4 By locating in this particular city, Paul also gained an important foothold in southern Greece. Second,Corinth was a vibrant transfer point between the eastern and western portions of the empire, as well as between northern and southern Greece. It was located in the Peloponnesus, a peninsula south of the mainland of Greece and connected to it by a four-mile-wide isthmus. On the east side of the isthmus is the Aegean Sea; on the west is the Adriatic (or Ionian) Sea. Corinth controlled the isthmus and its two ports, Cenchreae and Lechaeum. To avoid the dangerous journey of six days and two hundred miles around the...

Share