1 Corinthians - 1 Introduction

Corinth, at the time of Paul’s epistle (AD 50), was a wealthy place. It was strategically located on an isthmus and had two harbors. You could sail from one harbor to Asia or you could sail from the other harbor to Italy. The two harbors were connected by a paved roadway called the diolkos. It was built in the sixth century BC to cross the isthmus at the narrowest point. The diolkos was about 6 km in length. It made transport of cargo and even light ships possible between the Aegean and the Ionian Seas. It may seem like a difficult thing to move a light ship six miles over this road but remember how dangerous the winds were if you tried the sea route to the south. The sailors had a maxim that said “When you double Maleae, forget your home.” As Paul experienced, the winds were bad and navigation was especially treacherous in winter.

In 146 BC the city of Corinth was involved in a failed rebellion against Rome. The Romans were not forgiving and so the city was looted, demolished, and the people were sold into slavery. Subsequently, in 44 BC, Julius Caesar rebuilt the city and it was populated primarily with freedmen, veterans, and tradesmen. The full name of Corinth was Colonia Laus Julia Corinthiensis or Colony of Corinth in Honor of Julius. It is not surprising that the patronage of Julius Caesar resulted in the community and city culture of Corinth taking a Roman rather than Greek emphasis because the rebuilt city felt it was clearly part of the Roman Empire in spite of its location.

The residents of the city felt that they were prosperous and self-sufficient even though there were many people living in poverty. The core culture of the city was trade, business, and entrepreneurial effort in the pursuit of success and prosperity. Many who were born without money became prosperous but there were also losers in this atmosphere of stiff competition.

The Corinthians loved sports. They hosted the Isthmian Games every 2 years so they were either preparing to host or hosting sporting events constantly. Paul likely saw the remains of the AD 49 games when he got to Corinth in AD 50 and would have preached to the crowds attending the games in AD 51. This activity by the Corinthians resulted in an atmosphere of celebration. It likely had the flavor of a more or less continuous tailgate party.

Financial winners, like sports winners, were celebrated and losers were just losers. Many Corinthians had a “self-made-person-escapes-humble-origins syndrome.” Consequently, many were relatively insecure in their success and they were careful to have their names attached to anything they contributed. These attitudes and cultural tendencies were problems within the Christian Church. There is an inscription in a portion of limestone pavement in Corinth that says, “Erastus in return for his aedileship laid the pavement at his own expense.”  His “aedileship” was a job like a modern city manager and he likely bought his position as a result of his entrepreneurial efforts. This is probably the Erastus of Romans 16:23. He position may have exempted him from making an oath to Rome that would have violated his oath to Christ. Remember that Gallio heard Paul and essentially made being a Christian temporarily legal as a form of Judaism. Of course this didn’t last and eventually Roman persecution became intense.

The Corinthians had an honor versus shame culture in which public recognition could be more important than facts. Their sense of worth was based on recognition by others of their accomplishments. People were trained in rhetoric and marketed their skills in a manner similar to public relations or media specialists today in order to spin public perceptions and belief. Surprisingly, they were so steeped in religious pluralism and relativism that they would be called post-modern in their approach to truth. That is simply mind boggling because you can’t really feel comfortable calling an AD 50 Corinthian postmodern. Even the church in Corinth followed personality and style rather than truth and logic. They devalued tradition, devalued universal values, and had contempt for those who were not “somebody” at least “somewhere”.

We will go verse by verse through the epistle but, for the moment, please note that Paul refused to play the game by the rules of Corinth. In fact, it seems Paul likes to poke the Corinthian “hot buttons” from time to time. Paul determined not to be a rhetorician.

1 Corinthians 1:17-19 … For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Paul used Scripture and reason even when it first required him to develop a shared basis of words and values for discussion. But Paul doesn’t just use Scripture and reason without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes the words of Paul alive and sharper than a double edged sword and the Holy Spirit makes the heart alive in the lost person so that the Word can find a home. To forget your utter dependency on the Holy Spirit in ministry and lean on your own skills is to empty the Cross of its power. Think about how central that is to evangelism. If you lift up eloquent wisdom in the style and delivery of the culture you are called to teach and evangelize then God will turn off the power of the Cross. Clarity in Scripture and reason are good and we’ll see Paul stress those points. However, Paul tells the Corinthians up front that he will not play by their style rules. Apollos was a tremendous speaker. Why not bring in Apollos? The problem with sending Apollos to Corinth was that the preaching of Apollos would only feed the problem of style over substance in the Corinthian culture. In fact, that had already happened and Paul was writing to correct it (1 Corinthians 1:12). The nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ excludes it from being treated as a market commodity tailored to the tastes and desires of consumerism. You can’t pick the parts of the Gospel the consumer wants to hear and ignore the parts the consumer doesn’t want to hear without sinning as a minister and opening yourself up to discipline by God. Paul would earn his keep as a tentmaker and proclaim the Cross of Christ.

The nature of the Cross was offensive in Corinth. Jesus was poor and he died the death of a criminal. This was not a Gospel that would naturally influence a Corinthian. Jesus would have needed to be rich and die a glorious death to naturally influence a Corinthian. You can’t preach the Cross as naturally rich and glorious. To a regenerate heart it is wonderfully rich and glorious but to those who are perishing, to those who love money and power, it is an offence and foolish. Paul refuses to be clever and enticing. In fact, Paul worked with Aquila and Priscilla as a menial tradesman. That was one more strike against him in Corinth and he didn’t hide these offensive items from Corinthian view. Paul was not a professional “wise man”, rhetorician, or speaker-performer. All those were paid positions. Paul wasn’t paid and would not be paid via patronage by the rich in Corinth. Paul was part of the non-elite and he was poor. The Christians of Corinth were pretentious and brought a worldly set of standards into their church fellowship.

The Corinthians had cultural aspects that were unique but still, in principle, can yield universal applications. For example, a woman with her head uncovered in public signaled sexual availability or lack of respectability. We wouldn’t require head covering today but we would require modesty and an attempt to avoid an appearance of evil. They had a tradition of “patronage” and so they brought their “secular rank” into communion and tried to classify and stratify Christians by wealth and power. We still struggle sometimes with status at church but we generally realize the error of that attitude. Imagine having to wait until the wealthy and powerful had their plates full and were seated before you got your food at a potluck. We don’t do that but we do sometimes elevate those with secular rank above those who do not have secular rank. We can be well warned about that habit by studying the Corinthians.

So why bother with Corinth? Why didn’t Paul pick Athens instead? I don’t want to pretend that I know why the Holy Spirit does what He does but there are things about Corinth that are interesting. Corinth was strategically placed for spreading the Gospel to traveling businessmen. If the Gideons would have been there putting Bibles in those hotel rooms. Corinth had a Jewish community to begin Paul’s ministry. They had the religious background and we have seen that Paul tended to start in the synagogue and then move out to the Gentiles. The Corinthians needed lots of tents and awnings. That was Paul’s business so it would have been easy to find profitable work. These tents and awnings were used for the athletic events, the retail vendors in the market, and even on ships. Paul would not be an economic burden and that was one of his goals. In contrast, Athens was a mediocre university town celebrating their past without much productivity or creativity while Corinth was a boom town like San Francisco in the gold rush.

The Church in the United States today is frighteningly similar to the church in Corinth. The church in Corinth breathed in the culture that surrounded them, bowed to their local peer groups, and adopted their value systems. Corinth had become steeped in a postmodern pragmatic view of the market for religion. Corinth devalued truth, tradition, rational thought, and universals. Paul worked to correct the Corinthian church as he preached biblically, logically, and most importantly under the annointing of the Holy Spirit. Corinth needed to develop an awarness of Grace and realize what was done for them on the Cross. They needed to adopt a different set of values and to be transformed as the Holy Spirit made the Gosple live in their hearts. Paul wanted to be a transparent instrument through whom Christ was portrayed in lifestyle, thought, and word. It isn't clear that the Corinthian church was ever corrected. We know that Clement needed to write letters to Corinth in the second and third centuries. I pray we, today, will hear what the Holy Spirit is saying through Paul. The letter was to be read aloud in public and even read aloud in Beech Haven Baptist Church in the twenty-first century.