Introduction

Today Corinth is a small town with little significance other than historical. But in New Testament times it was a thriving, prosperous, and strategically located city.

Greece is divided geographically into two parts. The southern part, the Peloponnesus, is attached to the northern by a very narrow, four-mile-wide isthmus. On the western side was the Gulf of Corinth and the port city of Lechaeum. On the eastern side was the Saronic Gulf and the port city of Cenchreae. In the middle of the isthmus, to the south, is Corinth, situated on a commanding plateau. In ancient times all north and south overland traffic, including that to and from Athens, had to pass through Corinth.

Sea travel around the Peloponnesus was both time-consuming and dangerous. It was so treacherous that mariners had the saying “A sailor never takes a journey around Malea [the cape at the south end of the peninsula] until he first writes his will.” Most captains, therefore, chose to carry their ships overland on skids or rollers across the narrow isthmus, directly past Corinth. This procedure was quicker, more economical, and much safer than sailing 250 miles around the peninsula. In fact, the isthmus came to be known as dialcos, which means “the place of dragging across.” Corinth benefited from traffic in all directions and consequently became a major trade center.

Today a canal—envisioned by Perisander in the sixth century B.C., begun by the Roman emperor Nero in the first century A.D., but not completed until the end of the nineteenth century—connects the two gulfs across the isthmus, greatly facilitating maritime travel.

Corinth was also successful as an entertainment center. The two great athletic festivals of that day were the Olympian and the Isthmian games, and Corinth was host city for the latter—named after and played on the Isthmus of Corinth.

Corinth had been destroyed by the Romans in 146 B.C. and then rebuilt by Julius Caesar a hundred years later. At first it was a Roman colony, largely populated by Romans, and eventually became the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. Because of its location it soon became again a major trade center, with the resulting cosmopolitan population. It was made up of Greeks, Roman officials and businessmen, and Near Eastern peoples, including many Jews.

Like most Greek cities, Corinth had an acropolis (literally, “high city”), called Acrocorinth, which was used as a place of defense and for pagan worship. From its top on a clear day Athens can be seen, some forty-five miles away. Situated on a 2,000-foot high granite mound, Acrocorinth was large enough to hold all the population of Corinth and of its surrounding farmlands in time of siege. It also held a famous temple to Aphrodite, goddess of love. The temple normally housed some one thousand priestesses, ritual prostitutes, who each night would come down into Corinth and ply their trade among the many foreign travelers and the local men.

Even to the pagan world the city was known for its moral corruption, so much so that in classical Greek corinthiazesthai (“to behave like a Corinthian”) came to represent gross immorality and drunken debauchery. The name of the city became synonymous with moral depravity. In this letter to the church there, Paul lists some of the city’s characteristic sins—fornication (porneia, from which comes our term pornography), idolatry, adultery, effeminacy, homosexuality, stealing, covetousness, drunkenness, reviling (abusive speech), and swindling (6:9-10).

Some of the Corinthian believers had been guilty of practicing those sins before their conversion and had been cleansed (6:11). Others in the church, however, were still living immorally, some involved in sins worse than those—sins that Paul reminds them even pagan Gentiles did not commit, such as incest (5:1).

FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH AT CORINTH

Paul first came to Corinth on his second missionary journey. He had been preaching and working in Macedonian/Greek cities for some time. From Philippi (where he first ministered in Europe), he had gone to Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and then Corinth (Acts 16:11-18:1).

Upon arriving in Corinth he met Aquila and Priscilla, Jews who had been driven out of Rome, and who were, like himself, tentmakers. He stayed with them for a while and began to preach regularly in the synagogue every Sabbath. Silas and Timothy joined him from Macedonia, and, as Paul’s preaching intensified, so did resistance to his message. Soon, however, many Corinthians, including Jews, began to believe in Christ. Even Crispus, leader of the synagogue, along with his household, trusted in the Lord (Acts 18:8).

Paul continued to minister in Corinth for one and a half years (Acts 18:11). Jewish opposition became so strong that he was brought before a Roman tribunal. Since the charges were purely religious, however, the proconsul, Gallio, refused to hear the case. After staying a while longer, Paul left Corinth with Priscilla and Aquila and went to Ephesus. Leaving his friends there, he returned to Palestine (Acts 18:12-22).

The second leader of the Corinthian church was Apollos. An eloquent Jewish convert from Alexandria, Apollos had come to Ephesus and begun preaching while Aquila and Priscilla were there. Although “he was mighty in the Scriptures,” he had some doctrinal deficiencies, which Aquila and Priscilla were instrumental in correcting. When he wanted to preach in Achaia, the Ephesian church not only encouraged him but gave him a letter of commendation, and he began ministering in Corinth as its next pastor (Acts 18:24-19:1).

Some time between Paul’s leaving Corinth and his writing what we call First Corinthians, Paul had written the church another letter (1 Cor. 5:9), commonly referred to as the lost epistle. It too was corrective in nature.

CHURCH PROBLEMS

The Corinthian church had many serious problems, one of which was factionalism. After Apollos had ministered in Corinth for a time, some of the believers developed a special loyalty to him. Friction began to develop between them and those whose loyalty was to Paul. Others were loyal to Peter (Cephas, his Aramaic name) and still another group identified itself as belonging only to Christ. The apostle strongly rebuked all of them for quarreling and having such unspiritual divisions (1:10-13; 3:1-9).

Their most serious problem, however, was in not detaching themselves from the worldly ways of the society around them. They could not understand, and perhaps did not want to understand, the principle of “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). They could not get “decorinthianized.” In his previous lost letter, Paul specifically had warned them “not to associate with immoral people” (1 Cor. 5:9). Some of the Christians thought he meant for them not to associate with unbelievers who were immoral. But the sexually corrupt, the covetous, swindling, and idolatrous people to whom Paul referred were fellow church members who refused to give up, or had fallen back into, the debauched life-style of Corinth (5:9-11). The faithful believers were not to associate with such as those. Such wicked brethren were, in fact, to be put out of the fellowship in order to purify the church (5:13).

Like many Christians today, the Corinthian believers had great difficulty in not mimicking the unbelieving and corrupt society around them. They usually managed to stay a little higher than the world morally, but they were moving downward, in the same direction as the world. They wanted to be in God’s kingdom while keeping one foot in the kingdom of this world. They wanted to have the blessings of the new life but hang on to the pleasures of the old. They wanted to have what they thought was the best of both worlds, but Paul plainly warned them that that was impossible (6:9-10).

The Corinthians had gotten the principles confused. They continued to associate with openly and arrogantly sinful church members, with whom they should have broken fellowship. And, on the other hand, they mimicked, but refused to associate with, their unbelieving neighbors, to whom they should have been witnessing.

Yet they lacked no spiritual resources (1:5-7) and had great potential for spiritual power and blessing. Paul longed to see that potential realized. Such was the church to whom Paul wrote.