Greek Superstition & Debauchery — Steve Gallagher

Paul Arrives in Athens

Alright, last week we followed Paul into Europe, where he began churches in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea, and basically was run out of Macedonia, mostly by the Jews. And now he's going to arrive in Athens, as we'll read about here in a minute, in the Acts 17, if you want to open up there.

Athens, when we think about it, well, even in modern times, we think of a huge city, which it is a huge city now, and it had been a huge city at one time before this, but in the first century, it was only about 10 ,000 people.

I mean, that's like a town in America, 10 ,000 people, not very big at all. But it was an extremely important city in the Roman world. Basically Rome governed the world. But it was Athens that supplied the common language, and much more importantly, the culture that tied the whole world together in one mindset.

And it was Alexander the Great that Hellenized the world, and those who followed him, those four generals, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, you know, those generals and the whole Greek culture that established a mindset that is very, I don't know, how would you say it, a picture of what's coming with the Antichrist, what's happening right now in the world, and the English language is like the Greek of that day.

So Athens was very important, even though it was just a tiny little city. And Paul is going to arrive there with the gospel. You know, and when you think about it from that perspective, it's like, and if you didn't know the story, you'd be like, oh man, what's going to happen?

Talk about a clash in cultures. What's going to happen when the Apostle Paul brings the Word of God into the stronghold of Greek mythology, of superstition, of just the entire intellectualism of the world, of the seedbed of this one world mindset?

What's going to happen when the Apostle Paul, the greatest Christian who's ever lived, no doubt, comes into that city? You know, when you think about it from that perspective, it's like, yeah, what is going to happen here?

So we're going to read this story here. You all know exactly what happens, but we're going to read it anyway, or there wouldn't be any reason for me to be here. All right, verse 15 of Acts 17, now those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they left.

Okay, so some brothers from Berea took Paul down to Athens, basically escorted him there for his safety, and Paul left Timothy and Silas up in Berea, and then they went back, and I think that probably Timothy went on to Philippi, and Silas stayed at Thessalonica or vice versa, but anyway, they went up there for a time, and he told these Berean brothers, send them down to me at Athens, and I'll wait for them here, and then we'll go on from there to Corinth or wherever.

Paul's Provocation at the Idols of Athens

So that was what he's talking about here. Verse 16, now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. One man who lived during that time said it was easier to find a god in Athens than a man.

There were so many idols just all over that city, up on the Acropolis, and just all over the city areas. There were all these statues, and every one of them represented some different deity, and so Paul goes in there, and it says that his spirit is provoked.

Now the only other time that word is used in the Greek or in the New Testament is in 1 Corinthians 13, where it's the love chapter, and Paul is saying that love is not provoked. It's the same word. So here's the two occasions.

He's being provoked here in Athens, but there it says, if you're walking in perfect love, you're not going to be provoked. So is he failing to live up to his own words, or what exactly is this? Well, this really is a good example of what I was talking about meekness a couple of weeks ago, that meekness is all about timing, that there is a time that you take a stand, and then there is a time you let things go, and it really is kind of like that.

His spirit in him, and I think really it should say the Holy Spirit within him, is provoked by seeing all these gods, and meekness is that way, that yes, in day-to-day life with people, we don't allow ourselves to get provoked into arguments and strife and all of that sort of thing.

That's what he was talking about later. But his spirit is provoked not at people, but at the spiritual realm that's behind those people who are creating all these idols and stuff. Think about it, Athens was the seedbed of all the mythology.

We call it mythology now, but that isn't how they would see it. It was fact to them, just like Christianity is fact to most Americans, that this is what you've been raised to believe, that there's this god named Zeus and Mars and all these different gods, and that's how we came into being.

That was fact to them, and it all centered, just like the Jewish faith, the Christian faith all began in Jerusalem, that's where it was the cradle of Christianity, the cradle of Judaism. Well that's how this was with Athens, that Athens was the place where all this was coming from.

And so Paul comes into the city and he's provoked inside because he sees how it's contaminating the entire world with this garbage teaching that's going forth there. So verse 17, so he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present.

And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him, some were saying what would this idle babbler wish to say? Others said he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

All right, now I'm not going to get into these, I was going to call them idle babblers, the Stoics and Epicureans, but basically what they were saying about him was that he was a spermologist, which if you break it down, spermalogos meaning literally a seed spreader and the idea then of that slang word was it was like a bird that would pick up seeds and spread it around.

In other words, let me take it a step back, Athens was the place, if you were a philosopher or if you wanted to make a splash in the whole Roman world with your new idea, Athens is where you took it because if you could win over the group there in Athens, you have won the world.

You know, so there was all kinds of different quacks coming into Athens trying to propagate some idea that they came up with because who knows, you know, someone there might pick up on your idea and, you know, you end up becoming a champion and then you can go anywhere in the world, get paid for it, you know, and all of those kinds of things.

If you could win Athens, you won the world as far as being a philosopher or a teacher or whatever. So they're seeing Paul as just another one of these guys, you know, here's another loser coming into town trying to push his teaching and, you know, for the Greek in Athens, Jerusalem is a long ways away and they're like, this guy is nuts, you know, so they're not really giving him much credibility here.

Verse 19, and they took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying, may we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming for you're bringing some strange things to our ears, so we want to know what these things mean.

And then Luke kind of adds in this little parenthesis, now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new, well that's kind of an exaggeration but anyway, you know, basically Paul is brought in to prove his teaching because in Athens, you couldn't even be out teaching in the city without the approval of this group of philosophers, it was called the Areopagus.

And the Areopagus was actually a location on the side of the Acropolis. Let me back up here, Athens is in a large valley and then there's this mountain there, it's kind of like a squat mountain with a big flat area on top and up on top that's called the Acropolis is the Parthenon and all these Greek buildings and so on, they're still there, most of those ruins are still there, and I was walking around up in there, but the Areopagus was on the side of the mountain there and it was a place where these philosophers would meet together to discuss different things but also they were the ruling council of what was allowed in the city and so, you know, the Areopagus was kind of, it was a name for that location but it's kind of like Wall Street to us, when we talk about Wall Street, we don't really think about the actual little street in Manhattan, what we think about is what it represents and that's what the Areopagus had become, was something that was bigger than that little area, it was a culture there really that was established by these people so they had to give approval to anyone who was teaching in that city, so that's why Paul is brought in there, you know, to share his ideas with these guys and, you know, if he didn't win them over then he was done for and the one thing I'll just mention is surely knowing the way Paul would speak to people, knowing how the Spirit of God possessed him, I'm sure when he went in there to speak that he was just full of the fire of the Lord and earnest in what he shared, just the complete opposite of the spirit that the Stoics and the Epicureans were in because they were like real, you know, laid back and gentle in their talk and no passion at all, you wouldn't even think they believed what they were saying, you know, because they were just so, I don't know, milk toast in their presentation or whatever, so anyway that's what Paul is doing there, verse 22 we see that he stands up to begin to speak to them and I'm not going to get into what he shared with them, I'm going to read what Longenecker says because he really kind of sums it up nicely, let me just read this, Paul knew it would be futile to refer to a history no one knew, meaning Jewish history, God's history with man or argue from fulfillment of prophecy no one was interested in or quote from a book no one read or accept it as authoritative.

Paul's Proclamation of the Unknown God

The substance of the Athenian address concerns the nature of God and the responsibility of man to God. Contrary to all pantheistic and polytheistic notions, God is the one, Paul says, who has created the world and everything in it.

He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn't live in temples, quote, made by hands, nor is he dependent for his existence upon anything he has created, rather he is the source of life and breath and everything else humanity possesses.

So Paul brings in here a presentation of this unknown God and you see the vastness of this God compared to these puny little characters, mythological characters that they had been worshiping and so on.

And you know, even in that setting, Paul still brings the message down to repentance. You know, it's amazing. Let me read what the pulpit commentary said. He bid them repent of their sins done in ignorance.

He told them of the coming of the day of judgment. He spoke to them of the terrifying judge and his unerring righteousness. There was no faltering in his speech, no watering down of the severity of the gospel, no wincing at the subtle wits or the pretentious wisdom of those who heard him.

He spoke as a man who knew that he had the truth of God and that that truth would prevail. You know, I mean that alone must have affected these men. I think when Paul spoke, people had to now let me back that up and say it a little differently.

Paul spoke with such fire that it forced the listener to decide what they believed about what he said. Whereas other preachers or speakers, you know, would have such a milquetoast presentation that he just kind of goes in one ear and out the other.

But not with Paul. He was in your face with what he had to say and you had to either reject him and sometimes, especially like with the Jews, he was so provoking because his messages were so pointed and straightforward and penetrating.

You either had to practically rise up in hostility or just, you know, crumble before God in his presence. So that's how it was. Anyway, verse 32, let's pick it up there. Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, well, we shall hear you again concerning this.

So Paul went out of their midst, but some men joined him and believed among well, he names a couple of people there that ended up getting saved. So there it was. Paul brought with all the force of the Holy Spirit in him the gospel message to this group and they rejected him.

They rejected the message. They didn't want anything to do with it. How could it be? How could that philosophy win out over the Christian message, the gospel? You know, it's just that way sometimes in certain locations.

Like Jesus, when he preached in Nazareth, the unbelief was so strong there that he could hardly do anything. You know, they were so hung up on this is Jesus the carpenter that we've known all his life and it just stymied faiths.

And there are things like that. There's locales like that in Japan or Tibet. You know, the gospel just cannot get a strong presence in those cultures. Something to do with I don't know what. But in this one, I understand it because this was the these men represented a strong belief system and they had invested their entire lives in this Athenian culture and all these, you know, the mythology and all that stuff.

They were it. They were at the top of the pinnacle in the world of philosophy. And when you have invested your whole life in some teaching, some belief system, you don't come off that easily. And in our day and age, you see it with well, I mean, at least in my mindset, what really stands out to me is Christian psychology.

You know, this melding of two really opposing, rival schools of thought and these people have somehow found a way to, you know, get them to marry each other. But there's not many people who have been trained in psychology and have years of practicing it, making a living at it, who can be so affected by God and by the Word of God that they renounce it.

And I have met some who have done that, but there's not many that have the courage to do that. You know, and you see that with these Athenians and, you know, it's very comparable to the Sanhedrin when Paul spoke to them.

Same thing with those Jewish leaders. They had spent their lives teaching and preaching that and believing it and their whole livelihood depended on them staying in that boat, as it were. But Paul is an example of someone who had the courage to come out and walked away from it, counted it all as done.

Praise the Lord. Okay, let's get into chapter 18 and Paul moves on here. After these things, he left Athens and went to Corinth. All right, now Corinth and Athens are only 50 miles apart, but there's really quite a difference in these two cities.

Corinth: Commercialism, Licentiousness, and Depravity

Athens is known for its culture, its learning centers, its schools, and, you know, like I said, the seedbed of all of the teaching of the day, the mindset of the day. Corinth was just crass commercialism and licentiousness and depravity.

I mean, it was in your face like Las Vegas or, I don't know, whatever cities are like that, that it was all about making money and living for the flesh, the things of the flesh. Corinth was also 20 times the size of Athens, you know, a couple hundred thousand people.

So it was a pretty good sized city. It was right there in the Isthmus down at the bottom of Greece. And the reason it was so prosperous is because it was a port city and rather than have to go all the way around the tip of Greece there out into the Mediterranean, the ships would port there at one side of this Isthmus and just transfer their goods just a couple of miles over this little, I don't know what you call it, but anyway they could get from one spot to the next without having to go all the way around.

So that made Corinth very important in that realm. All right, now what do we know about Paul's arrival in Corinth? I'm going to go over a few things here. First of all, we know that his heart was with those in Macedonia.

You know, he shares his heart with the Thessalonians as I talked about last week, and I won't get into it this week, but also with the Philippians. He loved the people in Philippi. And I was wondering, you know, why didn't he write a letter to the Philippians or even to the Bereans?

Why just the Thessalonians? And he wrote them two letters. I wonder if he did write to these other congregations, but for whatever reason, the Lord didn't want it to remain as part of the canon in Scripture, and so they got lost, those letters.

My guess is he did write to them, because I just can't understand why he would write to the Thessalonians but not to the Philippians. Of course, he did later write to the Philippians a letter that we have, but I'm talking about right then.

I don't know. But anyway, we know that his heart was still up in Macedonia, because he had gotten these churches established in revival. And you know, the revival is still going, and he's forced out of town.

He has to walk away from it. And by the way, if you've ever wondered about, man, how did this man have the courage to go out into the marketplace or go into these hostile synagogues and preach with all his heart, there's something that you and I haven't experienced, and that is what it's like to preach under a great anointing.

You know, when you preach and the audience is, there's a receptivity in their hearts for the Holy Spirit to go in. When Paul preached, lives were changed, and that is enough to keep you going. But to go out and preach in the city streets of San Francisco, Boston, I've seen these street preachers out in these different cities, and people are so hardened to the gospel now, no one listens to them, or maybe occasionally someone will get out there and argue with them, but they don't really accomplish much.

I mean, I know the Lord can sometimes use them. And if you have that calling on your life, you know, you do it regardless of what the response is or how much fruit comes out of it, but when Paul did it, people's lives were impacted and changed.

That's what kept him going, you know, not to take away at all what the things he did, but you know, you can keep going when you're seeing that kind of fruit come out of your efforts. All right, so that was, anyway, I kind of got off track there, but, so what we're talking about, what was he going through when he arrived there, that was one thing, his heart was still up in Macedonia.

Another thing was he was apparently worn out and dejected. You know, he had been beaten and jailed in Philippi, he'd been run out of Thessalonica and Berea just as God began moving there. He was laughed at and ridiculed by the leading men of Athens, you know, these world-renowned men scoffed at him, sneered at him, laughed at him.

You know, even for the Apostle Paul, that had to hurt. And then he shows up in Corinth by himself. You know, he didn't even wait for Timothy and Silas like he said he was going to do. He just, he must have been so dejected, he just wanted to get out of that city.

So he goes to Corinth by himself. And man, I tell you, ministry can be very disheartening at times. Praise the Lord that he keeps us going. All right, another thing, he had become afraid. And we're going to read here in verses 9 and 10 here in a minute that, you know, the Lord has to come to him and encourage him.

But when I think about this, it reminds me of a dog. If you've ever been around a dog and you go to pet it and it cringes, I don't know if you've ever seen a dog like that. You know that that dog has been beaten by its master.

You know, you get around a dog that's been beaten, they just do that. It's a natural reaction. They just kind of cringe down. And I'm not going to say that Paul was in that. He wasn't that far. But there's kind of almost that sense that by the time he gets to Corinth, he's been beat up physically and emotionally.

And you know, you just kind of get that sense that he's just cringing, waiting for the next beating. And the Lord has to come to him and encourage him, as we'll read about here in a minute. Okay, another thing is that we know that his message and preaching were in demonstration of the spirit and power.

That's in 1 Corinthians 2. That's really what I was just talking about when he was out preaching. And also in 2 Corinthians 12, 12, he says, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles.

So you see what I'm saying is that he would be out preaching, things were happening. And that is largely, I'm convinced, what gave him the courage to just keep going on and doing what he was doing, preaching in those kind of situations.

Paul's Six “Nots” in Corinth

All right, number five, I'm going to call this the six knots, N-O-T-S. And they're all found in 1 Corinthians. Paul came not in cleverness of speech, 117. He came not in persuasive words of wisdom, 2 verse 4.

He came not in the wisdom of this age, 2 verse 6. He came not in words of human wisdom, 2 verse 13. He came not with superiority of speech or wisdom, chapter 2, verse 1. And he came determined to know nothing, not a single thing, but Jesus, 1 Corinthians 2.

So that's the negatives about the spirit that Paul came to Corinth in. You know, and that really says a lot to me. All right, let's get into the story a little bit here. How are we doing? Verse 2, and he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.

And let me just mention this. A Roman historian named Suetonius later on, maybe 50 years later, wrote about this. This had happened in 49 A .D., so a couple of years before this, that basically the Jews had rioted regarding some man named Crestus.

And it seems almost certain that what had happened was the Christians had come back from the Pentecostal revival in Jerusalem some years before and had established a church there. And somehow they're out witnessing and the Jews there get all riled up.

And so there's a riot going on. And Claudius says, you know what? I am sick and tired of dealing with you Jews. You're out of here. And just expelled all the Jews out of Rome. So that's what he's talking about.

So Aquila and Priscilla were part of that. He came to them and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they were working for by trade, they were tent makers. So that's really interesting.

They were in the same line of work as he was in. And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the Word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.

Paul's Letters to the Thessalonians

All right, now during this time is when Paul wrote the two letters to the Thessalonians. After Timothy and Silas showed up and found him there in Corinth, then he, at that time, wrote to the Thessalonians partially in response to the Word that they brought to him.

Langenecker does a really good job of concisely summing up the two letters to the Thessalonians. So it's kind of lengthy, but I'm going to read it because there it is, a nice, neat package for us to see how these two letters to the church in Thessalonica fit into his life and what was going on at the time.

So let's read this. The coming of Silas and Timothy to Corinth altered the situation for Paul. They brought good news about the Christians at Thessalonica and a gift of money from the congregation at Philippi.

The news from Thessalonica was better than Paul dared expect, and it greatly comforted and encouraged him, though it also told of a slanderous campaign started against him outside the congregation and of some perplexity within it concerning the return of Christ.

And you certainly see this in the two letters to the Thessalonians about how much the end times had played a part in his time of teaching them there, and so now he's kind of straightening up some misunderstandings.

All right, let's continue here. And it was in response to the report from Thessalonica that Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians in which are interwoven, number one, commendation for growth, zeal, and fidelity.

So he's saying, man, you guys are doing great. Number two, encouragement in the face of local persecution. You know, you're doing great. Keep up the battle. The Lord is winning. Number three, defense of his motives against hostile attack.

So, you know, he's having to explain himself because there's always the enemy's agents, one form or another, there to try to bring doubt upon Paul, his life, and his teaching. Number four, instruction regarding holiness of life.

Number five, instruction about the coming of the Lord. And number six, exhortation to steadfastness and patience. Some weeks later on learning of continued confusion at Thessalonica regarding the return of Christ and the believer's relation to it, he wrote 2 Thessalonians.

In that second letter, while acknowledging that the church lives in eager expectation of the Lord's return, Paul insists that imminency must not be construed to mean immediacy, but is rather the basis for dogged persistence in doing right.

So, in other words, they had gotten the idea that the Lord literally was about to show up. And so the way that affected some of them is they quit working and just other things in life. They just basically quit doing life thinking that the Lord was going to come within the next few weeks.

And he's saying, no, we have to live our lives as if He could come at any time, but, you know, we're in for a long haul here. You have to keep fighting the fight and doing life. All right, so then Paul goes into the synagogue and he shares with them and the same thing happens there.

Christ Encourages Paul in Corinth

They largely reject him. And then in verse 9, let's pick it up again. This is when the Lord came to Paul and said to him in the night by a vision, do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you and no man will attack you in order to harm you.

For I have many people in this city. Okay, so we see here what I was talking about earlier, that cringing fear sort of thing of just waiting to get beaten again. But the Lord comes and reassures him, no, you're going to be here for a time and I'm with you.

No one's going to attack you. You know, God bless the Lord for that. Can I say that? God bless the Lord. You know, it was very kind of him to do that. But look at this last phrase. I have many people in this city.

Wow, what an interesting thing. I have many people in this city. And I want to read something Ironside says here. God speaks of the things that are not as though they are. When he said I have many people in this city, he was referring to hundreds of people who were living still in all the corruption of idolatry, all the wickedness that pertained to the worship of the goddess of lust who was the chief deity in the city of Corinth.

But God looked on that which he was about to do and he saw those people cleansed from their sins, made new creatures in Christ. And you know, I think about you guys, how five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, whatever for each of you, how the Lord could look at you while you're in the midst of your corruption.

Some of you hadn't even begun to get into it yet. And the Lord could say I have many people in this city. You know, because he sees us the way we are going to be in Christ. And you wonder how he has such patience with us and how he can put up with so much from us because he sees the end product.

He sees what his work in our lives is going to produce. And it just, you know, it really affects the way the Lord deals with us. All right, so in the next couple of verses we have the story, the Jews rise up against Paul.

They drag him before this proconsul Galio who was the brother of Seneca, a very famous Roman at the time. And this is one of those dates because we know Galio went there, began his governorship there in Corinth in July of 51.

We know that. That's an absolute date. And he left there a year and a half later. We know that. So we know that Paul arrived there, that this incident happened during that time. And it would seem to suggest that it was probably right after Galio arrived there because it's like the Jews thought here's our chance to bring this troublemaker before this new governor, before he, you know, kind of gets himself established and he still wants to win everyone's favor.

But Galio didn't put up with it and actually the people around there beat the Jews who brought Paul in there. And you see the real anti-Semitism that was thriving in the Roman culture during that time.

Fruit from Paul's Ministry in Corinth

All right, so verse 18, Paul having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren and put out to sea. All right, so this is his year and a half in Corinth. He's wrapping it up now. I want to read this little thing that Ironside says.

When Paul entered Corinth, there was not a Christian in it as far as we know. Moreover, it was one of the most debased of all the cities of the ancient Greek-speaking world. When he left it, there were literally hundreds of Christians.

Man, I'm telling you. You know, sometimes the smallest things that we're doing in our daily life, we have no idea the effects and how God has a way of compounding it and bringing fruit out of it. And, you know, before you know it, a year and a half later and you look back and you see, wow, look at all that God did.

And I was just, you know, I was all caught up in the daily life and challenges and struggles and everything. And then you look back a year and a half later, it's like, man, look at what God has done. And that's the way it is in the kingdom of God.

It's just such a blessing. Now what do we know about the Corinthians? Let me just go over a few things here real quick because he leaves behind a church that's established. First of all, we know that basically the Corinthian people were very immoral.

I mean, they were about the most corrupt city in the empire. And, you know, in 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, Paul said, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.

Now he's telling these Greek Christians, don't lie to yourselves and think you're going to somehow skirt these issues. You know, that God's grace means that you can just live the way you want to live.

Don't deceive yourselves. That's what he's saying to them. Neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, in other words, the whole city of Corinth, will inherit the kingdom of God.

Such were some of you. And I have a feeling that such were some of them then that they were still struggling with these issues, you know, in one level or another. But you were washed. But you were sanctified.

You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. He's reminding them of the work that the Lord had done in their hearts, you know, and calling them back to that. So there was a lot of immorality, at least in the backgrounds of these people.

Number two, the church was full of strife. You know, Paul leaves and in comes all the debating and the questioning and the liars come in and so on. Over and over again, Paul had to confront them about strife in the church and factions and so on.

And I didn't think to look it up. I can't remember who it was that wrote a letter about the turn of the century. So some, you know, 50 years later, one of the church leaders, it may have been, I can't think of who it was right now, but wrote a letter and still had to confront them about strife in the church.

But anyway, let me just share with you this. Chapter 1 talks about quarrels and the different factions. This is in 1 Corinthians. Chapter 2 talks about jealousies. Chapter 4 talks about countless tutors they had brought in.

Chapter 11 talks about the strife that was going on in the Lord's Supper. Chapter 12 talks about strife over the gifts of the Spirit. So we see that there was just a lot of strife in that immature body of believers.

And number three, you know, I'll just mention this as well, there was a lot of pride and arrogance there. And again, all these verses come out of 1 Corinthians. 3 .18, some were wise in this age. 4 .5, some were judging Paul.

Chapter 4, verse 6, some were arrogant against each other. Chapter 4, verse 7, some were acting superior and were boasting. Chapter 4, verse 10, he says this, you know, kind of sarcastically, we are fools for Christ's sake but you are prudent in Christ.

We are weak but you are strong. You are distinguished but we are without honor. So you can see how they had really risen up against Paul just by what he says there. And here we see Chapter 4, verse 18 through 20, some were arrogant against Paul's leadership.

And Chapter 5, verse 6, some were boasting. And Chapter 12, verse 5, many of them were arrogant regarding their spiritual gifts. So we see, you know, this was the basis of a lot of that strife was just ugly pride.

The Expanding Center of the Early Church

Alright, so the story continues, he leaves there, he goes to Ephesus, stops off there, sails to Caesarea, goes up, visits the church there, a short little visit it seems, and then ends up in Syrian Antioch, spends a little time there and then makes his way across Galatia, back to Ephesus.