WWUTT 2676 Paul Comes to Corinth (Acts 18:1-4)

The Apostle Paul came to a wicked city called Corinth, full of all kinds of immorality, but these were exactly the people who needed to hear the gospel of Christ. And we must be faithful in that as well, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Paul Comes to Corinth and Begins Ministry

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Acts, we come to chapter 18, where Paul comes to Corinth, and is gonna plant a church there and spend a year and a half in ministry. Let me begin reading in verse one, and we'll go through verse 17.

Hear the word of the Lord. After these things, he departed Athens and went to Corinth, and he found a Jew named Achilla, a native of Pontus, and his wife Priscilla, who recently came from Italy because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome.

He came to them, and because he was of the same trade, he was staying with them and they were working, for by trade they were tent makers. And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath, and trying to persuade both Jews and Greeks.

But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly bearing witness to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, your blood be on your own heads, I am clean.

From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justice, a God-fearer, whose house was next to the synagogue. And Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, were believing and being baptized.

And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you. And no man will lay a hand on you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.

And he stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. But while Galileo was pro-consul of Achaia, the Jews, with one accord, rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat, saying, this man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.

But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Galileo said to the Jews, if it were a wrongdoing or vicious crime, oh Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you. But if there are questions about words and names in your own law, see to it yourselves, I am not willing to be a judge of these matters.

And he drove them away from the judgment seat. And they all took hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and began beating him in front of the judgment seat. But Galileo was not concerned about any of these things.

And after this, Paul set sail for Syria. But these 17 verses cover for us the time that Paul spent in Corinth. Now, let me talk a little bit about this city, and then we'll get to some of the narrative here and the exposition of this passage.

Corinth's Reputation for Sexual Immorality

Corinth was a very infamous Greek city. And if you've ever done a study through the book of 1 Corinthians, or even 2 Corinthians, you've probably heard much about the city of Corinth. This was a city that was well known for its sexual immorality, even among Greeks.

There were some Greeks that thought the sexual immorality in Corinth was quite excessive. Remember that Paul had just been in Athens, which was the capital Greek city. He's in Southern Achaea. He goes from Athens to Corinth.

That's a direct trip to the West. Corinth is like a twin city with Syncriae. The two cities are very close to one another, considered to be port cities, even though Corinth's port wasn't necessarily like right on Corinth.

It was more kind of in between Corinth and Syncriae. So it belonged more to Syncriae than Corinth. But because of the port city being so close, there was a lot of trade, a lot of commerce that would come in and out of Corinth, and a lot of different nationalities as well.

Where you have a city that a lot of sailors came into, you often had a lot of sexual immorality. And that was especially the case in Corinth, but also because it had the temple to Aphrodite. Aphrodite was the goddess of love.

And this temple was on top of the Acrocorinth, which was the mountain that the city of Corinth was built around. This mountain was about 1800 feet high, not really big for a mountain, but very steep, and was a noticeable landmark because as ships would come in, they would identify the Acrocorinth, and they knew exactly where they were coming into because that mountain guided the way.

On top of that mountain was the temple to Aphrodite, and it is written by even some Greek historians, some historical figures in Greek history, it is written about that temple that it employed a thousand priestess prostitutes.

So essentially what a person would do going into the temple to Aphrodite and sacrificing to that goddess, it meant that they would have sex on a pagan altar. So that just kind of gives you an idea of the immorality that was going on there in Corinth.

And it wouldn't matter whether you were married or not, even a person who was married, who wanted to give a sacrifice to Aphrodite might go into that temple, fornicate with one of those priestess prostitutes, and then go home to their wife.

They may even fornicate with that prostitute so it would bless the sexual relationship that they had with their wife, hoping that it would also produce children. There was a lot of fertility that was connected with pagan practice.

Christ's People Must Leave Sexual Immorality Behind

A lot of the Corinthians that came to faith in Christ probably had a history of sexual immorality. And so that's one of the reasons why Paul has to address sexually immoral practices when he writes that first letter to the Corinthians.

There was even sexual immorality among them that was not going disciplined in the church. And so they were all guilty because they were tolerating this sin. And when Paul talks about sexual immorality, keeping someone from the kingdom of God, this talked about in 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 and 10, he says, such were some of you.

You used to be this sexually immoral, but you had been washed and you've been sanctified. You've been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. So having been justified, they were not to turn back to those sinful ways any longer, but they were to continue in purity and holiness that we have all been called to in Christ Jesus.

So that's a little bit about some of the religion, some of the immorality that was present there in the city of Corinth at that time. It was a Greek city, but it had a Roman layout to it. Many of the structures were Roman influenced.

The layout of the city itself was like many Roman cities. It boasted a lot of paganism. There were some well-known temples to pagan gods and goddesses, as of course I mentioned the temple to Aphrodite, but there was also a temple to Apollo that was there.

And there was a very rare place of worship to Asclepius, which was the god of healing. Now I say that was rare because there weren't many temples to Asclepius, but this one was a place where people would go and offer sacrifices and beg for the God of healing to heal them.

Pagan Healing and False Pentecostal Teaching

Some of the things that you would witness there probably didn't look too different from what you might witness in a Pentecostal church. Yes, a lot of those Pentecostal practices are rather pagan looking, and you would have seen the same sort of a thing, or even heard that kind of theology that would have been in the temple to the God that healed.

So they would beg for this God to heal them. They would give money and offerings, sacrifices, hoping that that would bring healing from this God, just like a person like Catherine Crick would preach that if you sow a seed or give an offering, you will receive healing.

Benny Hinn, who has done this, Ken Copeland, and many others. This is common among that Pentecostal teaching. There are, of course, very famous teachers, infamous teachers, that are attached to this kind of false teaching, but it's so, so very common among Pentecostalism.

So you would have seen this even within the pagan temples of Corinth in that particular day. So this is just kind of giving you an idea of the very place where Paul is ministering, sharing the gospel, seeing people come to Christ, and then is told by God to remain there.

And he does so, continues ministering in that place for a year and a half. So we'll get started with this today. We'll probably come back to chapter 18 tomorrow, the time that Paul spends in Corinth. We won't get all the way through today, but we start here with Paul departing from Athens.

Paul's Journey from Athens to Corinth

Again, that was directly to the east of Corinth, and he went to Corinth. Now, there's an isthmus that separates the part of Achaia where Athens was from the part of Achaia where Corinth was, Corinth and Syncriae.

This isthmus, a narrow piece of land, only about three and a half miles wide at its widest locations. Now, there were some rulers at the time of Paul who had tried to create a canal that would have joined the two bodies of water to the north and the south of the isthmus of Corinth.

So the body of water to the north, I believe is called the Gulf of Corinth. I don't remember if that was at that time or if it's called something else today, but I know it's had that name at one point.

So it was the Gulf of Corinth, which was right to the north of Corinth, and then to the south, which the city of Corinth would not have been touching this other body of water, but you have the Saronic Gulf that would have been to the south or more to the east of Corinth.

So that isthmus is what Paul would have traveled along from Athens to get to Corinth. And there were some rulers in the time of Paul that tried to build a canal, but I think it's two elevations, if memory serves.

So just like the Panama Canal, if you've ever seen video of how a ship goes through the Panama Canal, because you're talking about different elevations in those bodies of water, the ship has to go into one kind of chute, which fills up with water, elevates the ship to a certain spot, and then it goes into the next chute, which then raises the boat up again.

Things like that's kind of the pattern or the relay that a ship has to go through to go from one body of water to the next. That's why the Panama Canal is such an engineering marvel. I think that same thing had to be done with the canal that tried to join the two gulfs to the north and south of Corinth.

But in that day, they just didn't have the technology for it. There never was an effective canal built across that isthmus until the 19th century. So you're talking over a thousand years from the time of Paul, nearly 2000 years, from Paul's time until eventually a canal got built.

So there were rulers in that day in Paul's time that tried to build a canal. So I wonder if Paul's journey across the isthmus of Corinth would have been a little difficult due to some strange construction would have been going on there, some futile construction since they never successfully built a canal across that isthmus.

But anyway, that's the journey that Paul would have had to take. He wouldn't have had to go very far from Athens to Corinth, even less distance between Corinth and Sincreia as again, they were practically twin cities with one another.

Aquila and Priscilla Join Paul in Corinth

But when he comes to Corinth, he found a Jew named Akela who was a native of Pontus. Now Pontus is way out of the way. Pontus is to the north of what is today modern day Turkey. You might've remembered when we were talking about Paul's journey across Galatia and Bithynia and Pontus down into like Mysia and taking the boat from Troas over to Philippi and Thessalonica.

So it was part of that journey. On Paul's second missionary journey, he would have gone by Pontus. I don't know if Paul's connection to Akela was based on his journeying through Pontus. The text doesn't tell us that, but that's where Akela was originally from.

And he had with him his wife Priscilla and it says they recently came from Italy. So even though Akela and Priscilla were from Pontus, they were over in Italy in Rome, but Claudius had commanded that all the Jews depart from Rome.

And so that's what relocates Akela and Priscilla to Corinth at this particular time. And by the way, the reason why I pronounce their names that way, I know a lot of teachers say Aquila. So they are Aquila and Priscilla.

The reason why I don't pronounce it that way is because Aquila is spelled in English anyway with one L rather than two. So Priscilla has two Ls, so the I is shortened Priscilla, whereas Aquila has one L, hence why I pronounce it that way.

Anyway, I know there's going to be differences of opinion on pronunciation of many of those names, but that's why I pronounce them the way that I do. So this is a husband and wife duo, Aquila and Priscilla.

They came from Italy since Claudius the emperor thought that the Jews were proselytizing. He hears about all these people who are converting to this faith where they're worshiping a Jewish carpenter who was crucified and risen from the dead.

So Claudius is going, okay, we had an arrangement with the Jews. This arrangement was called religio lacita. It was not a formal arrangement. It was kind of an informal agreement that you can have your religion, but you can't be converting anybody to your religion.

This was the arrangement the Romans had with the Jews. The Jews were ridiculously committed to their monotheism. We worship one God, whereas the Romans very obviously were polytheists or even henotheists.

And so the Jews, they didn't want to wipe them out because Jews are taxpayers and they were actually very faithful taxpayers. We don't want to wipe out an entire group of people that's just going to end up costing us money and resources.

They're actually a benefit to the empire. So let's let them have their religion, but the agreement is going to be you can't convert anyone else to your religion. But then there's these Christians in Rome who are converting people to worship their Messiah who's a Jew.

And Claudius is going, okay, the Jews have broken our arrangement. So Claudius in his rage, he drives the Jews out of Rome. And it's that driving them out of Rome that bring Achilla and Priscilla to Corinth and into Paul's company.

Now, this is also why the church in Rome ends up becoming largely Gentile as a result. Claudius had driven out the wrong group of people. There were still many Gentiles who had become Christians in Rome.

And so then the church begins to grow with more Gentiles. After Claudius came Nero, Nero lifted the ban. The Jews come back into Rome. And then when those Jewish Christians return to Rome and into the church there in Rome, they find that the church is largely Gentile.

And the Jews now, the Jewish converts are a minority. So this plays into some of the things that Paul addresses in his letter to the Romans. I had talked about this with my church when I did an introduction to the book of Romans.

That was, how long ago was that now? Almost two years. We've been in Romans for almost two years now, which is a little quick compared to how long some people will spend in it. I'm certainly not spending as much time as Martin Lloyd-Jones had spent in the book of Romans or even Conrad in Bayway.

He was in Romans for a long time as well. I think even longer than Lloyd-Jones. But anyway, so Paul comes into the company of this husband and wife duo, Achilla and Priscilla, and they had the same trade.

Paul's Tentmaking and Bi-Vocational Ministry

He came to them and because he was of the same trade, he was staying with them and they were working for by trade. They were tent makers. Now Paul was bivocational. He did the work of an apostle, the work of an evangelist, but he supported his own living through his trade, which was tent making.

And that was a lucrative trade. It was something that everybody needed at that time. Everybody needed a tent. Everybody needed their tent mended on. So Paul always had plenty of work working on tents.

And he did that job kind of like he owned a business with Priscilla and Achilla. But at the same time that he was doing this job and providing for himself, not being a burden to anyone else, that's what he talks about with the Thessalonians.

We were not a burden on you, but we worked to pay for our own bread. That's what he's doing through this job of tent making. But at the same time, bivocationally, he's also doing the work of ministry.

So he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ. Now we'll end there for today because of time, and we'll come back to the ministry that Paul does in Corinth, picking up in verse five tomorrow.

Faithfulness in a Wicked Culture

But we see Paul's resilience. We see his resourcefulness and especially his faithfulness to this work. We also live in a very wicked world, just like Paul was ministering in a wicked city, but that doesn't stop him from spreading the gospel to wicked people.

It is exactly, those are exactly the kind of people that need to hear the gospel. We too were once children of wrath like the rest of mankind until the gospel came to us and we believed and were saved.

And so we must take the gospel also to the world. Not being affected by those things that are in the world, affected in the sense that we're not being drawn out of the faith into worldliness. Remember that one of the things that said in James 1, I want to say verse 27, is religion that God our father finds pure and faultless is this, to care for orphans and widows in their time of need and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Let us keep ourselves unstained by keeping our focus on Christ and pointing others to Jesus in the process. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we've read here and I pray that you would keep us faithful.

May we keep our eyes on Christ and live in the righteousness of Christ that he has given to us. He who died on the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

Help us to grow in our knowledge of the gospel, but also spreading the knowledge of the gospel to others. In Jesus name, amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com and click on the give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.