T E S T A M E N T
N E W
T H E
COPYRIGHT BY WILLIAM EVANS
FIRST CORINTHIANS
from heaven to cheer and comfort his heart, an encouragement which God gra ciously granted him. The Jews having rejected the divine message, Paul now turns towards the Gentiles, making his headquarters at the house ,of one named Justus. God honored the ministry of the apostle in the conversion of Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, who, with all his house, believed on the Lord. Many of the Corinthians also believed. In this way the apostle lahpred in Corinth for eighteen months (Acts xviii. 1-11). The persecuting Jews incited Gallio, the governor, to arrest Paul. The apostle was accordingly brought before the ■ judgment seat and charged with persuading men to worship God contrary to the law (Acts xviii. 12, 13). The wicked plot of the Jews, however, failed and Gallio, pene trating their wicked scheme, released Paul and drove his accusers from the judg ment seat. Paul finally set sail for Ephe sus and, by way of Caesarea, reached Jerusalem. Shortly after Paul’s visit Apollos, an eloquent young preacher, visited Corinth and made a very strong impression upon the Corinthian believers—so strong an impression, indeed, that his followers grouped themselves into a Separate party and were thus one of the causes of the contentious condition existing in the Cor inthian church.
INTRODUCTION Paul’s Relation to the Church at Corinth. We are not surprised that the Apostle Paul should consider Corinth a strategic field of labor for the gospel of Christ, especially when we remember that Corinth was the seat of the commercial and intel lectual life of Greece. Cicero speaks of it as- being so refined and learned as to merit the title “The Light of all Greece.” Again, Corinth was the gathering place' of the concourse of the nations. In this mag nificent city, representatives of all nations had their dwelling place—the Greek, with his love of .speculation, philosophy, vanity, and pleasure; the Jew, with his passion for God and religion with all its atten dant ceremonies; the Roman with his over powering desire for world dominion; bar barian, . Scythian, bond and free, in one heterogeneous mass were to be found in Corinth. After leaving Athens, Paul arrives, alone, at Corinth, where shortly afterward he is joined by Silas and Timothy. Being a stranger in the city, he engages himself as a worker with Aquila who doubtless, like himself, "was a tentmaker. Each Sab bath the apostle preached the gospel in the synagogue. His ministrations were met with very serious opposition on the part of the Jews—so serious that the apostle had reached the point of discouragement and was in need, apparently, of a vision
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