The city drew its wealth from the commerce that passed between the Adriatic and the Aegean seas. City engineers built a five-foot-wide rock-cut track for wheeling ships across the isthmus. This was the world’s first railroad. It was about three miles long and paved with marble slabs in which grooves had been cut. Ships were drawn out of the water in a wheeled cradle and hauled along this railway by oxen. The city may have had a population of more than 100,000.

But Corinth became a very wicked city. City fathers established a temple to the goddess Aphrodite. By the year of 147 BC God’s wrath was visited upon this wicked city. The Corinthians were the leaders of the Achaian League. The Romans demanded the dissolution of this league, and Corinth resisted. So, the Romans sacked and utterly destroyed Corinth. Lucius Mummius slaughtered the men and sold the women and children into slavery. For a hundred years the city lay in ruins.

In 44 B.C., Julius Caesar undertook to rebuild the city, naming it Colonia Laus Julia Corinthiensis, and he populated it with Italian freedmen. Latin, indeed, continued to dominate public inscriptions until well into the second century A.D., although most of the citizens must have spoken Greek by the time of Paul’s arrival ca. A.D. 50, due to the influx of Greeks from neighboring areas. Approximately half of the names of people in Corinth mentioned in the NT are Greek, half Latin. In 27 B.C., Corinth was named capital of the senatorial province of Achaia, seat of the ruling proconsul. In spite of earthquakes and destructions by Goths and Herulians in the third and fourth centuries A.D., the city remained an important commercial center through the Middle Ages.

Jewish communities were well established in the Hellenistic world and throughout the Roman Empire by the first century A.D., and, according to Acts 18:1-3, Paul encountered the Christians Aquila and Priscilla (Prisca) on his first visit to Corinth ca. A.D. 50. Paul remained there, preaching in the synagogue, in spite of a suit brought against him by some Jews before the proconsul Gallio, probably in the fall of A.D. 51 or the spring of A.D. 52 (Acts 18:4-18). Apollos also visited Corinth (Acts 18:27-19:1; 1 Cor. 1:12; 3:4-9; 4:6), possibly contributing to the factionalism and difficulties Paul addresses in 1 and 2 Corinthians. Paul’s Letter to the Romans was probably written from Corinth (Rom. 15:25-27; cf. Acts 20:3).

Excavations at Athens have revealed much about first-century Corinth. One inscription mentions the name of Erastus the aedile, an official in charge of public works (possibly the ‘city treasurer’ of Rom. 16:23; cf. 2 Tim. 4:20). In the center of the forum was found a platform constructed ca. A.D. 44, probably Gallio’s ‘tribunal’ at Paul’s trial (Acts 18:12, 17). In the Lerna Asclepium and in other temples of the city can be seen the ruins of sacral dining halls that illuminate 1 Corinthians 8 and 10. An early first-century Latin inscription refers to a macellum, as Paul speaks of the ‘meat market’ (1 Cor. 10:25). And a crude, undatable Greek inscription on a stone seems to announce the ‘Synagogue of the Hebrews.’ Again, in the forum have been excavated rows of shops of the type Paul would have shared with his fellow tentmaker Aquila.

Paul brought Christianity to Corinth in his second missionary journey. He lived in that city for nearly two years and established a solid community of believers. He lived in Corinth in 52 and 53 AD. We are able to date the arrival of Paul in Corinth because of Acts 18:2. We can look back into history and determine which year that Emperor Claudius cast the Jews out of Rome and determine the date we need.

When Paul first arrived in that city he did not have an income from any church to support his ministry, so he applied his skills as a tent maker to become a self-supporting missionary. He met a couple who were already Christians. They had apparently been converted to Jesus in Rome and had become leaders in the church in Rome before Claudius forced all Jews to leave that city. Aquila and Priscilla shared both their skills as tent makers and their faith as Christians with Paul (Acts 18:2-3).

When Silas and Timothy came from the new Greek churches in the northern region of Greece, they brought him a financial gift from those churches that would enable him to become a full-time missionary instead of a part-time missionary. So, he closed down his tent making shop and went to work to preach Jesus (Acts 18:5).

Many people became Christians as a result of his work (Acts 18:5). Paul began to experience some secret fears. In the past Paul had enjoyed much success in the cities of northern Greece, and his success was always followed by violent persecution. Was persecution about to raise its ugly head again and drive him out of Corinth? Jesus appeared to Paul and reassured him that God would protect him from persecutors. He was encouraged to go boldly forth with his work with the assurance that there were many more people to be reached with the gospel (Acts 18:9 - 11).

One attempt was made to persecute Paul. A man by the name of Sosthenes brought Paul into court to ask the government to punish him for his work. The court turned against the Jews and dismissed the charges against Paul. In this situation the persecution backfired on the Jews. After that brief moment Paul was free to continue his work (Acts 18:12-18).

Four years later in 57 AD he wrote the letter we know as "First Corinthians" to that church. It is this letter that we plan to study.

In AD 57 Paul was completing his tenure in Ephesus at the end of his third missionary journey. He was beginning to plan a trip to Jerusalem to take a major gift to the poor saints in Jerusalem from the churches that he helped establish in Asia Minor and Greece. One reason for writing the letter of 1 Corinthians was to facilitate the free-will offering for this journey.

Paul received one letter from the church in Corinth. It asked him to offer them some guidance to deal with some of their church problems (1 Corinthians 7:1). Paul also received some additional information (possibly in a second letter) from an independent family in the church that explained to Paul more about what was happening in that church (1 Corinthians 1:11). These two resources inspired Paul to write the letter of 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 1 – 6 offers the Corinthian church instruction on how to solve their church problems as were identified by Chloe’s family. 1 Corinthians 7 – 16 addresses the problems and questions that were raised by the letter that Paul received from the church-at-large. Both of these sections focus on the theme of church problems and how to solve them.

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