Perseverance and Divine Encouragement in Corinth

"Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision. 'Do not be afraid but speak. Do not keep silent. For I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you, for I have many people in this city.' And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the Word of God among them." [00:01:55]

"But when they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them, 'Your blood be upon your own heads. I am clean. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles.' And he departed from there and entered the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue." [00:12:22]

"Gallio cuts him off and he said to the Jews, 'If this were a matter of wrongdoing or of wicked crimes, oh Jews, there'd be a reason why I should bear with you. But if it's just a question of words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves. I don't want to be a judge of such matters.' And he drove them away from the judgment seat." [00:21:37]

"We have a tendency to think that the primitive, pristine, Christian church of the first century was nothing but pure saints, where Corinth was a hotbed of problems. It was Corinth where they had the scandalous problem of the incestuous man who was not subjected to discipline. It was in Corinth that Paul had to deal with the warring factions." [00:23:52]

"The Roman historian, Suetonius, mentions in his history that the decree of Claudius in 52 A.D. was provoked to get rid of the Jews because they kept stirring up all kinds of controversy related to their leader whose name Suetonius referred to as Chrestus, C-H-R-E-S-T-U-S. And that is one of the very few mentions of Jesus that survive in ancient literature outside the books of the New Testament." [00:09:27]

"And he reasoned, every Sabbath, in the synagogue and was persuading both Jews and Greeks. This is his pattern as we've seen all along. Then when Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, and he testified to the Jews there in the synagogue that Jesus is the Christ." [00:11:36]

"And so Paul went next door. And again, if you go to Corinth, you will see the home of Justus is exactly next door to the synagogue. Do you remember that path? And so he said, 'He departed from there and entered the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.'" [00:14:01]

"Paul leaves, and the ruler of the synagogue embraces the gospel. The rest of the synagogue didn't, but the leader did. And this reminds me of the response of Nicodemus in the gospel era, who was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin that sentenced Jesus to death, basically, still one of their members, became a disciple of Jesus after meeting with him privately at night." [00:15:19]

"Now, why in the world would God appear to Paul of all people and say, 'Hey, Paul, don't be afraid? Don't be afraid to speak. For heaven's sake, don't keep silent.' Of all people in church history, the one who stands out as the most fearless, bold proclaimer of the gospel ever is the Apostle Paul. But remember that Paul was human, and he also had fears that plagued him." [00:16:10]

"Well, there were those in Corinth who fought against the rulers that had been appointed to be a head of the church and argued their superiority because they were so gifted with spiritual gifts. And Paul had to rebuke them in the first letter. Now, one of the most fascinating things in church history, at least to me, is at the end of the first century, the bishop of Rome, Clement, writes another letter to the Corinthians." [00:25:14]

"And so, slightly after the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, Paul comes now to Corinth, and he meets one of those Jews who had been exiled by imperial decree. And he noticed that he had something in common with Aquila and his wife Priscilla, is that they were engaged in the trade of tent-making. And this had been Paul's learned trade as a youth." [00:08:48]

"And so Paul left Athens and went hastily to Corinth. Corinth was about the same distance from Athens as Disney World is here from Sanford. And there were other parallels between the two. Corinth had been a flourishing Greek city 150 years before Paul got there, and it was then conquered by the Romans. And it lay in waste for a period of time until it was rebuilt under Roman occupation." [00:04:57]