This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 585: 1 Corinthians in Context 2 - Paul Founds the Church at Corinth with Sean Finnegan

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585 1 Corinthians 2.mp3

Transcript

00:00
Hey there.

00:01
I'm Sean.

00:02
And you are listening to Restitudio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:12
How did Christianity come to Corinth in the 1st place? Although many times we are left speculating about how an ancient church got started, we have definitive knowledge about the Corinthian church from Luke Pauls traveling companion and what follows. We'll work through acts Chapter 18 to see how. Paul.

00:29
Initially founded the church in Corinth.

00:32
Also take time to consider what life was like for you.

00:36
Maker how he broke from the synagogue and how we date Paul's time there. Using the Galileo inscription from Delphi.

00:44
Here now is Episode 585, Part 2 of our First Corinthians in context Class, Paul founds the church at Corinth.

00:56
I.

01:00
Now that we've familiarized ourselves a little bit with the city of Corinth, we need to talk about how Christianity got started there.

01:08
We're going to do that in this session by looking at acts, Chapter 18 acts chapter 18, verse one.

01:16
Says after this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

01:21
There he found a Jew named Aquila from Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla.

01:28
Because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome, Paul went to see them.

01:33
And because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they worked together.

01:38
By trade, they were tent makers. Every Sabbath, he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.

01:47
This little paragraph has so much helpful information.

01:52
There's so much going on here.

01:54
1st we encounter Paul Paul's important Paul was Jewish.

02:02
But he did not grow up in Judea.

02:03
He grew up in Tarsus, which is a city in Silesia, up north from Jerusalem.

02:12
Significant distance N He grew up in the diaspora.

02:15
The diaspora is what you call Jewish people who live outside the land of Israel. So Paul.

02:22
Was not a normal person.

02:24
Paul is very zealous, very enthusiastic, very passionate about his faith, his whole life, as far as we could tell, we don't know a Paul that's just kind of apathetic, like, oh, whatever. Like the Paul we encounter is a Paul, this like into it.

02:39
He becomes a Pharisee.

02:41
A Pharisee is somebody that strictly trying to follow the Torah. The Commandments of God-given through Moses.

02:50
Right, that's a pharisee.

02:51
That's where Paul is coming from. When he found out about Christianity.

02:56
He didn't like.

02:56
Wicket he.

02:58
It was wrong, he.

03:00
Jesus was not the Messiah that these people were deceived.

03:03
And deceivers, and he heard that they were going up to Damascus.

03:08
And he said, I don't think so.

03:12
And he went to the high priest and he got permission.

03:14
And he got a delegation of people together, and he went to travel to Damascus because he knew.

03:21
If Christianity got to Damascus, which is a major city in the province of Syria.

03:26
To the north of Jerusalem, that Christianity was spread all over.

03:32
He knew that. So he went there to stop it.

03:36
On his way there.

03:37
He had a visionary experience in which Jesus appeared to him and convinced him.

03:43
That he really is the Messiah and that Paul is wrong about the whole situation.

03:48
And so Paul flips and becomes.

03:51
The greatest Christian missionary.

03:54
So it was like the worst persecutor, and now he's the greatest missionary.

03:58
That's Paul the Apostle in a nutshell.

04:01
He goes on three major missionary trips.

04:06
In his second missionary trip, he travels to 14 cities.

04:11
Paul came from a city, tarsus.

04:14
He was born a Roman citizen.

04:17
Paul is a city guy. He's sophisticated.

04:20
He knows cities.

04:22
He knows how things work.

04:24
He does not go out to the countryside and talk to farmers.

04:29
He goes to the cities 14 cities on his second missionary trip, he traveled to Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens.

04:38
Now he comes to Corinth and after that he goes to Ephesus.

04:44
These are all big name.

04:46
That ancient people would know. So let's take a look at Acts 18 again, verse one. After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

04:56
He found a Jew named Aquila from Pontus.

04:58
Recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla. Because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome, Paul went to see them.

05:07
Paul gets to town.

05:08
He doesn't know anybody.

05:10
Paul is Jewish.

05:12
He looks for other Jews.

05:14
It makes sense, right?

05:15
He finds these two Jews who had been kicked out of Rome, Aquila and Priscilla.

05:23
And it says here very clearly it was because Claudius had ordered them to leave.

05:29
Now when it comes to somebody like Claudius, the Roman Emperor, we know stuff about this guy.

05:34
This is not a mysterious person.

05:37
This is not somebody that does stuff and nobody notices.

05:40
This is somebody who does stuff, and the historians will write about it.

05:45
A century later, 2 centuries later, so we have quotes about this incident.

05:50
Swatonius the historian.

05:52
He writes around 1:21 to 1:22.

05:56
About the reign of Claudius Claudius reigned between 41 and 54, Swetonia says. Because the Jews at Rome cause continuous disturbances at the instigation of Crestis, he expelled them from the city.

06:11
Crest.

06:14
Could be somebody's name.

06:17
It could just be a Jewish person named.

06:18
That was causing trouble in the synagogue and the people who got in a big fight with each other.

06:23
Lot of chaos or disturbing of the peace and the emperor's just like not in my town.

06:29
Get out of here and kicked him out.

06:32
That's one.

06:33
A more likely scenario is that this is a misspelling of CHRISTUS in Latin is how they say Christ.

06:41
So it's just AE for I.

06:43
Now word to the wise, Asian people did not care about spelling.

06:47
This is driven home to me every time I go to one of these ancient cities and look at their inscriptions, because even in this same inscription, they'll spell words differently.

06:57
It doesn't surprise me that we'll say crestus instead of Christus. That is certainly another possibility.

07:03
That's the case then it was.

07:05
June.

07:06
Jews in Rome fighting over whether or not Jesus is the Christ that caused this disturbance, which is significant.

07:14
Is even before Paul writes Romans.

07:16
Already Christians there.

07:17
Which makes.

07:18
Why else would he write him a letter if there weren't already Christians there?

07:23
Cassius.

07:24
Kind of pulls things in the opposite direction he is writing in the early 3rd century, he says.

07:29
For the Jews.

07:30
Who had again increased so greatly that by reason of their multitude it would have been hard without raising a tumult to bar them from the city.

07:38
He did not drive them out, but ordered them while continuing their traditional mode of life.

07:43
Not to hold meetings.

07:45
So we have two ancient sources that are talking about the same incident.

07:50
And one they're saying.

07:53
He expelled the mall from the city and the other one, they say, didn't expel him from the city.

07:56
He just said they couldn't meet together.

07:58
It's hard when it comes to historical stuff like this to like know exactly like maybe Cassius style. He's writing 200 years later. Maybe he's a little off. Maybe Swatoni says. Anthony Thistleton puts it together this way, he says.

08:13
Talking about Aquila and Priscilla, they were probably freed persons of Jewish origin.

08:18
Who left Rome in AD 49 when the emperor Claudius closed down a Roman synagogue.

08:24
Because of continuous disservices centering on the.

08:27
Of Christ.

08:28
They may well have been converted in Rome.

08:31
Heard to Christianity and then came directly to the Roman colony of Corinth to set up their small shop in which to sell Leathercraft among the commercial developments off the Lechiam Rd.

08:42
I think this is a reasonable synthesis where what happened was not that Claudius told every single Jewish person to leave the city of Rome, because it's probably just way too many.

08:54
That was Cassius Dio's main point.

08:56
But he did.

08:57
Send some people out of the city because we know Aquila and Priscilla got kicked out of the city and they hook up with Paul.

09:03
No, there's no mention of him converting them.

09:06
He never preaches to them.

09:08
It's like they're already believers.

09:11
So either he converted them or they were already converted to Christianity.

09:14
Might have been part of a synagogue.

09:16
In Rome that had already received some sort of a Christian missionary, and it already started to make converts.

09:24
And we know that when people start making converts to Christianity in Jewish synagogues in the 1st century, it causes problems pretty much every single time it causes disturbances.

09:35
That that's a reasonable way to take it. All right, let's talk about tent making.

09:39
Acts chapter 18, verse 2.

09:42
Paul went to see them.

09:44
And because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they worked together.

09:49
By trade, they were tent makers.

09:52
When it comes to making money or just getting money in the ancient world, there are very few ways to do it. One.

10:01
Is to receive contributions offerings from other people and we know Paul did this specifically. We know he did it with the church at Philippi.

10:12
Because we have the Epistle to the Philippians at the end of which he thanks them for giving him money.

10:18
I mean, he dresses it up in really nice language, but like, that's basically what it is.

10:22
A thank you note saying thanks for the money, I have enough.

10:27
Giving anymore is basically what he says.

10:30
So Paul does take contributions and I'm sure that wasn't the only case either.

10:34
But that was probably a little later in his ministry at this point. This is still pretty early.

10:40
He is not doing that when it comes to Corinth. He writes an entire chapter on this very subject, first Corinthians 9.

10:50
Because the money situation is weird in this city and he doesn't want to get enmeshed in it.

10:56
So he was never going to take anything from the Corinthians.

11:00
So if you're not going to take any money from them, your second option.

11:04
Is to beg.

11:06
There were a class of people called the Cynics.

11:10
These are a group of philosophers.

11:12
Who wore a philosophical robe and they begged for money.

11:18
In the city of Corinth.

11:19
It's a well established thing.

11:22
But Paul may have felt his message would be discredited if he's begging for money.

11:28
Or maybe be associated with these other guys that he doesn't want to be associated with because he believes very differently than they do. So he doesn't beg.

11:36
Third option is to charge fees for his.

11:40
This is something that's totally standard in the ancient world. They're called sophists.

11:45
These are philosophers and wise people that will charge a fee and they will teach you what they know. Paul doesn't want to do that.

11:55
He makes a big deal of saying he didn't do that.

11:58
In one Corinthians, which leads us to the last option, which is to work a trade.

12:04
Which is what he did.

12:05
He worked a trade.

12:08
In Corinth, that's what he did.

12:09
Worked in Thessalonica before.

12:11
That's what he did. He worked.

12:13
And for whatever reason, we don't really know why he was a tentmaker, which means he worked with.

12:20
He worked with canvas, probably worked with linen, and there are many situations in which tents or awnings would be very useful in the ancient world.

12:31
These are all applications that I found in ancient.

12:34
This is not like me imagining. Oh, what would it be like?

12:37
This is like actual stuff that we can document from the 1st century. 01 would be canvas clause used as awnings in theaters.

12:47
You're sitting in the theater. You don't want the.

12:49
On you. So they would extend cloth above you as a shade.

12:56
Sail cloth awnings provided shade in the forum.

12:59
Is the marketplace.

13:01
Awnings used in inner courts of houses.

13:03
People lived in what's called villas.

13:06
Villas have an interior court in them at the center of which is an opening to the outside.

13:15
And if the sun is coming in, you might want to have an awning or some sort of shade.

13:20
So that was another use case. Some shops had linen awnings projected over the pavement.

13:26
Linen pavilions were used at beaches. We have this today, right?

13:30
Shows up to the beach and they.

13:32
Just set up a whole tent, you know, instead of just the umbrella. They just bring the whole tent that was going on 2000 years ago too.

13:39
Merchants at festivals used heavy canvas booths to sell their wares, and people slept in leather or canvas tents. When crowds flock to Corinth for the Ismian games every two years, you know what they didn't do with tents.

13:53
Recreational camping didn't exist.

13:56
Nobody would ever do that.

13:58
Why would you go live primitively in the woods for a weekend?

14:03
That'd just be totally.

14:04
Like, unless you're like in the military and you like got to because you're in a camp and you're trying to fight a war, right?

14:11
So our number one use case for tents didn't exist in their in their world, but.

14:18
I'm going to come back to the Ismian games later, especially once you get to 1st Corinthians Chapter 9, but the Esva games were like the Olympic Games.

14:25
They happen every two years and they were.

14:29
They were like as big as the Super Bowl is in America.

14:31
Mean like everybody wanted.

14:33
To go, everybody wanted to watch it.

14:34
Hundreds, if not thousands of people will come in from all over to watch these athletes and also musicians and also.

14:42
Poets compete against each other for the wreath.

14:48
Is a celery wreath that you would win as opposed to like we have like a golden medal necklace that we give right for them.

14:57
Was a celery wreath in in the Ismian games at least.

15:02
All right, so making.

15:03
Tents involves cutting leather canvas or linen, waterproofing the material with wax sewing pieces together. Selling these products to people taking orders, doing repairs.

15:17
Repair work. Somebody with these skills.

15:22
Sandals can fix wagon coverings can do a lot of other things other than specifically tents.

15:30
He would be doing whatever the need was.

15:34
When it comes to the location.

15:36
When it comes to the location in the South, there is this big beautiful forum.

15:42
Well, guess what?

15:43
It's so big. It's so.

15:45
It's so important that you're probably not going to have a shop there because it's surrounded by on two sides by major temples, so it's got a major temple right here.

15:56
The Apollo temple? Then we got another temple over here.

16:00
And then all these guys on the West, those are actually little temples too.

16:05
And then this right here, these buildings administrative buildings just like in the downtown of many cities in America today.

16:13
A lot of the buildings are administrative buildings, government buildings or houses of worship.

16:19
Not places where you would sell leather goods.

16:21
Where are you going to do?

16:23
You're going to do it up here in the North Forum in the North Forum. There's plenty of space and it's surrounded by porticos on all sides.

16:32
Another shot.

16:34
Of the city of ancient Corinth.

16:36
Here is the North Forum on the right side.

16:39
You can see it is a lovely place where they have these porticos.

16:43
Are just the best.

16:46
I hope someday you'll be able to.

16:49
Check out a portico. They reconstructed one in Athens.

16:52
It's so cool. So it's modern, but it's made to look the way it would in their times.

16:58
Portico is just a roof that's held up by columns for shade.

17:02
It's just like the greatest idea ever.

17:04
So you have all your shops in there, and archaeologists have found 44.

17:08
Shops around the square there are 13 feet tall by 13 feet deep, and the widths vary between 9 and 13 feet. You have Cobblers repairing shoes.

17:19
You have fullers who cleaned and thickened wool.

17:22
Have carpenters who made or repaired furniture.

17:25
Have Smiths who worked with metal.

17:28
Pottery.

17:29
Meat shops, grocers. Where you buy grain or barley.

17:34
This is the kind of place where you go to do any of that, Jerome Murphy O'Connor offers the following description, which is somewhat it's based on the archaeological evidence, but it also, I think, uses a little imagination, but I think it's really helpful, he says.

17:50
In the back of the shop, a series of stone or brick steps was continued by a wooden ladder to aloft, lit by an unglazed window centred above the shop entrance.

18:02
This is where the family that own the business slept, cooked and ate a hired man such as Paul would have slept in the work room. Each worker had a bench on which tools were laid out, such as straight and curved needles.

18:17
And all a punch, pincers, Half Moon, knives, shears and an edge shaver.

18:23
They worked, seated in leather aprons, stained by the wax. They used both to roll the flax thread and to protect the hides.

18:32
So just try to get yourself in the mindset here. Paul finds Priscilla in Aquila and he lives with them.

18:43
He works with them.

18:44
He lives with them.

18:46
That's how they did it back in those days.

18:48
And so they would have a.

18:50
So they would be in the top and then he could stay in the bottom.

18:53
At least for a little while during the day he's sewing.

18:58
He's sewing together canvas. He's sewing together leather. He's cutting. He's working with the materials, putting maybe putting wax on it for waterproofing, that sort of thing.

19:06
This is what the man of God did in the city of Corinth when he arrived.

19:13
And it was fantastic for evangelism.

19:17
Paul could tell the message about Jesus to the customers. I bet if they came to his shop.

19:23
They heard about Jesus.

19:25
On either side of his shop, there's two other shops and a lot of times they'd have a window or a door so they could talk to each other without having to leave and go out.

19:35
So I bet he had an opportunity to speak.

19:37
Those people.

19:39
After you've been working so many hours, you want to go get some food.

19:43
You walk around to the other.

19:45
Oh, there's the guy over there selling salted fish.

19:48
Let's talk to him.

19:49
Buy some salted fish.

19:52
Paul's working in the trades. This guy's working in the trades.

19:55
See eye to eye. You know what I mean.

19:57
You could just imagine the scenarios in which.

20:00
It was natural for Paul to do evangelism.

20:04
Especially when you consider the fact that he had a compelling personality.

20:11
And he was completely sold out.

20:13
He had a strong testimony.

20:15
Hated Christians.

20:16
I saw Jesus.

20:17
I am a Christian. What?

20:21
He had a strong, powerful testimony, and I bet he told it over and over again.

20:26
It was well educated, which is weird for a tradesman.

20:31
He was well educated.

20:32
Well traveled.

20:34
Weirder.

20:35
And well spoken.

20:37
So he knew how to use the Greek. We see this in his epistle like he knows the Greek language.

20:42
Good with it.

20:43
He's not an amateur like he he's at home with it.

20:47
The tent shop could even serve as a meeting place as.

20:54
Just a few Christians start to gather.

20:57
At least initially, there's not a lot of space in.

21:00
It's 13 by 13 by maybe 13. If you had a big one.

21:04
And then you have a loft in.

21:06
So, you know, we're not talking about a lot of space, but you could fit a few people.

21:10
Could have.

21:10
You could have a Christian, what we would call a Bible study or a fellowship, or deliver a message, a testimony, whatever they were doing.

21:19
And that was all good until you finally made the convert of.

21:25
A wealthy person, once you get a wealthy person, that wealthy person has a house, a villa.

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And villas have courtyards where you can have meetings with lots of people, dozens of people.

21:41
And so we see how this whole progression could work. And once Paul makes converts.

21:46
Of a wealthy person, a person of that higher class, then that person can introduce him to others.

21:52
Who are also wealthy. Paul can preach to them too.

21:56
And he's doing all he's got. Poor people and rich people in the church. We know that from.

22:00
Reading the epistle.

22:03
Still, tent making work was tedious.

22:06
Hours were long.

22:08
And the pay was.

22:09
I don't want to romanticize it too much for you. It's hard work.

22:12
Here's a description from Lucian of Semisada, writing around the year 1.

22:16
He says their trades, however, were petty, laborious and barely able to supply them with just enough.

22:25
All the men in the workshops, toiling and moiling from morning till night.

22:30
Doubled over their tasks. They merely eke out a bare existence from such wage earning.

22:37
So you had to work many, many hours and you just made a little bit of money and that little bit of money was just what you needed to survive. That's what life was like for most people.

22:52
In the city of Corinth, maybe 10% were super wealthy and everyone else is kind of in the poor category.

23:00
Bread would be limited to barley for most, and the only meat was salted fish.

23:07
Paul comments on his work twice in the New Testament, both in Thessalonians, he says, in first Thessalonians 29 he had been to Thessaloniki prior to coming to Corinth, he says.

23:20
Remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters.

23:24
We worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you.

23:28
Proclaim to you the Gospel of God. You get the impression from that there was not like.

23:33
Fun. Enjoyable.

23:34
My jobs really satisfying my soul, he.

23:38
No, it's labor and toil and day and night. And he says in second Thessalonians 37, for you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us.

23:46
Were not idle when we were with.

23:48
We did not eat anyones bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor, we.

23:54
Night and day so that we might not burden any of you.

23:58
Work was hard.

24:00
And here's something that many of us don't think about. Work was a major part of Paul's life.

24:07
I mean, yeah, he's he's speaking the gospel as he's able to. But most of those hours he's bent over.

24:13
With a needle in his hand.

24:16
But he also took a day off to rest.

24:18
And on that day, he went to the synagogue and he preached to the other Jewish people in the city of Corinth.

24:25
That's where we pick it up in verse 4 of acts chapter 18.

24:29
Every Sabbath, he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.

24:36
That sounds about right.

24:38
With Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus.

24:46
When they opposed and reviled him.

24:49
In protest, he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them.

24:53
Your blood be on your own heads.

24:56
I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles.

25:00
Then he left the synagogue and went to the House of a man named Tishis Justice, a worshipper of God.

25:06
His house was next door to the synagogue, Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord.

25:12
Together with all his household and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized.

25:20
I try to help you feel the heat a little bit.

25:22
You feel the heat when you read this.

25:25
Your blood be on your own heads.

25:26
Doesn't say they disagree with.

25:28
It says they reviled him and opposed him.

25:31
I mean this was.

25:33
It was a sharp conflict over whether or not Paul is legit and whether or not Jesus really is the Jewish Messiah.

25:40
Said no, we don't believe this and they cast him out.

25:45
He went next door.

25:47
The guy next door.

25:48
It's interesting the guy next door says he's a worshipper of God.

25:52
That's a technical term in the in that Luke uses in the book of Acts in particular.

25:57
To talk about a Gentile person who went to synagogue but had not converted to Judaism.

26:03
So as somebody who is worshipping the God of the Jews but wasn't Jewish and didn't necessarily plan on becoming Jewish, just was interested.

26:13
And so Paul comes into town and he preaches to these people. And he says some, you know, you can become a child of God. You don't need to get circumcised.

26:21
Just got to believe in Jesus.

26:23
How could you resist that message like.

26:26
Sign me up.

26:26
You know, like I could be a full member of the people of God and I don't need to keep the law of the Jewish people.

26:35
But yeah, I get the God.

26:37
The Jewish people.

26:39
That said, offer I can't refuse.

26:41
And yet these people were often people that the Jewish synagogue depended on financially.

26:47
And for protection within the city, and Paul is kind of pulling them into this new thing that they don't like called Christianity.

26:57
They picked up.

26:59
Crispus is a big deal.

27:01
Crispus and it says he's the official of the synagogue. OK.

27:05
All one Greek word and it's a title.

27:08
That it could mean that he was a leader in the synagogue, but.

27:13
Based on inscriptions that we found with this title on it, it's more likely that it refers to somebody who had made a big donation to the synagogue.

27:21
And so it was a title that you would give to somebody who had given financially.

27:28
Again, if you're the Jewish synagogue, do you want Crispus a major donor?

27:34
Going with Paul in this weird new religion that you don't want anything to do with.

27:38
No you don't.

27:39
You can see why they would be so upset with Paul as he is evangelizing.

27:45
And we also see this same term official of the synagogue in verse 17 applied to sophonies.

27:50
We'll get to him in a minute.

27:53
Let's talk about the next thing that happens. Acts 18, verse nine. One night, the Lord said to Paul in a vision.

27:59
Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be, for I am with you and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many.

28:07
In this city, who are my people?

28:10
He stayed there a year and 6:00.

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Months.

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Teaching the word of God among them.

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But when Galio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul.

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And brought him before the tribunal, they said.

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This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.

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That's their accusation. Verse 14, just as Paul was about to speak, Galileo said to the Jews.

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If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy.

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I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews, but since it is a matter of questions about words and names in your own law, see to it yourselves.

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I do not wish to be a judge of these matters.

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Trying to give him a little bit of snobbery there, you know, Galio is a top notch guy.

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He's important.

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He doesn't want to be bothered.

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Verse 16.

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And he dismissed them from the tribunal. Then all of them seized sodomies. Poor dude.

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Just in the wrong spot.

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And they beat him in front of the tribunal.

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But Galio paid no attention to any of these things.

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This guy is.

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He's who got his **** whooped that day.

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He's a co-author.

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Of one Corinthians with Paul.

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It's from Paul and sons.

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This guy.

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And notice it also says that he is the official of the synagogue too, which means he's probably a donor as well.

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There's a lot going on.

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I'm going to be as brief as I can be.

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Here's a picture I took of the rastra the spot where this happened with Galio.

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We.

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It it exists, it's in Corinth. Galio would be on top of this platform looking down.

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You can imagine a crowd could get underneath there and they could do.

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And Galileo would just be like, yeah, whatever, you know, go ahead and beat up this guy. Who cares, right? Like.

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Because he's up on that elevated platform.

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Galio is somebody that's very well known in the ancient world. He his real name is Lucius Junius Galio, born about 5 BC, dies around 65.

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His brother is super famous. His brother is named Seneca was a Stoic philosopher.

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Of his works have.

30:29
There are people today that are reading.

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It's still very much in print if you go to any books major bookstore.

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Emperor Claudius appointed Galio proconsul.

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Proconsul is a one year term. He's a pro console of the province of Ache.

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That's the whole region around Corinth. But as the proconsul.

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He would be living in Corinth for that year and he would be hearing cases and deciding on judicial matters, just like we read about in Acts 18.

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He only served part of the year.

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The plot.

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Galileo only served part of the year and then left.

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Didn't like Reece, missus. Seneca, his brother.

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He says all I could say was what my mentor Galio had said when he was on the point of starting to have a fever in Greece.

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He immediately boarded a ship and kept insisting that his sickness was due.

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To the location and not to his body.

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Murphy, O'Connor.

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It is natural to assume that Galio took a dislike to accea and used a minor illness as an excuse to leave his post.

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Such an unreasoning aversion to a place is normally the result of a first impression.

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It may intensify with the passage of time, but it does not usually begin late. If this assessment is correct, it is unlikely that Galileo remained in IKEA.

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More than four months from June to September.

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This is just so incredibly important for.

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Understanding when these things happened because this guy's only there for four months, we know Paul's there.

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Paul comes before him in a trial.

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Of like a mock trial.

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He dismisses it.

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OK.

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Let me just fill in the rest of the detective case for you.

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Emperor Claudius famously wrote a letter to the city of Delphi.

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Delphi is not near Corinth, but it is in Greece, right?

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He writes a letter to the people of Delphi.

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And in that letter, he mentions that Galio was the proconsul.

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And from this letter we can date win. Galio was the proconsul. If we can date that we can date when Paul was in Corinth and we can date everything else either side of that impulse chronology.

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Based on this one piece of information, but it's crazy.

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Because what does Delphi have to do with Corinth?

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Nothing. Why is this letter in Delphi Delphi?

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Me just show you a couple pictures.

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Is an incredibly beautiful.

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This is a shot looking down from the city of Delphi into the valley.

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It's a mountainous region, fairly inaccessible.

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However, it's very important in ancient times because Delphi had the ancient.

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Pythian Apollo temple.

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And the Apollo temple is where there was an Oracle. If you've heard of the Oracle of Delphi, this is where it happened.

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And so cities from all over, and people from all.

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And pilgrims would come to this city to hear a message from the gods.

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And so Delphi was very significant in Greek history, and the Romans were curious about it, and they were interested in it. And the emperor Claudius was like, hey, let's go into Delphi, kind of like curious.

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About it.

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What happens is Galio leaves Corinth. He goes to Delphi.

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He checks on.

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He notices that there's like no people there, the city has.

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Shrunk to like nothing, and he goes back to Rome and he tells Claudius he's like, oh, by the way.

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I stopped at Delphi.

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And there's like no people.

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You better do something, or else the city's gonna die.

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So Claudius writes a letter to the people in Delphi and says to him I was talking to.

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Galio and I want to help you guys expand your population.

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Now look at the this is just.

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So in 1905, a guy named Borget discovers 4 fragments of an inscription.

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In 1913, another archaeologist named Brassack added three more to the same inscription in 1967.

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Plus, R added two more and in 1970 all nine fragments were published.

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Here's a picture I took of the 9 fragments.

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This is not readable.

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Like I know it's 9.

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Like, whoa, look at all this. All nine? Yeah.

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There's more empty space than letters. You notice that, right?

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This is a shot I took in the Delphi.

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It's at the very end, very easy to miss this exhibit.

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Actually missed it the first time through.

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I had to go through the museum the second time until I found this.

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Because inscription so often follow the same pattern.

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Professional epigraphers people that do this for a living could fill in most of the rest of this document.

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And this is what they.

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They filled in the rest of the document.

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And they just infer, oh, this typically this is a formula.

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Typically says this, and so here's an English translation.

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Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus invested with the tribunician power for the 12th time, a claim the Imperator, for the 26th time father of the Fatherland dot dot dot sends greetings to dot dot dot.

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For a long time have I been not only well disposed toward the city of Delphi, but also solicitous for its prosperity.

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And I have always guarded the cult of the Pythian Apollo.

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But now, since it is said to be destitute of citizens, as El Junius Gallio, my friend and pro console recently reported to me.

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And it goes on from there.

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This is how we got it.

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It's just like barely had enough, and then this is totally common knowledge today for anyone that does work on Corinthians that.

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We date it by Galio and we have this nailed down because of this document, but I just think it's so cool to see the story of how that happens.

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The letter calls Galio pro.

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We date the letter to the year of 52, which means it Galio was proconsul from 51 to 52.

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Paul was there in 51.

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End of story.

36:32
Verse 18 after staying there for a considerable time, Paul and Corinth Paul said farewell to the brothers and sisters and sailed for Syria.

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Accompanied by Priscilla and.

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So he took them with them.

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At Cancreai, he had his hair cut, for he was under a vow when they reached Ephesus, he left them.

36:54
And Aquila there. But first he himself went into the synagogue and had a discussion with the Jews.

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Was always doing that, huh?

37:02
So Paul left.

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Corinth, through the eastern port Kencriai and he left to Ephesus while in Ephesus.

37:12
He was in Ephesus for a short.

37:13
He made the rest of his trip all the way back to Jerusalem.

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And then started 1/3 missionary trip on his third missionary trip, he comes all the way back to Ephesus.

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Meanwhile, other things have happened with Corinth and he's an Ephesus and he hears about what's going on in Corinth. Now I don't want to overwhelm you with details, but I do want to give you a timeline.

37:38
You can see a sequence of events which I think will help you understand how. First Corinthians as a letter works.

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So here's a brief timeline.

37:49
In the year 51, that's all this Galio stuff. I was going through with the inscriptions.

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That's how we know it's 51.

37:55
Paul visited Corinth when Galileo was proconsul.

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And then after that, Paul left Corinth.

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He went all the way back to Jerusalem in Antioch.

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Came back to Ephesus. In the meanwhile, Apollos.

38:08
Visited Corinth.

38:10
We read about that in the Bible.

38:13
Then Papalos comes back to Ephesus.

38:17
Then Paul.

38:20
Like I said, when on the second missionary trip ended up in Ephesus where he stayed for two plus years, Ephesus is very close to Corinth by boat.

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And so he's hearing about this stuff happening in Corinth in the year 53.

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Wrote a lost letter to the.

38:37
We don't know what it says other than it was advocating sexual purity.

38:43
He refers to a previous letter of one Corinthians 59 in the year 54 Chloe.

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Who? We don't know anything about. But a lady named Chloe, an important person, sent some people who brought. They could be employees or slaves of hers who brought a negative report about the Corinthians to Paul in Ephesus.

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In 54, Paul sent Timothy to Corinth.

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To teach them.

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How to follow in his ways is how he puts it.

39:12
That's first Corinthians 417.

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54 also, a delegation arrives in Ephesus from Corinth with Stephanus.

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Fortunatus in a caucus who have a letter with them from the church at Corinth.

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That Paul receives and it has questions in it. Questions of the Corinthian Christians want to hear Paul's answers to.

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And then in 54, Paul wrote I Corinthians.

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He wrote first Corinthians.

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Based on his experience of visiting and founding the church, the report of Apollos, the report of Chloe's people and the letter from the Corinthians, and So what he does is he puts the information that he prioritizes first.

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The bad stuff he heard from Chloe and he addresses that, namely, divisions in the church and sexual immorality.

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And then in Chapter 7, he says now as to what you wrote me.

40:09
Me.

40:11
Is good for a man not to touch a woman.

40:13
Here's what I say.

40:15
And so then we start getting.

40:17
Responses to the questions that they had asked him in the rest of the Epistle.

40:23
So we got our bearings a little bit, but I want to just list out.

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Not going to go into any.

40:30
I just want to list out the 11 issues.

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That one Corinthians addresses because this kind of forms an outline, more or less I'm going to add a couple more in here, but an outline of the different subjects we're going to address in this class so.

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These are in order in which they appear in First Corinthians.

40:50
There's issue of factions. They're fighting with each other. There's the issue of them approving sexual misbehavior.

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There's the issue of lawsuits between.

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The issue of licentiousness. It's kind of a fancy word. It means just like doing whatever you want to do, regardless of if it's right or wrong.

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Specifically, using prostitutes is the issue that he addresses there.

41:15
Then he has a whole chapter where he talks about Christian marriage and singleness and divorce.

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And he also then talks about food sacrifice to idols, gender distinctions and worship, schisms at communion.

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Selfish spirit manifestations and then some who disbelieved in the resurrection.

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And then the last chapter, he talks about the collection of their offerings, their financial contribution that he's going to bring to Jerusalem, to the poor there.

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So these are all things we're going to talk about later in this class. But I think for now, you know, at least how Paul visited there to Corinth originally, how he worked, how he.

41:57
Preached how he.

42:01
Faced incredibly difficult controversy and conflict. I mean this guy got he got brought to court once Galio got assigned and he showed up.

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The Jews said hey, let's bring him to the procossile. Let's finish this guy.

42:18
I mean, really, a lot of stuff that he went through Indiana, this city. And yet Jesus gave him.

42:22
Vision. Very rare.

42:24
Paul ever talks like this?

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There's another place in two Corinthians 12 where he talks about visions too.

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But very rare.

42:30
And he says Jesus spoke to me and he says I have got many people in the city. You're good.

42:35
Nobody's going to touch you.

42:38
And he said. All right, I'll be here for a while.

42:42
Maybe he moved over to Crispus House instead.

42:44
Staying in the workshop.

42:45
Knows right?

42:46
But he was there for 18 months.

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And then he goes back home.

42:52
He now he's in Ephesus. He's in it.

42:54
In a different city, things are happening.

42:56
Word is spreading.

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Are.

42:58
He's got Priscilla and Aquila with him there in Ephesus and he starts hearing all this information about Corinth.

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This is going on in.

43:05
Oh, that's going on in Corinth and he writes them first Corinthians.

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To guide the church so that they would understand and live out Christianity effectively.

43:15
So next time we'll dive in and cover the first major issue Paul addresses as we continue through this class on 1st Corinthians.

43:27
What?

43:27
Brings his presentation to an end.

43:29
Did you think?

43:30
Come on over to restitudio.org and find episode 585. Paul founds the church at Corinth and leave your feedback there.

43:39
Now, many of you know my first book, Kingdom Journey, got published a little over a year ago.

43:44
It was a memoir of sorts, detailing my journey of discovering what the Kingdom of God is, as well as how Christianity lost it and found it later.

43:53
Anyhow, I have been.

43:55
Occasionally asking for people to go to Amazon and rate or review the book, and I was just checking to see how that was going and came across a very negative review.

44:06
Someone using the username CX tanked it, giving it one star.

44:13
Anyhow, here's what he wrote. The author starts strong with the rare biblical presentation of the gospel as the coming Kingdom of God, Per Mark, 114 to 15, et cetera.

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But the message of the whole book is undermined. In the ending Appendix 5, when the author, for some unknown reason, concludes that quote millennial positions are not primary.

44:39
Jesus did not say seek first the Millennium.

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But seek first the Kingdom.

44:44
He did not proclaim from town to town. Repent, the Millennium is at hand, but repent. The Kingdom of God is at hand.

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End Quote this even though previous to this the author is right to say.

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Quote the Millennium is the first phase of the Kingdom. It initiates the changes that will eventually result in a new heavens and earth in which righteousness dwells. End Quote.

45:06
Sad and confusing indeed.

45:10
So this guy actually agreed with everything I put forward in the book.

45:15
This is what is just.

45:17
My mind right now.

45:18
He tanked it with one star and he actually agrees with everything I put forward in the book.

45:24
He agrees that the Kingdom is the gospel message.

45:27
He agrees that the Kingdom is coming on Earth rather than us going to heaven.

45:31
Agrees that the Kingdom is our motivation for pursuing righteousness. He finds no fault with my historical investigation of the reasons why we lost the Kingdom.

45:39
He finds no fault with the historical investigation of the three movements that rediscovered the Kingdom.

45:44
He agrees with my position that the Millennium begins when Christ returns and that it is the first phase of the Kingdom.

45:51
In other words, premillennialism.

45:53
But he disagrees with my view of how important.

45:56
My belief that agrees with his belief is.

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He's upset enough with me not regarding premillennialism.

46:05
He's upset enough with me because I do not regard premillennialism as an essential doctrine that he felt the need to sink my rating on Amazon.

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And then.

46:20
Someone else clicked the helpful button on this, which gives this guy's.

46:25
Review credibility.

46:28
Now, what does that tell you?

46:29
Well, let me ask you this.

46:32
What percentage of Christians do you think believe in going to heaven instead of the Kingdom?

46:39
What 90%?

46:40
95% this guy is one of the very few who was on my team and he went out of his way to prevent people from getting a book that until appendix.

46:54
Five, he can't find a single disagreement with.

46:58
Ladies and gentlemen.

47:00
Don't be that dogmatic.

47:04
Don't be that rigid.

47:05
You reserve the right to believe whatever you like, but you don't need to have complete doctrinal uniformity to support someone's work.

47:16
We need to get out of this all or nothing.

47:19
0 sum game mind.

47:20
Set I can support Chris Adelphians even though I disagree with their views on the spiritual realm. I can support the Church of God even though I disagree with their views on speaking in tongues.

47:32
I can support spirit and truth even though I disagree with their belief and dispensationalism.

47:37
I can support the Christian Disciples Church even though I disagree with them on well. I don't know, but something. Surely I disagree with them on.

47:45
But here's my point.

47:46
We are a religious minority.

47:48
We are excluded from evangelical publishers.

47:51
And institutions of higher learning and instead of supporting one another, we bite and devour one another.

47:58
We find someone we agree with on 99.9% and attack that .01% publicly.

48:08
We need to do better.

48:11
Let's cheer each other on rather than tear each other down.

48:14
We can still disagree.

48:15
That's fine, but we should still support each other as far as we can support each other on the things we agree about.

48:24
Well, that's the end of my little rant here.

48:27
I wonder what you.

48:28
Come on over to Restitudio dot.

48:30
Find Episode 585 and leave your thoughts there.

48:36
Obviously, truth matters. Truth is important.

48:39
I'm all about pursuing truth wherever it.

48:42
That's the whole idea of the slogan. The truth has nothing to fear that I literally end every episode on because I think we should relentlessly and courageously pursue truth.

48:51
Wherever it leads.

48:53
But that doesn't mean that I have to be a jerk to somebody that has a .0.

48:57
Car 01. Disagreement with me.

48:59
Well, that's enough for.

49:01
I hope you'll join us next week as we look at part three of the first Corinthians in context class and consider the question of divisiveness in the church in Corinth in the 1st century.

49:15
Like a fairly relevant subject for our next episode.

49:19
So join me for that next week if you'd like to support us. You can do that at restitudio.org.

49:25
Catch you next week and remember the truth has nothing to fear.