THE CHURCH AT CORINTH - OLYMPIA - GREECE
THE CHURCH AT CORINTH – Olympia - Greece
Sunday, July 29, 2012, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
At the time Paul established the church at Corinth, the city was depraved. Going beyond the licentiousness of other trading cities and ports it lent its own name as the symbol of debauchery and corruption. “The name of Corinth had been a byword for the grossest profligacy, especially in connection with the worship of Aphrodite Pandemos. The monstrosity of sexual perversion in the name of religion overshadowed the life of the city as a mushroom cloud of moral destruction.” (Robertson and Plummer)
Corinth is situated in southern Greece on an Isthmus dividing the Corinthian Gulf and Saronic Gulf.
We are probably all enjoying the Olympic Games on our television screens after a year of political pundits trying to control our election process. I watched some of the opening ceremonies last night, but was arrested by the Holy Spirit at the lighting of the Olympic flame. I immediately knew the flame was an altar of fire to demonic gods.
The Olympic games originated long ago in ancient Greece. The games were a direct outgrowth of the values and beliefs of Greek society. The Greeks idealized physical fitness and mental discipline, and they believed that excellence in those areas honored Zeus, the greatest of all their gods.
One legend about the origin of the Olympic Games revolves around Zeus. It was said Zeus once fought his father, Kronos, for control of the world. They battled atop a mountain that overlooked a valley in southwestern Greece. After Zeus defeated his father, a temple and an immense statue was built in the valley and soon religious festivals developed there as people came to worship Zeus and to approach as nearly as possible his great strength. It is believed that these religious festivals eventually led to the famed Games of the Olympics.
The Olympic Flame is a symbol of the Olympic Games, commemorating the theft of fire from the Greek god Zeus by Prometheus. Its origins lie in ancient Greece, where a fire was kept burning throughout the celebration of the ancient Olympics. Today the Olympic Torch is ignited several months before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games at the site of the ancient Olympic in Olympia, Greece. Eleven women representing the Vestal Virgins perform a ceremony in which the torch is kindled by the light of the Sun, its rays concentrated by a parabolic mirror. The torch briefly travels around Greece via a short relay and is then transferred to the host city.
At the time of the original games within the boundaries of Olympia, the altar of the sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Hestia maintained a continuous flame.
Winners of the Games were crowned with wreaths of olive leaves and hailed as heroes. They were showered with material gifts. Sometimes a special entrance was cut in the wall surrounding their home city just for them to pass through as a symbol that the people of the city felt well protected with an Olympic champion living among them.
In 1 Cor. 9: 24-26, Paul is obviously referring to these games which were culturally dominant in Corinth at the time he started the church. “Do you not know that they which run in a race run all, but one receives the prize? So run, that you may obtain. Every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I do so run, not as uncertain; so do I also fight, but not as one that beats the air. I bring my body into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”
Sexual perversion was not, however, the great evil of this city for which the Holy Spirit urged Paul to start a church there. It was rather the strategic position it occupied. Its trading community ensured that anything preached in Corinth would soon reach far beyond the province of Achaia.
In view of the international influence of the Olympics, the strategic anointing deposited in Greece by Paul remains over that nation for Christianity. It is also a strategic center for the demonic principalities. I am sure the Lord has intercessors in Greece and Great Britain breaking the power of the curses related to the burning of the Olympic Flame to demonic powers. Also, we need intercessors praying for our young athletes covering them with the Blood of Christ.
We can be of courage just as the Lord encouraged Paul on his first trip to Corinth. Acts 18:9-10: "Then the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, do not be afraid, but speak, and do not hold your peace; for I am with you, and no man shall set on you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city.”
This was Paul’s first trip to Corinth, but his second missionary journey. He remained for eighteen months. Initially he was alone, but was later joined by Silas and Timothy. Discouragement experienced during his earlier activities in Greece expressed itself in his weakness and fear, as he walked the streets of Corinth and argued in the synagogue. Paul was threatened and reviled by the Jewish community.
The Jews further inflamed by the conversion of Crispus and his household, launched a united attack on Paul before Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia. Paul then started a Christian fellowship next door to the Synagogue. The majority of the converts came from the pagan community of the city.
After eighteen months, Paul moved from Corinth to Ephesus together with Priscilla and Aquila. He left them in Ephesus and he continued his travels in Syria. At that time, Apollos was divinely contacted in Ephesus by Pricilla and Aquila. Apollos went on to Corinth to consolidate and extend the activities of the church.
From the Acts and Paul’s letter to Corinth we understand that three visits were paid to Corinth and four letters written.
The first letter is mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:9. He had written telling the believers not to associate with sexually immoral people; meaning not the immoral of this world, but the immoral who bore the name of Christ. They misconstrued the meaning. Nothing more is known of this first letter. Paul’s reference to the first letter shows that it had been mis-understood. Thus the newer letter superseded the older and accordingly, it was not preserved.
1 Corinthians then is the second letter. The situation in Corinth had deteriorated. Dissensions and factions developed. The rhetoric of Apollos, coupled possibly with an allegorical method of preaching, contrasted sharply with the lack of eloquence and studied simplicity of Paul. Comparisons made by the congregation hardened into cliques. We are not to compare ministers, musicians or to compare ourselves with others.
Paul now living in Ephesus received reports regularly from Corinth. One such report has been preserved, that of “Chloe’s household”. So disturbing was this news that Paul dispatched Timothy (1 Co. 4:17) and wrote immediately dealing at the same time with a letter received from the Corinthian converts.
It is assumed this is the purpose of Paul’s second visit to Corinth. This is the “painful visit” referred to in 2 Cor. 3:1.
2 Cor. 12:14: “This will be my third visit to you.”
2 Cor. 13:1: “and…when I was with you the second time”.
It is reasonable to assume that Paul’s second letter (1 Corinthians) failed in its attempt to correct and conciliate the warring factions, but that the situation deteriorated still further. A personal visit became necessary.
Returning to Ephesus Paul wrote again. References to the third letter in 2 Cor. 2: 4, 7 & 8 indicate its extremely serious and censuring tone, so much so that Paul temporarily regrets its dispatch.
Had this letter failed in its purpose, the situation might have deteriorated far beyond Paul’s power to retrieve it. As it is, 2 Cor. 7:9 records the measure of his joy at their repentance---I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance.
It is believed the “severe letter” is preserved in part in 2 Cor. 10-13. The change in tone from commendation (Ch. 1-9) to censure (10-13) is explained by this hypothesis.
Upholders of the unity of 2 Corinthians explain this abrupt change by suggesting that in 1-9 Paul is addressing the reconciled majority, while in 10-13 he returns to the rebellious minority.
Paul then proceeds to Troas hoping to find Titus who took the letter to Corinth. Great was his relief and joy on finally locating his colleague in Macedonia and hearing the church was restored.
Paul’s three visits and four letters to Corinth may be set out as follows:
- The church founded; first visit.
- The first letter (referred to in 1 Cor. 5:9).
- The second letter: 1 Corinthians.
- The painful visit.
- The third letter: severe in tone (2 Cor. 2: 4; 7; 8)
- The fourth letter: 2 Corinthians.
- The third visit.
Two factors prompted Paul to write 1 Corinthians; (1) reports of dissensions received from Chloe’s people; and (2) a letter received from the believers in Corinth seeking guidance on a variety of questions.
1 Corinthians 1: 1-9: “Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours; Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in every thing you are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you; So that you come behind in no gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The situation in Corinth demands the full use of his God-given office and authority. Sosthenes is identified with the Corinthian Jew of Acts 18:17: “Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue and beat him before the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of those things.”
Paul’s thanksgiving to God is for their redemption from the gross immorality and a host of other evils flowing from the carnality that had captured the church. Assailed by Satan as they are, their spiritual life is evident. They are Christ’s and in a missionary situation surrounded by pagan depravity, this is abundant cause for praise.
Paul uses three actions verbs: (1) grace given; (2) you have been enriched; (3) our testimony was confirmed.
He then affirms their spiritual giftings: “all your speaking and all your knowledge”. Their gifts were adequate evidence of Christ’s work in them. The church was deficient in none of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is evidence that the gifts of the Holy Spirit can co-exist with the grossest evil. We can never presume anyone's spiritual maturity by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is only the fruit of the Holy Spirit that is a measure of our maturity.
The nine verses of this introduction record nine occurrences of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In all Paul’s thinking, Jesus is of cardinal importance and whether it be the problem of division, moral failure or doctrinal error. Christ is the answer and Paul has cause to give thanks.
1 Cor. 1:10-11: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.”
In flagrant disregard for the fellowship of Christ into which they had been called, dissensions abound. The facts are painfully obvious, for through Chloe’s people the petty, yet bitter quarrelling has been reported. Personalities, methods of preaching, and probably, aspects of doctrinal emphasis become rallying points for division. The apostle makes abundantly clear, this is not the will of Paul, or Christ.
No matter how deep the divisions, he insists on the unity of the family of God; his brothers. The instrument of the appeal is the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, one who cannot be divided.
1: 12-13: “Now this I say, that every one of you says, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Divisions (schismata-cliques) can result only in quarrels. This is an expression of the works of the flesh and evidence of the carnality of the Corinthian church. Strife and quarrels are never right and nowhere condoned or excused. “ I belong to Paul”: a loyal clinging to their father in Christ, which overlooks his limitations of speech and appearance; “To Apollos”, “To Cephas”, Peter who walked with Christ, the leader of the twelve; or “to Christ”. Is Christ parceled out among his children? Other leaders cannot take the place of Christ. If you place any minister on a pedestal, you are setting that minister up for a fall. Surely no man/woman could measure up too long being set on a pedestal.
No one could accuse Paul of making personal proselytes.
1: 14-16: “I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius; less any should say that I had baptized in my own name. I also baptized the household of Stephanas; besides, I know not that I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.”
To be continued…
Preached by: Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from K.J.V.; I entered into the labors of F. F. Bruce Bible Commentary, Paul W. Marsh; Wikipedia; Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.