"…to the assembly of God in Corinth…"

Corinth (Korinthos in the map inset below) was an important city in the Apostle Paul's day. It was re-built as a Roman colony by Julius Caesar and acres of land were given to military veterans for faithful service. Because the city was on a narrow strip of land between mainland and Peloponnesian Greece, it had two strategic harbors. These harbors, to the east and west of the city, allowed merchants to easily ship their cargo across a narrow land bridge and cut a week off transportation times.

Because it was a Roman colony in the Greek countryside and a major port city, Corinth was a mixing pot of cultures. Religion, politics, economics, traditions, lifestyles, and values of the eastern Mediterranean Sea blended together in a sometimes not-very-harmonious blend even though the Roman government and military made sure certain things ran smoothly. Corinth was a city of possibilities and opportunities even for slaves and ex-slaves. It was a land of money makers and heart breakers.

When Paul arrived to preach about Jesus he went first to the Jews at the synagogue (Acts 18.1-8). Some believed and some didn't, and eventually Paul had to meet with believers elsewhere. Paul was also a tent-maker so he set up shop on the Street of Tent Makers and got to know a nice couple named Aquila and Priscilla.
Paul spent about a year in Corinth preaching, teaching, and working miracles. Many Jews, God-fearing Gentiles, and eventually pagan Gentiles became Christians and formed the assembly of God in Corinth.

In Paul's time there he basically had to do what people have had to do in Post Katrina Louisiana and Mississippi. He had to clear away the rubble of past values, beliefs, and behaviors and rebuild them on the foundation of Jesus Christ. He had to teach a mixed multitude of people how to live as Christians in spite of what they were used to doing and thinking and in spite of what was going on in the world around them. He had to teach these people how to be "foreigners" in their own homeland because they now were citizens of a new country through rebirth in Jesus the Christ.

As is often the case even today, the Corinthian Christians still struggled with being what they used to be. Their responses to certain sins and situations were still evidences of an un-Christlike, worldly attitude. The Corinthian church became even more un-Christlike after Paul left. He heard about certain Christians being immoral, and he wrote a letter to them which we no longer have (1 Corinthians 5.9). The Corinthians wrote him back (7.1), and he answered their questions but not before he addressed some problems he had heard they were having (1.11).

We're going to be spending a few weeks in Paul's letter to them because the solutions Paul offers and reasons for those solutions help us realize how important and helpful it is to be a church belonging to God, sanctified by Jesus, and called to be holy.