The Gospel Enters Corinth

October 5th, 2026
by Lance Waldie

Acts 18:1, 11 After these things, [Paul] left Athens and went to Corinth… And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

Corinth was the capital of the Roman province of Achaia on NW end of the Peloponnese peninsula next to Greece. Situated on an isthmus overlooking the sea routes east and west, it was an affluent commercial center, famous for its multinational character and notorious immorality. Aphrodite’s temple was there, replete with cult-prostitutes roaming the city in honor of her. To be immoral was to be “Corinthian,” a term that came to signify immorality.
In AD 49, the Roman Emperor Claudius (AD 41-54) expelled all Jews and Christians from Rome, among them were Aquila and his wife Priscilla who then came to Corinth (v. 2) where they met Paul. This husband-wife team, friends of Paul, would later play an instrumental role in sending Apollos to Corinth as its new pastor after Paul departed (Acts 18:24-28).

As was Paul’s custom, he went into the Jewish synagogue upon arriving in Corinth and reasoned with the Jews sharing with them about Jesus of Nazareth, showing them from their Scriptures that He was the Messiah, or Christ. After the Jews rejected Paul’s gospel, he “shook the dust off of himself” as an outward symbol the innocence of their blood (cf. Ezek. 3:18-21).
After leaving the synagogue, Paul went next door to the home of Titius Justus, a man whose name indicates he was a Roman and thus a Gentile. As a “worshiper of God,” he was a convert to Judaism, awaiting the Messiah. Along with Crispus and his entire household—the ruler of the synagogue, Titius Justus trusted in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah after Paul preached. Others also were in fact converted following Paul’s preaching (18:8), but only these men are named.

One night while Paul slept, the Jesus appeared to him in a dream to encourage him not to be afraid, “for I have many in this city who are my people” (18:10). As Acts 13:48 says, “And all who were appointed to eternal life believed,” God had many in Corinth who were appointed for salvation but who simply needed an evangelist to preach the gospel (cf. Rom. 10:13-15). Paul thus stayed for 18 months preaching Christ in the first church of Corinth (18:11).

At some point, the Jews rose up against Paul and brought him before Gallio, the proconsul who governed there for one year beginning in July of AD 51. Being the younger brother of Seneca of Rome, Emperor Nero’s tutor, Gallio is known to have been a very fair proconsul. When Paul was brought before him, Gallio told the Jews that their accusation against him had nothing to do with his position. He thus let Paul go, driving all the Jews from the tribunal. In anger, the Jews turned on the sitting synagogue ruler, Sosthenes, and beat him. If this particular Sosthenes was Paul’s companion in 1 Corinthians 1:1, then he too became a follower in Christ.

When Paul departed from Corinth 18 months after he arrived, he traveled back to his home base in Syrian Antioch. Along the way, he stopped in Ephesus where they asked him to stay, but he refused, promising to return. When he did return to Ephesus, he wrote a non-extant letter to the Corinthians, referenced in 1 Corinthians 5:9. From this one reference, it seems that Paul had written to tell them not to associate with immoral people. The Corinthians, however, mistook his words, shunning all who were immoral. Paul thus wrote to clarify this in 1 Corinthians 5:10-13.

Paul also got word from the Corinthians, specifically members of the household of Chloe (1 Cor. 1:11), that, among other things, many divisions had appeared in the church since Paul’s departure. People were divided over preachers (1:1-17), what to do with a man in the church who was sleeping with his step-mother (chap. 5), how to handle lawsuits (chap. 6), about marriage and divorce (chap. 7), whether to eat meat sacrificed to idols (chap. 8), roles of husbands and wives (chap. 11), abuses of the Lord’s Supper (chap. 11), abuses of the charismatic gifts (chaps. 12-15), and the absurd claim by some that Christ was not resurrected from the dead (chap. 15).

Food For Thought
The fact that God has predestined some for salvation (cf. Rom. 8:28-30; Eph. 1:4-5, 11), having appointed some for faith (Acts 13:48), means that our evangelism has a fighting chance. Corinth was the most immoral city in the Roman Empire, yet some there were God’s people just waiting to hear the gospel so they could be born again (Acts 18:10). What was true then is true today. Let us therefore be about the task of sharing Christ, even when we think people are too evil to receive the truth. Our job is to preach the word; God’s task is to draw His elect to His Son (John 6:44, 65) and save them in His time and for His glory.