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Biblical Corinth “Sin City” – New Corinth!

Posted by Julie Edensor on 1 June 2015

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LECOR
Biblical Corinth “Sin City” – New Corinth! 


Few cities have ever had or will ever have such a reputation.  A city filled with hundreds of thousands of people.  We’re talking about one of the largest, most beautiful, modern, and industrious cities ever known to man.  This city was Corinth, otherwise known as Sin City this was a city that flourished in New Testament times.

About 146 years before Jesus Christ was born, the city of Corinth was looted and destroyed by the Romans.  The men of Corinth were brutally slaughtered and its women and children were sold into slavery.  The entire city was torched and it lay in virtual ruin for almost a century.
But then about 46 B.C. the "new" Corinth rose from the ashes.  Julius Caesar rebuilt the city and it became a seat of government for a province of Rome.

One can see why Corinth was so important.  The city of Corinth had three harbours and was strategically located along a prominent north-south trade route.   It was a place of commercial trade, where merchants from all over the world would come.

One of the most strategic locations in the Roman world was the Isthmus of Corinth. This narrow neck of land between the Corinthian Gulf and the Saronic Gulf guaranteed its continued commercial prosperity. The transit across this isthmus avoided the long, risky voyage around the rocky, storm-tossed capes at the south of the Peloponnesus. It was literally the crossroad of the world where the north-south trade routes intersected the east-west traffic. It thus became one of the most dominant cultural centres of its day: materially prosperous, intellectually alert, and morally corrupt. Even in the pagan world the city was known for its moral corruption. ("Corinth" came to imply licentiousness; korinthiazesthai, "Corinthianize," meant to live in debauchery.)

In the Apostle Paul’s day, Corinth had several nicknames.  It was known as Carnal Corinth, Sin City, or Vanity Fair.  To "corinthianize" a person was to corrupt a person.  It was to take him beyond his moral limits.  People went to Corinth to be corinthianized - it was like a rite of passage. There was no greater insult that could be given a woman than to be called a Corinthian. 

In Bible times the New Corinth was inhabited by over 400,000 people.  Her population was mixed, including Greeks, Jews, Italians, and other foreigners.  And get this—her transient population was ever-changing.  Corinth was a city without foundations or moral roots.
The city featured new shops, sprawling marketplaces, restored and greatly enlarged temples, fresh water supplies, numerous public buildings, governmental buildings, and an amphitheater that sat over 14,000 people.

Recent excavations have uncovered over thirty-three wine shops located in downtown Corinth.  The wine shops featured lofted rooms.  Travelers would get drunk with wine and then enticed into these lofts for illicit activity with prostitutes and other partygoers.

Yet in the middle of Carnal Corinth, Sin City, with the help of missionaries Aquilla and Priscilla, the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostle Paul to establish a church.  The apostle Paul established a church in one of the darkest, most morally corrupt cities in the Roman Empire.  He placed it in a stronghold of Satan’s kingdom.  What was he thinking?

Paul was looking to set people free from the power of sin.

Paul was thinking only of the sheer power and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to truly set men free from the power of sin and death.  What better place was there to set men free by the grace of God than to go to one of the deepest and darkest dungeons on earth?  Sin City, Corinth.
Its citizens were devoted to the reckless development of the individual. The church at Corinth is the "carnal church" - spiritual babes, immature and undeveloped. Paul seeks to provide them with the necessary guidance to bring them (and us) to full maturity.

It is no wonder then that the letters to the church at Corinth embody so many of the concerns that plague us today. It is also impressive to discover how many basic Christian issues are addressed in these two (remaining) letters Paul wrote to the church at Corinth: the "foolishness" of God contrasted with the "wisdom" of man, the distinction between salvation and rewards, problems of church discipline, resorting to lawsuits, marriage and divorce, Christian liberty, the Lord's Supper, and the troublesome issues concerning speaking in tongues.

How do I apply this?

As the "worldly church," Corinth certainly becomes increasingly relevant to us in our own day of materialism, moral decay, and church controversies. Paul unflinchingly addresses many of the tensions which entangle all of us, and the on location study of the Corinthian letters is guaranteed to impact each of us in our own walk with the Lord.

How do I apply this? Corinth was a large, international metropolis, filled with people from different backgrounds. Idol worship to gods such as Aphrodite was particularly prominent in the city, though Corinth contained numerous temptations far beyond her temples.

In this sense, Corinth was very much like a modern urban area, containing unending opportunities to engage in sinful behaviour without any apparent consequences. Such a community clearly had a negative influence on the Corinthian church. But notice that Paul’s instruction to the believers was not to retreat from their city. This was not Paul’s vision for the church then or now. Instead, he directed us to live out our commitment to Christ ever more faithfully in the midst of nonbelievers.

Paul expected that we Christians would shine our light into the dark places of their world by worshiping in a unified community that was accountable to one another. He expected that we would settle our problems internally, that we would encourage one another in the pursuit of purity, and that we would strive together by holding tightly to the hope of our bodily resurrection to come.

This year we will be taking a Bible Tour to Greece—following in the footsteps of The Apostle Paul.  Join us as we have 8 days of fellowship, prayer, worship and studying the WORD on location in the ancient sites of Athens, Corinth, Thessaloniki, Philippi, Kavala, Neapolis, Berea, Samos, and Patmos!

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