Corinth was one of the richest and busiest cities of the Roman Empire in the first century, capital of the Roman province of Achaia.
It sat on the narrow isthmus connecting the Peloponnese to the rest of Greece, with a harbor on each sea. That made it an unavoidable crossroads of trade and people coming from every corner of the empire.
The city had already been famous for centuries for its wealth and moral permissiveness, a reputation that carried through the Roman rebuilding and the Isthmian Games held there.
It was into this cosmopolitan and difficult city that Paul arrived, around AD 51, coming from Athens, and there he met the couple Aquila and Priscilla.
Paul spent a year and a half teaching and formed a church there. He was brought before the tribunal of the proconsul Gallio, who refused to judge the case, an episode that helps date the apostle’s ministry with precision.
In the years that followed, this church would face divisions, spiritual pride, and moral problems, the very ones Paul addresses with firmness and love in two letters of the New Testament.
Corinth shows that the gospel can form a living church even in the most challenging soil.
