When Paul arrived in A.D. 51, the Corinth he saw was little more than 100 years old, but was five times as large as Athens and the capital of the province. Paul chose Corinth as headquarters for his mission to the west. The city was young, dynamic, and not bound by tradition. It was a mix of itinerant individuals seeking to shed their former low status by achieving social honor and material success. Paul was not intimidated by a bustling cosmopolitan city without a dominant religion or intellectual tradition. Indeed, Corinth shared many characteristics with Tarsus, his hometown, and Syrian Antioch, his home Church city. The heart of the city, the forum, was filled with temples and shrines to the emperor and various members of his family, and was built alongside temples to the older Greek gods such as Apollo . The apostle Paul came to Corinth on his second missionary journey, probably in the spring of A.D. 51 (Acts 18:1-18, see Figure 3). Gallio, the brother of Seneca, was proconsul. Gallio's tenure can be estimated to be dated to between A.D. 51-52 or A.D. 52-53. The seat from which Gallio sat at the athletic events was called the Bema seat. This is the name that Paul uses to describe Christ's final judgment of believers (I Corinthians 3; II Corinthians 5). Gallio ruled that all religions were equal in his eyes and was clearly hostile to Paul and his exposition of the "Truth." Second Corinthians was written about six months after 1 Corinthians. In this epistle Paul emphasizes that God's power is made perfect in human weakness. It also highlights the importance of reconciliation, both with God and among believers. Paul urges the Corinthians to forgive. |
