20a - The Birth of the Church

A series of riots broke out in Rome because of popular resentment against a certain “Chrestos,” and the emperor Claudius drove many Jews, both Christians and non-Christians, out of the capital. Among those who fled to Corinth were Aquila and Priscilla. This pious couple brought two gifts with them, their faith in Messiah and their skill as tent makers. Soon after their arrival in Corinth they transplanted both gifts, so that they flourished in Corinth the same as they had in Rome.

In their home city the believers had been at odds with their fellow Jews regarding the new faith, but here in exile, they forgot their differences and helped each other settle into the new life. There would be plenty of time later for their differences to emerge when the settlement became stabilized.

The Jews in the Corinthian synagogue generously aided the newcomers. The Roman exiles were absorbed into the older Jewish settlement, and all prayed together in the synagogue. Aquila obtained an interest free loan, and was able to put his weaver’s stall in the marketplace.

On the evenings of Friday and the Sabbath Priscilla illuminated her little dwelling with many lamps, as she’d done in Rome. Her home again became the meeting place for believers and their families, each one bringing a contribution to the common meal. The believers crowded into the small room, seated themselves according to their ages, and services were resumed. Each one was free to speak. Some told stories and repeated sayings of Messiah they’d heard from visitors to Jerusalem. Others spoke as the faith moved them. Psalms were sung, and words of comfort were spoken concerning the imminent coming of Messiah.

The Sabbath gatherings of believers were their greatest source of strength, enabling them to bear the mockery of non-believers without bitter resentment. Their belief in Messiah became part of their Jewishness, so that they couldn’t understand how anyone could become a believer without first entering the Jewish faith. They were very hesitant to try to win converts from among the Jews of Corinth, because the memory of quarrels in Rome was so fresh, and they didn’t want to risk disturbing the peace of their newfound home. They were content for now to pursue their faith undisturbed, with the joy of their common meals, and with the practice of helping each other in need.

This was the condition of the community when Paul arrived in Corinth.


Paul had sailed from Piraeus to Cenchrea, the port of Corinth, spending the journey berating himself for his failure in Athens. He took full responsibility for trying to meet worldly wisdom with more of the same. He never should have tried to argue with the philosophers with his own “wisdom.” They were convinced that they had exhausted all the sea of knowledge, but they were just moles wandering about in blind little alleys of earth, and he had stooped to their level. He promised himself that he would never again try to use worldly wisdom to make himself great and acceptable. He would speak to men and women as one speaks to children, and not to corrupt adults. He would nourish them with the milk of faith, as he’d done with his beloved Galatians and with the Macedonians. This resolution comforted and strengthened him.

He also took a Nazarite vow not to cut his hair, eat meat, or drink wine unless the lord directed him otherwise. He would keep this vow as a sacrifice to God until he was able to bring a sacrifice of redemption to the Temple in Jerusalem.

The moment Paul set foot in Cenchrea he felt the breath of a new wind. This wasn’t a harbor city of dead gods, like Phalerum, the port of Athens. Cenchrea was a port of the living. Life erupted here among the countless masts of ships coming from every province in the empire. The paved streets resounded with the footsteps of sailors, merchants, and travelers, including a number of Jews who were drawn there by the commerce, which expanded greatly when Corinth was declared a Roman colony. This city had a great future, standing as it did between Asia and the mother country of Italy. Even now there was a concourse of ships here the like of which could hardly be seen in any other port. They brought grain, spices, ores, and dyed stuffs from Egypt, Asia Minor, and other places. The city was expanding visibly from year to year.

Corinth was a young city. The old Corinth of ancient temples and art treasuries that had flourished under the Greek tyrants had been completely destroyed by Pompey. Julius Caesar began rebuilding the city, settling it with freedmen and encouraging colonists from all parts of the empire to settle there and to develop the commercial and industrial possibilities of Achaia, so that Corinth might take the place of Athens.

It was a city with no tradition, no dominant unifying language and no uniform culture. It was a mixture of races and tongues. Freedmen and slaves worked in the foundries, the factories, the oil presses and the gardens. The temple of Venus, who was in reality a Phoenician Ashtoreth, had already acquired some fame. More than a thousand girls served there under the priests, conducting a huge trade in prostitution under cover of a sacred service. Transient sailors naturally frequented the temple. The city was always full of drunken sailors, who rioted in the streets, crowded the hostelries and restaurants, and lost their hard earned demeters and dinarii at dice to the local sharps. The continuous angry shouting of drunken and swindled sailors and the shrill laughter of whores could be heard from the narrow streets of Corinth.

Visitors who passed through Corinth took home stories of its wealth and depravity to the ends of the ancient world, and there was a constant stream of peddlers, merchants, and artisans swelling the population.

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Paul was surprised to discover a little community of believers in Cenchrea. They told him about the community in Corinth led by Priscilla and Aquila and about Aquila’s business there. Paul was encouraged that he would be able to find work at his own trade while pursuing his mission. He felt that Corinth was a ripe field unlike Athens, corrupt with intellectual pride, unapproachable and impenetrable. True, Corinth suffered from the opposite evils of ignorance and grossness, but the basic human material was not rotted through and through. They could still be saved. His first aim, then, was to obtain employment with Aquila and his second to find the best approach at reaching the Corinthians for Christ.


From the moment he met Aquila and Priscilla, Paul felt completely at home with the pious couple. The warmth Priscilla exuded restored him after the bitter, frosty reception he’d known in Athens. Priscilla took it for granted that Paul would share their home with them, a little dwelling of four wooden walls, covered with a roof of goats hair cloth that her husband had put up. A corner was curtained off, a bamboo mattress was spread on the floor, and somehow Priscilla found a wooden bench and a three-legged stool. This would be Paul’s home.

At last he could unpack his bundle, take out the scrolls of the prophets, the tools of his trade, and his mantle. He ate his first home meal here, which Priscilla prepared for him, consisting of vegetables, soup, flat cakes of bread, and olives. He was offered meat, but he explained about his Nazarite vows and politely declined.

When he returned from work in the evening, Priscilla prepared a wooden bowl of hot water so that he could rest his aching feet in it. Paul was filled with gratitude for the many blessings God had granted. With a roof over his head, a friendly motherly hand to care for him, and a wide-open field to be sown in the faith, what more could he have asked for?


Aquila had his looms set up under awnings of goats hair cloth among the stalls and booths of the artisans of Corinth in the marketplace of the city. He produced material for tents and mantles, which he sold right there. Women carded and washed the goat’s hair at the foot of the looms.

Paul was harnessed to one of the looms, completely covered with dust. His hands were busy on the threads while his feet worked the treadles. Swiftly and skillfully he shot the mounted spools from right to left and left to right across the frame, using threads of many colors from dark-brown to deep purple. He worked faster and more neatly than the young men, and there was a sharper sound when he brought the wooden beam against the framework of the loom. A high degree of skill was needed to bring the board, with its teeth, exactly against the openings in the framework, but the apostle’s limbs seemed to work by themselves, like horses continuing on the right path when the driver has fallen asleep.

But this driver was fully awake, talking passionately to a circle of men and women gathered around the loom. His words could be heard above the cries of drunken sailors, the singing of streetwalkers, and the bargaining of merchants and buyers. His clear, metallic voice, heavy with the power of faith, was distinct, set apart from the tumult around him, like the sound of a bell above the murmur of human voices. His listeners were his own people, and it was to them that he sought to give strength, knowing that they were afraid to spread the faith lest it lead to dissensions in this place of refuge.

“These eyes,” rang Paul’s voice, “saw him on the road to Damascus, these ears heard his voice. And when he appeared to me in the Temple court he told me to carry the gospel to the ends of the world. And you ask me to be silent for the sake of peace in this place? What kind of peace is that? It’s the peace of the cemetery. Will Satan make peace with you? He too has sent his son into the world, to corrupt it and lay waste to it, to make you sinners before the Day of Judgment. What answer will you give Christ then?

“The lord Christ has touched my lips with the fire of his hand and with the wounds of his body, and there is no power, neither in the heights of heaven nor in the depths of the earth that can close my lips and make them cease from preaching Christ.”

A refugee from Rome took up the argument.

“We just got here, and we’re young plants that can easily be uprooted. In Rome our community was destroyed because of dissensions. And when the Jews here learn who you are and remember the disputes you caused in so many places, the flames we’ve just saved ourselves from will break out here too. We’ll be uprooted again.”

Another broke in to plead, “Can’t you at least wait until we get ourselves on a firmer foundation here?”

“God’s word is not patient,” answered Paul. “It’s not like a beggar standing at the door, waiting to be admitted. God’s word is like a storm in the night, and you may not want it, but the lightning strikes you anyway. You can’t swallow God’s word like a bite of food. It’ll become like boiling lead in your stomach. There’s no place you can hide from God’s word.”

“Hear, O apostle! Have you no word of comfort for your own flesh and blood?”

Rabbi Andronicus spoke these words, a man held in high esteem. He spoke loudly enough for all to hear. He’d come here with the other exiled believers, having been one of the first to spread the gospel in Rome. But he said even more.

“Why must your words always be as sharp as a sword when you turn to the House of Israel? You bring the comfort of consolation and hope to the Gentiles, but to your own brothers you bring dissension and war.”

Paul’s loom stopped and he turned pale. The rabbi had spoken the simple truth, and he knew it. He had kind words for the Gentiles, but not for his brothers.

To himself, he thought, ‘It’s not my fault.’ Out loud he answered, “I don’t knead my dough with honey. I speak what God puts into my mouth.”

“For the Gentiles, you do knead your bread with honey!” cried one man furiously. “For the Jews you have only a rod. Everyone knows this.”

“The Gentiles are but children in the faith,” responded Paul, defensively. “And like children they must be nourished with milk. But the Jews were brought up by the prophets, and they can digest the strong meat given to grown men.”

“They are afraid of men, but they don’t fear God,” came a woman’s voice. Priscilla spoke from the door of her shop, where she was busy selling the products of the little factory.

She turned to those who were questioning and upbraiding Paul and raised her voice, which rang sternly, “The Lord God on high has issued His commands to the apostle. Do you think you can deter him from obedience? See to it that you do not sin! And if it must be that we once again suffer for Messiah, we know how to endure it.”

With this the discussion ended, for the voice of Priscilla was the voice of authority in the little congregation.

However, Rabbi Andronicus could not resist one last appeal to the apostle, “Paul, sir,” he said, in a tone of supplication, “heed your words and be guarded in your speech.”


Paul was permitted to preach on his first Sabbath. His listeners were all Jewish, and his sermon was addressed to them. On this occasion he heeded the words of Andronicus and was guarded in his speech, saying nothing that might offend the worshippers. The entire sermon was devoted to the Jewish Messiah, who had come in the person of Jesus the redeemer. However, he went on to explain that Christ was not, as many Jews thought, an earthly redeemer, a king who would redeem the Jews from the yoke of Rome. Christ was the Second Adam, of whom the prophet Daniel had spoken, who would come with the clouds of heaven. Mankind came from him and was bound up in him. He was a heavenly being, higher than the angels.

God sent this heavenly being down to earth as a man of flesh and blood, to liberate man from the sin that kept everyone in chains under the dominion of Satan, the Evil One. Mankind’s liberation from sin could be brought about only through the sorrows and pains Christ had freely taken on himself. By his shed blood, he cleansed mankind of its sin and restored it to the condition it enjoyed before the sin of Adam. King David, the Psalmist, as well as the prophets, predicted the suffering and death of Christ. He was, moreover, the first to rise from the dead. His return was imminent.

Therefore it was fitting that all who believed in him should gather into the fold of salvation as many of the children of Adam as possible, persuading them to accept baptism and to adopt the rules of a holy life of brotherly love, compassion, purity of the body and avoidance of whoredom and every other manner of uncleanness.

These were new words for Paul, and they fell warmly on the listeners who heard the echo of the hope of Israel in them. Messiah was of the Jews!

By speaking of Christ in terms of the ancient Jewish faith, Paul awakened a host of tender associations in his listeners, especially because he quoted the prophets and Moses and referred to the promises given the patriarchs. Flames of hope shone from the eyes of the Jews, fountains of joy were opened in their hearts.

Some of them were hesitant, of course, and asked themselves what their rabbis would say about this. They still didn’t know who this man was or who had sent him.

“Surely he doesn’t expect us to go right out and say, ‘We will do and we will obey,’” argued one Jew. “We’re not like the Gentiles who one day sacrifice to Zeus and Aphrodite and the next day worship the gods of Egypt.”

“What kind of comparison is that?” asked another Jew. “God help you! Don’t make the name of Messiah unclean by uttering it with your lips. For Messiah himself preaches the one living God, who fulfills the promise made to our fathers through him.”

“But why have we never heard this before? Why have our rabbis said nothing?’

Another Jew said, “I think we should wait. The pilgrimage to Jerusalem will be back soon. Let’s wait and hear what they have to say.”


Paul was invited to the home of Crispus, the head of the synagogue. Crispus was a pious Jew, a simple man, with little learning. Like many, his heart was filled with the certainty of faith in the coming redemption. The apostle’s words moved him deeply, and all that day Paul sat with Crispus, who was a little man, bowed with the burdens of life. It seemed as though Paul’s words made him shrink and become even more bowed.

The next day, Sunday, Paul baptized Crispus and all his family. He was the first to be won by the apostle in Corinth.

Winning Crispus was a great joy for Paul. When the exiles saw that he had prevailed with the leading Jew of Corinth, they were ashamed for having tried to dissuade Paul from doing the work of God and were completely won over to his opinion.

Paul’s second triumph came soon after the first. There was a rich Gentile by the name of Stephanas who came to the synagogue on the Sabbaths. He was respected throughout Corinth, for he was wealthy and had a great family, that is to say, he possessed many slaves, who worked in his bronze foundry. The apostle also baptized him and all his family.


Silas and Timothy arrived in Corinth a day or two later. They brought good news from Thessalonica and Berea. They also brought good news from Luke, who was still in Philippi, and from the good widow, Lydia, who once again sent a sum of money so that the apostle might continue his work. This good news, along with his own success, lifted Paul’s spirit, and he was filled with new hope. Surely this was all a sign that God approved of his labor.

So once again Paul decided to change his tone. He wouldn’t beg for Christ. Was Christ a hungry wanderer begging at the door of the synagogue, waiting for a kindly soul to admit him? The word of God was in his mouth; the salvation of Israel was in his hand. He could bring salvation whether his listeners wanted it or not.

So Paul took the pulpit on the second Sabbath like a man with conviction. Pointing to the passage in the Torah that was just read, he thundered, “Christ is the fulfillment of the Torah for everyone who believes. And when you acknowledge with your lips and believe in your heart in the lord Christ, you will be saved!”

Speaking of the veil that hid the face of Moses, Paul became like one drunk with his own words, and preached once more that Christ was not only the fulfillment of the promise, but also the fulfillment of the law. Without Christ, he declared, there was no Torah. And not only was there no Torah, but without him there were no children of Abraham, even. For the children of God were not children of flesh and blood. The children of promise were the true seed.

These words came across as if Paul were taking away from the Jews what was rightfully theirs and giving it to the Gentiles without price. Not the Torah, but Christ was the center of the faith.

“No man can be justified through the Torah, for it is through the Torah that the sins of man are known. Nor shall circumcision justify a man, for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly. He is a Jew who has been circumcised in his heart. When Jesus is within you, your bodies are dead to all sin, but your spirit lives in righteousness.”

Predictably, the worshippers were appalled by his words. They had the usual thoughts; he had no letter of authority from Jerusalem, and he brought dissension into many Jewish communities.

But Paul couldn’t seem to help himself. The words just seemed to force themselves out of him. Later, at night, he felt pain and regret. He was utterly weary of the quarrels he provoked among his people. They had reached such a pitch by now that their original cause and purpose was forgotten. It was no longer a dispute in the name of God, but a sort of rivalry between the Messiah of Israel and the Christ of the Gentiles.

And then the apostle performed an act he had never permitted himself before.


No matter how bitter the dissensions between himself and the Jews had been in the various cities, Paul never separated himself from his own people. Yes, he threatened to do it. He told them he would go to the Gentiles. But then he would go to a new city and immediately ask for the synagogue. Thus the quarrels, such as they were, had remained confined to the four walls of the Jewish house of prayer. But here in Corinth, for the first time, Paul went away from the synagogue, rented a house from a god fearing Gentile by the name of Justus, and opened his own prayer house for the congregation of Christ. The house was near the synagogue and was made up of both Jews and Gentiles. Not only that, but Crispus, the former head of the synagogue, became the head of the new Christian prayer house. It was only by creating the impression that his house of prayer was Jewish that Paul could hope to escape suppression by the authorities.

At night, though, he couldn’t sleep. His conscience wouldn’t let him. He’d go over his words a hundred times, weighing everything he’d said that day over and over. Had he done well? He’d set out to conquer the world in the name of Christ, and now he had thrust a wedge between Israel and the world. He was winning the Gentile world at the cost of his own people.

He knew there was no other road open to the Jews, but he also knew that the Jews couldn’t abandon the law merely because he said so. But neither could he divide Jesus into a Jewish Messiah and a Gentile Christ. There could be only one Savior, even as there was only one God.

He prayed passionately for a new sign to validate his act. And he got it.

One night while lying in prayer, he saw a form take shape in the darkness. He couldn’t distinguish it clearly, but he knew it was the form he’d seen on the road to Damascus. He heard a voice, “Fear not, and do not be silent, for I am with you.”

The vision put an end to his doubts. He knew there was no turning back. There was no ground for hesitancy. He’d been called to his new task. He was a faithful servant of Christ.