The city of Corinth was an important cosmopolitan city in the middle part of the first century. (Was Corinth more sinful than other Roman cities? Click the link for my comments about that longstanding misunderstanding of history, as well as a follow-up comment from a read.) It was economically stable, attracting a wide range of businesses from all over the Empire. Paul established the church in this city for this very reason. Once Christianity takes hold in Corinth, the local churches themselves can continue the mission of spreading the gospel throughout the region.
In choosing as one of his main missionary centers a city in which only the tough were reputed to survive, Paul demonstrated a confidence oddly at variance with his protestations of weakness. Corinth, however, offered advantages that outweighed its dangers. In addition to excellent communications, the extraordinary number of visitors (Dio Chrysostom, Or. 37.8; Aelius Aristides, Or. 46.24) created the possibility of converts who would carry the gospel back to their homelands. In contrast to the closed complacency of Athens, Corinth was open and questioning, eager for new ideas but neither docile nor passive, as Paul’s relationship with the Christian community there amply documents (Murphy-O’Connor, ABD 1:1138).
Yet of all Paul’s churches, this one seems to have had the most difficulty assimilating Christianity with their culture.
The books of 1 and 2 Corinthians deal with a number of problems that arose after Paul left the city. Why did Paul not deal with them as a part of his regular training of new believers and church leaders? What happened in Corinth that brought these particular problems to the forefront only after Paul left the city?
The thesis of Bruce Winter’s After Paul Left Corinth is that after Paul left the city, the church began to explore how Christianity interacted with their Greco-Roman culture and social relationships. Their culture was a thoroughly Roman worldview, but it was also a worldview in flux.
There were several destabilizing factors in first-century Corinth.
First, the institution of yearly festivals in the imperial cult. Participation in these festivals was something a Roman citizen would have associated with loyalty to Rome, a loyalty that the citizens of Corinth took very seriously.
Second, the Isthmian Games were held in Corinth, and there is evidence that when the games were celebrated, the President of the Games hosted a festival for Corinthian Roman citizens. In 1 Corinthians 8:9, there is a reference to having the “freedom” to eat; the Greek word is “authority,” or perhaps “right,” to eat. Paul may be referring to these sorts of elite social connections that some in the church had the right/freedom to participate in. Can a Christian really participate in this meal as a follower of Christ?
Third, Winter cites evidence of three severe grain famines in the first century that affected Corinth. There are ten inscriptions from Paul’s time that honor the “superintendent of the grain.” This office had the authority to manage grain sales to keep prices down and supply flowing. This could involve a taxation system that paid for grain for the poor, or even flooding the market with grain to drive prices down. Even rumors of famine were enough to cause riots and generally destabilize an economy.
Lastly, the most difficult issues concerned Roman cultural and social practices. In 1 Corinthians 3:3, Paul says that the church is “still worldly,” literally that they are thinking like the people of Corinth, not the people of God. The Christians in Corinth failed to see how the Roman world impacted their life in Christ.
Does this cultural background help us understand “what happened” in Corinth? Why did the church mishandle so many of the challenges to their new faith in Christ? Is the Corinthian experience much different than Christianity in the modern West?
Bibliography: Bruce Winter, After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2001).
The situation in Corinth seems to be, in a sense, a pretty typical example of what can happen when young believers try to synthesize their cultural roots with their new found faith. One of the most commonly known vices of the Corinthian church was in regard to sexual sins, which was definitely a reflection of their culture. While Corinth may or may not have been significantly worse than the surrounding cities, the general attitude of the day would have promoted promiscuous behavior in the context of pagan temple worship. While we likely scoff and turn up our noses when we read accounts of prostitution among the believers in I Corinthians 6, we must keep in mind that their cultural mindset regarding prostitution was much different from ours. We might compare this to believers today who struggle to give up their favorite forms of entertainment because they are not glorifying to God or edifying to the body. Instead of asking what went wrong in Corinth, maybe we should be looking at Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church as the best method for counteracting syncretism: discipleship. By writing to them while they were still infants in Christ, Paul helped the believers at Corinth to grow up in their faith.
“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” (I Corinthians 3:6-7)
On another thought. What happened to the church in history after Paul left? I have trouble finding historical accounts after that period. Thanks if you can direct me on this.
That is a good question, and I really do not have a good answer.
I have at least two monographs on Ephesus after Paul (Treblico is excellent, taking the history up to Ignatius). But i am not aware of anything quite like that for Corinth. There is a collection of essays edited by Adams and Horrell, Christianity at Corinth: The Quest for the Pauline Church (WJKP, 2004). Some of these are very old essays (FC Bauer, for example), running up to the early 2000s. None intentionally go beyond the letters, although a few may touch on that era.
I know that 1 Clement was written from Clement (as bishop of Rome) to Corinth, about the year 95. Perhaps a monograph on 1 Clement would have something.
Looking at the background culture of Corinth, one can better understand why the church had such a difficult time accepting the new faith in Jesus. I think one of the reasons is that Corinth was a well to do area. With their two seaports, Corinth was doing economically well. It is human nature to not need God when things are going good and I think that is the mindset Corinthians had. They were having fun with yearly festivals, the Isthmian games, public bath areas, etc. They had it good and that is why they more than likely did not want to give all of that up for the new Christian faith. Or they did not see their actions making any harmful changes so why not continue doing them? They did not seem to be hurting anyone. Either way, they easily backslide because they enjoyed what they had always previously done. This is a lot like western culture. Hearing about Jesus, we may accept it at first but then we do not want to give up our idols of television, money, and so forth. In our minds, we already have it so good why would we even need God? However, this is a scary mindset to hold because once our world comes crashing down, just like it always does, will God still be there, or will it be too late?
I think another reason the church probably struggled was because a lot of Corinthians did not want to accept the new faith. After going to the synagogue each Sabbath, Jews still did not accept what Paul was saying and he eventually decided to turn to the Gentiles in hope that they would listen (Acts 17:6). After this Paul even needed to receive a vision from God to continue staying there otherwise due to the tremendous persecution Paul was going to leave (Acts 17:9-11). Paul was receiving persecution from Jews who were supposed to be Christians (Acts 17:12-13) . By no means could this have helped with the growth and strength of the church.
Corinth is talked about as one of the worst cities in Paul’s time as sexual immortally has swept the entire area. Now I’m not comparing Buddhism to Sexual immorality but because it was such an large part of Roman culture like Dr. Long said in the class lecture I can make this analogy. I remember hearing a Christian Missionary to Thailand once say that their biggest struggle is leaving their culture as to be Thai is to be Buddhist. To me, it seems as if to be a Roman citizen means to have these cultural preconceptions of sexual immorality. Most churches and other Ministry oriented programs today believe that the body of Christ should make an effort to help along side and encourage other believers to be lights into the world and expand the kingdom of God. The festivals of the culture definitely had impacts on how they lived their life and responded to the Gospel. As Bible scholars living in the 21st century, I truly believe Corinth can teach us a lot about how Corinth relates to our culture and society today. Yes we live in a country where sin is glorified and the truth is rejected but we also live in a culture/society that knows of God, and Jesus so in some ways our Western culture has a lot of differences.
Tori, I had the exact same thought about summer camp! It reminds me how at summer camps, we are learning more about God and have a lot of passion for it. We listen to what others have to say, we discuss it with each other, and we devote spending some alone time with God. We have a “God high” some might say. But after a while when we leave, we may start to drift back into our old ways and habits. Our new practices might not stick, and we go back to what we formerly knew and did. This seems to be true with Corinth. Once Paul left, they did not have someone there to give them feedback and encouragement. Knowing the culture does play an important role in seeing how it could be hard for the people to continue to pursue God in what they were surrounded with. They acted worldly and not of God. “The Christians in Corinth failed to see how the Roman world impacted their life in Christ” (Long 2019). The account of Corinth shows us how it is not easy to follow God and what we are taught about Him. This struggle is still relevant today.
The Christian in Corinthian is very similar to Christian in western cultures, and have many similarity that I can pinpoint. However, one of the main similarity and a great stumble block to fully assimilating Christianity was the cultural and social practice. There is a saying in Chinese proverb that, “if you wanna know what water is, don’t ask the fish”, the concept behind the phrase is if a person is immensely influences and condition by the cultures, he will be like a fish not being aware of the sort of culture that is conditioning his mind and worldview, and this can make him lose his own worldview. And this is one thing that we are experiencing in our time, we are so immerse into the cultures that we lives that we tend to lose faith in our beliefs. At the same time, cultures make us see Christianity as old way of life, being culturally irrelevant, or ignorant. The ramification of abiding into the the culture of the world is a great stumble block for the Corinthian christian and for Christian in western cultures as well. Its important that we don’t conform to the pattern of this world as Paul admonished us.
“if you wanna know what water is, don’t ask the fish” – I love this…
Although there is much information that could be given with regards to the historical background of the Greco-Roman culture during this era, the brief overview detailed by Professor Philip Long notes many of the factors which influenced the Christian converts in Corinth. As a result, this also caused many of the Christian converts in Corinth to mishandle certain challenges that arose throughout daily living. For instance, the concern for sexual immorality was persistent given that the Greco-Roman culture viewed sexual activities as either a form of worship to deities or simply for the elite of society to exercise dominance and freedom. Another concern often mentioned was related to instructions for proper worship among the Christian converts. Because Corinth was saturated in Greco-Roman culture, Christian converts found themselves questioning every aspect of Greco-Roman culture, particularly how was a Christian convert to worship the Messiah, Jesus Christ without participating in the erroneous acts of worship that the citizens of Corinth would participate in. Sadly, in comparison to the modern world, Christians are really no different than the Christian converts in Corinth. Despite that modern Christians have the full Word of God at their disposal, many of them refuse to live as they are called to do so and instead are swayed by the influences of society. Therefore, to view the Christian converts in Corinth as sinful beings and yet not realize that we as modern Christians have also fallen prey to the sinful influences of our society is hypocritical because we are truly no different than them.