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PAUL AT CORINTH

III. QUAR., LESSON IV., JULY 23, ACTS 18:1-11

Golden Text—”The preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”—1 Cor. 1:18

After his work in Athens, the intellectual metropolis of the world, Paul’s next point was Corinth, the great commercial center of Greece, its cosmopolitan population and commercial business making it a specially good field from whence the influences of Christianity might extend far and near. It was a desperately wicked city, its very name at that time being a popular synonym of vice and profligacy. But its wickedness was not Paul’s reason for carrying the gospel there; and he did not seek its degraded and profligate class. He knew that the gospel was for the meek, the lovers of righteousness, and that only such were counted worthy of it (Isa. 61:1; Psa. 97:11); and the Lord assured him (verse 10) that even in that wicked city were many of this class, and therefore counselled his remaining there.

VERSES 1-3. Having arrived at Corinth, the Apostle first found two worthy Israelites, Aquila and Priscilla, who, with other Jews, had been exiled from Rome. These were of one mind and heart with the Apostle, and being of the same craft—tent-makers—he abode with them and wrought.

VERSES 4-8. Observing the Lord’s order—”To the Jew first, and afterward to the Gentile”—the Apostle improved the opportunities of the Sabbath in the Jewish synagogues. This was, of course, the seventh, not the first day of the week; and Paul made use of it, not as a Jew under the law, but as a Christian free from the law, and who therefore esteemed every day alike (Rom. 14:5; Col. 2:16), all the days of the week being consecrated to the service of the Lord, and all the labors of the week—whether of preaching the gospel or making tents—being done with an eye single to his glory. The Jewish Sabbath and the privileges of the synagogue afforded special opportunities for the promulgation of the truth (any person of ability being permitted to speak to the people in attendance); and of these the Apostle availed himself.

Here Paul was refreshed by the arrival of Silas and Timothy. And doubtless he needed their encouragement; for the majority of his Jewish hearers opposed him and blasphemed his doctrine. When they thus proved their unworthiness of the truth, Paul shook his raiment and said unto them, “Your blood be upon your own heads [The reference here is to the second death, toward which such a course of wilful opposition surely tends. The statement does not imply that they were already doomed to it, but rather that, from their present attitude and course, they were in great danger of it. The expression is of similar import to that of our Lord recorded in Matt. 23:33. See also Matt. 12:31.]; I am clean [I have done my duty toward you, and the responsibility is now with yourselves only]: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.”

Nevertheless, though such was the general attitude of the Jews toward the truth, some, both of Jews and Greeks, believed, and the house of Justus, a Jewish proselyte—”one that worshiped God”—living next door to the synagogue, furnished a suitable place for further discoursing the truth.

VERSES 9-11. The Lord specially encouraged the Apostle’s continued efforts in this place by a vision. Thus reassured of the Lord’s personal care and supervision, Paul was prepared for any trial, and in his weakness

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was made strong. And these things were written for our learning, that we might always realize the Lord at the helm, and trust and follow him in the footsteps of this the noblest of all the noble apostles.

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— July 1 & 15, 1893 —