Paul Plants the Church at Corinth

After Athens, Paul arrives in Corinth, a thriving Roman port colony with a reputation for moral excess and a thousand temples. He meets Aquila and Priscilla, a Jewish tentmaking couple recently expelled from Rome by Claudius, and works alongside them while reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath. When the synagogue Jews resist, Paul moves next door and continues teaching Gentiles. Crispus, the synagogue ruler, comes to faith with his entire household. Then Jesus appears to Paul in a night vision — "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking. I have many people in this city." Paul stays for a year and a half, the longest stretch of any of his missionary stops to date. When the Jewish opposition finally drags him before Gallio, the Roman proconsul of Achaia, Gallio refuses to rule on what he considers an internal religious dispute — setting a legal precedent that effectively legalized Christian preaching across the empire. The church Paul plants here becomes the recipient of two of his most pastoral letters.

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