Paul’s contacts with the Corinthian church can be reconstructed as follows:
Paul visits Corinth for the first time, spending about 18 months there (Acts 18:11). He then leaves Corinth and spends about 3 years in Ephesus (AD 53 to 57). There is regular contact between Paul and the people from Corinth: Chloe’s homegroup, Timothy and Apollos visited the Corinthians. Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus came to Paul among others. Paul writes the “warning letter”, probably from Ephesus. The Corinthians send a letter to Paul. (1Co 7:1 Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter.)Paul writes 1 Corinthians from Ephesus.Paul makes a “painful visit” to the Corinthian church as he indicated he would in 1 Corinthians 16:6. This is probably still during his 3 years based in Ephesus. Paul writes the “letter of tears”.Paul writes 2 Corinthians, indicating his desire to visit the Corinthian church a third time (2 Cor 12:14, 2 Cor 13:1). The letter doesn’t indicate where he is writing from, but it is usually dated by the scholars after Paul left Ephesus for Macedonia (Acts 20), from either Philippi or Thessalonica in Macedonia.Paul presumably made the third visit after writing 2 Corinthians, because Acts 20:2-3 indicates he spent 3 months in Greece. In his letter to Rome, written at this time, he sent salutations from some of the key members of the church to the Romans.
It is clear that we don’t have all of the above correspondence in the New Testament. We are missing the “Warning Letter” and the “Letter of Tears”. Clearly 1 Cor 5:9 tells us what the Warning Letter was about: the matter of sexual sin. Let me add a little more about Corinth as a city. Even in that old pagan world the reputation of the city was bad. It likely contained the worst features of what a city with a bad reputation can offer. At night it was made hideous by the brawls and lewd songs of drunken revelry. In the daytime its markets and squares swarmed with Jewish peddlers, foreign traders, sailors, soldiers, athletes in training, boxers, wrestlers, charioteers, racing-men, betting-men, courtesans, slaves, idlers and parasites of every description. The corrupting worship of Aphrodite, with its hordes of hieródouloi (temple slaves) was dominant, and all over the Greek-Roman world, “to behave as a Corinthian” was a proverbial synonym for leading a low, shameless and immoral life. Very naturally such a polluted environment accounts for much of the imperfect life of many of the early converts.
Paul then takes the Corinthians to task regarding the manner of evil practice and sexual behaviour they were willing to both embrace or turn a blind eye toward. The “everyone is doing it” argument didn’t cut it with Paul. I assume the painful visit is to do with this issue, perhaps more especially connected with what Paul refers to in 1 Cor 5:1 “I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother.” Earlier in chapter 4 Paul says “Which do you choose? Should I come with a rod to punish you, or should I come with love and a gentle spirit?” (1 Cor 4:21). Clearly it was the former – it was a painful visit. We can piece together some clues from the body of the letter but we don’t know the details.
Keep your eyes open and your wits about you as read the letters to the Corinthians. These are our source documents. A careful reading of the two Corinthian letters is what gives us the fuel for our conclusions. That is what the commentators use to draw their conclusions. We are free to do the same.
Letter from Corinth:
This letter has not been preserved. But we see something of their input to Paul in the sections that follow 1 Cor 7:1. “Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter . . .” It is these little clues that key us in to what was going on. The church had broken into factions, and was distracted by party cries. Some of its members were living openly immoral lives, and discipline was practically in abeyance. Others had quarrels over which they dragged one another into the heathen courts. Great differences of opinion had also arisen with regard to marriage and the social relations generally; with regard to banquets and the eating of food offered to idols; with regard to the behavior of women in the assemblies, to the Lord’s Supper and the love-feasts, to the use and value of spiritual gifts, and with regard to the hope of the resurrection. The apostle was filled with grief and indignation. It seems the letter from the Corinthians had a complacent tone which only intensified Paul’s feelings. They discussed questions in a lofty, intellectual way, without seeming to perceive their real drift, or the life and spirit which lay imperiled at their heart. Resisting the impulse to visit them “with a rod” (1Co_4:21), the apostle wrote the present epistle, and dispatched it, if not by the hands of Stephanas and his comrades, most probably by the hands of Titus.
Bear all of this in mind as we handle the text Gem by Gem.
It is harder to do self correction than to correct others.
Jeffrey Rachmat
Telling the truth will cost you something, but not telling it will cost you everything.
Anon