(Suggested Reading: Chapter 18:1-22)
“After these things” we are told, Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth. The expression “after these things” is a signal of the end of one phase of things and the beginning of another. Athens wasn’t really in Paul’s plans. He had hoped that conditions in Thessalonica might have settled down enough to let him return there. A change of magistrates would have accomplished this. But he receives no news to encourage him along these lines and so leaves for Corinth.
The Strategic Position of Corinth
In Roman times Greece was divided into two provinces Macedonia, to which Paul had come in response to the vision, and in which an assembly had been established at Philippi and Achaia1 The capital of which was Corinth. Could he evangelize Corinth and establish a Christian testimony there he would have a center in each province of Greece from which the gospel could radiate. Both centers lent themselves to this end. Philippi, as a garrison town, would see much coming and going of soldiers; Corinth of travelers, since it was a seaport and commercial center. Paul’s object was the diffusion of the gospel throughout the world. His broad strategy was to secure a beachhead in key cities. His settled policy was to aim for the larger centers of influence in the Roman world. Persecution sometimes made him turn aside for a time to lesser towns, but invariably he returned to the large centers, which could spread the glad tidings to those passing through them. He laid the foundations, others could carry the Word to the more remote parts.2
Corinth was one of the greatest centers of trade and navigation in the Roman Empire due to its strategic location. It was situated on a narrow land bridge connecting Achaia and Macedonia and separating the Adriatic from the Aegean. Ships were hauled between the seas on rollers or wagons along a roadway. For larger vessels Corinth built excellent harbors with facilities for ships sailing on both seas. We are familiar with one of these seaports—Cenchrea—from Scripture for Phoebe was deaconess there—Rom. 16:1. In 66 A.D. the Emperor Nero broke ground for the Corinthian canal, which was restarted and completed before the close of the 19th Century. Corinth itself was situated on level ground dominated by a huge hill known as the Acrocorinthus. This towered eighteen hundred feet over the city and on it stood the Corinthian Acropolis. The rites of the Corinthian goddess of love there contributed to the moral debauchery that characterized the city, even in the pagan world. Another factor was its seaports, which never attract the best characters. Commerce bred wealth and luxury and fed the flames which made Corinth what it was. Then too the Isthmian games were celebrated ten miles out of the city and attracted many travelers. These people provided a captive market for the wandering tentmakers who sold their wares here. For the games were held in the springtime, when the air is chilly, accompanied by frequent showers and violent gusts of wind.
The Decree of the Emperor Claudius
An interesting sidelight on the conditions of the Jews in the Roman Empire about this time is recorded here. Paul finds fellow tent workers, Aquila and Priscilla, at Corinth “because Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome.” Claudius had found them too numerous to expel outright. Instead he banned them from meeting in accordance with their ancestral customs, which to a Jew was intolerable. Claudius was angry at the Jews because of their incessant riots “at the instigation of Chrestus.” Like many Romans, even Tacitus, he was ill-informed about the Jewish religion. Chrestus was a common name with them— “Christus” —(Christ) was not. It seems more than probable that the riots in the Jewish community at Rome were caused by the introduction of Christianity into the synagogues. This most likely was the work of the Roman Jews who visited Jerusalem 2:10—and returned to Rome converted after the day of Pentecost. We shall see in Gallio’s actions later how disinterested the Romans were in the Jews’ religion, and how Claudius would think Chrestus was fomenting the riots that disturbed the peace. This picture agrees perfectly with the historical record of Acts, where uprisings arose, and charges were laid from faulty information, distorted views of Christian teaching, etc.
In the meantime, Claudius ruled the Empire; Paul was his subject. Both were men of letters, but Paul has little leisure to indulge in such things. Together with the expelled Aquila and Priscilla he works as a tentmaker to pay his expenses. He wanted to visit the Thessalonians but knew this was impossible as long as the present magistrates were still in office. Instead he writes them. His epistles to the Thessalonians were the first he wrote.
Events in the Synagogue and the Adjoining House
With their trading instincts, Jews seem to gravitate toward commercial cities like Corinth, and their numbers are swollen here by the enforced exodus from Rome. Paul spends his Sabbaths reasoning with them in the synagogue. When Silas and Timothy join him in Corinth they find him engaged in this testimony, the climax of which is that Jesus is the Christ— “but as they opposed and spoke injuriously, he shook his clothes, and said to them, Your blood be upon your head—I am pure; from henceforth I will go to the nations.” Thus Paul left the synagogue, not feeling compelled to endure any longer their blasphemy against their own Messiah. He would turn to the Gentiles, who were receptive to the good news.
So a Gentile opens his house to him. This man is Justus, whose house was beside the synagogue. Accepting this offer and making it too was an act of great personal courage. The separated company could expect reprisals from the synagogue next door, insults on the streets as they congregated and departed, etc. The location of the new assembly must have been an intense irritation to the Jews, especially when Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house. To these few believers meeting in Justus’ house were added many of the Corinthians who believed and were baptized. Out of these humble beginnings grew “the Church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” —1 Cor. 1:2—for whom Paul thanked his God always on their behalf.
At this time Paul has the second of the two night visions the Lord gave him in connection with the darkened pagans of Greece. The visions in Acts connected with the Jews were day visions, because the Jews had the light of God. But the Greeks were in darkness. Paul’s first vision was to come and help Macedonia, one of the two provinces of Greece; his second vision was in the capital of the other province Corinth—to encourage him to stay there in the face of opposition which might well discourage any man. The Lord had many people in that city. Paul obeyed both visions. His stay at Corinth was unusually long—a year and a half. It was a teaching rather than a preaching ministry, very vital in such a wicked city, where even the most elementary principles of right conduct were unknown. Even then it had to be supplemented later by two epistles to correct the loose moral state the new converts brought with them from their profligate surroundings.3
Gallio Sets a Legal Precedent
The Jews now bring Paul to the judgment seat of the newly appointed Roman proconsul, Gallio. This man was highly esteemed in Roman life, being of amiable disposition and personal charm. He was a brother of the younger Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, and a son of the elder Seneca, the rhetorician. He bore the name of his adoptive father. Before his tribunal the Jews charge Paul, saying “this (base man is implied) persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.” This accusation may have been phrased to raise a doubt in Gallio’s mind that more than Moses’ law was involved—Caesar’s was too. This because the Emperor Augustus had left a tradition that the religious “status quo” should be observed throughout the Empire. To this end only existing religions were lawful, and interfaith conversions banned. Judaism was a recognized religion, and the Jews wanted a ruling from Gallio that Christianity was not a sect within Judaism, but a separate religion altogether, and so illegal. But Gallio thought otherwise, regarding the whole matter as an internal squabble within the broad framework of the religion of the Jews, and unworthy of his attention. This can be seen from his words and actions— “if indeed it was some wrong or wicked criminality, O Jews, of reason I should have borne with you; but if it be questions about words, and names, and the law that ye have, see to it yourselves; for I do not intend to be a judge of these things. And he drove them from the judgment seat.” The judgment seat was in the open air as customary in those days,4 which explains why the Greeks were present to give Sosthenes a beating. The Greeks did not love the Jews any more than the Romans.
Gallio’s ruling, coming as it did not from a magistrate in a city, but from the governor of a Roman province, established a precedent which was followed by the governors of other provinces in the treatment of Christianity. Indeed Paul argued before Agrippa that the gospel he preached was the true faith of Israel, and even at the end maintained that it was for the hope of Israel he was bound with his chain—28:20. While true, in practice the Jews’ refusal of that faith made a break with Judaism inevitable. Like oil and water, Judaism and Christianity cannot mix. For the present, though, Gallio’s judgment provided an umbrella under which Christianity was providentially sheltered from the storms of persecution that were to burst on it later. This temporary official policy afforded, in the providence of God, an opportunity for the establishment and nurturing of the fledgling assemblies without official Roman interference.
Later on Christianity was recognized for what it is—Christ. Its protection as an official religion—that is, as part of the recognized Jewish religion—was withdrawn, and fierce persecution followed.
The Close of the Second Mission
Paul stayed in Corinth “many days.” Then in Cenchrea, the Eastern port of Corinth, he shears his head, for he had a vow. Commentators differ as to whether this was the beginning or ending of his vow, and whether or not it was a Nazarite or general vow. We will be content to glean the general lesson that Paul was very much a Jew and loved his national customs and religious practices. So he sails from Corinth with Priscilla and Aquila until he reaches Ephesus, where Priscilla and Aquila stay for some time, probably to make and sell tents there. Tent makers like Aquila and Priscilla moved from town to town selling their wares to travelers and soldiers. When the market in one town dried up, they moved on to another. Paul himself goes into the synagogue, where he meets a good reception. And well he might, with the marks of a good Jew about him—his head shorn because of his vow and his stated purpose to go up to Jerusalem to keep the feast. The Jews press him to stay but the approaching close of the navigation season dictates otherwise. So he sails from Ephesus to the land of Israel. He lands at Caesarea and goes up—that is, to Jerusalem. He greets the Church there. We are not told whether his ship arrived in time for the feast. Perhaps the Holy Spirit noted all this so we would understand the human side of Paul better. He dearly loved “my own nation according to the flesh.”
From Jerusalem he goes down to Antioch. Antioch, of course, was the mission center, not Jerusalem. So his long second mission comes to a close. Yet it is important to note that he salutes the assembly at Jerusalem, not the one at Antioch. He seems only to have arrived back at Antioch incidentally, his main purpose being the keeping of a Jewish feast. This and the vow show us things which, while not wrong in the transitional days of Acts, would have better been discarded. Certainly, they formed no part of Christianity. The dear Apostle’s love for the Jews was not reciprocated, and his adherence to their customs was soon to bring him into deep waters—chains and imprisonment. Nor do we find Silas with him at the end of the second mission as he had Barnabas at the end of the first. He is alone.