Acts - Week 9 / Thursday

Reading for today: Acts 18:1-17

Paul arrives in Corinth, which was a commercial center and a very prosperous city. It had been destroyed in 146 B.C. and was not rebuilt until Julius Caesar took an interest in it 100 years later. He made it a Roman colony, and it again became prosperous.

But it was also a center of idolatry and licentiousness. The Greeks even invented a new word to express extreme sexual immorality, "to Corinthianize." The Corinthians were encouraged in this immorality by their worship of the so-called goddess of love, Aphrodite.

At Corinth Paul met a husband and wife who were to become some of his most faithful friends and fellow laborers in the gospel. Aquila and Priscilla had recently come to Corinth from Italy. The fourth Roman Emperor, Claudius, had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul came to them and found in their home a place to live and to carry on his trade, for they also were tentmakers and had been able to establish their business in Corinth successfully.

When the Jews became abusive to Paul, he declared he was done with them, and would now go to the Gentiles of Corinth. But in the spring of 52 A.D., a new proconsul named Gallio was appointed by the Roman Senate to govern in the province of Achaia, or Greece.

Apparently the unbelieving Jews thought they could take advantage of the new governor's lack of knowledge of the situation. So they rose up against Paul and brought him to the governor's judgment seat. Incidentally, archaeologists have discovered this judgment seat built of blue and white marble.

Gallio had sense enough to realize that no crime was involved, so he drove them out of the tribunal. They seized Sosthenes, the new ruler of the synagogue, and struck him down before he could leave the tribunal. It would seem as though the evil he had intended for Paul had fallen on him!

However, this event must have had a deep effect on Sosthenes, because he obviously yielded to the truth of the gospel. In 1 Cor. 1:1 Sosthenes joins Paul in greeting the Corinthians. Though we cannot prove it for sure, this must be the same man. It would be unlikely that there would be another prominent Sosthenes who was well known to the Corinthian church.

Talk about the grace of God! The leader of the opposition, a man who must have blasphemed Paul and the gospel, became a brother in the Lord. Isn't it amazing how God works?

Tomorrow: Discipleship at its best!