One of the largest and most impressive cities in the ancient world, Ephesus was a political, religious, and commercial center in Asia Minor. It was located in western Asia Minor at the mouth of the Cayster River and was an important seaport. Situated between the Maeander River to the south and the Hermus River to the north, the city had excellent access to both river valleys which allowed it to flourish as a commercial port. Due to silt accumulation by the river, the present city is approximately 5-6 miles inland. The original inhabitants of the Ephesus area were driven out around 1000 BC by Ionian Greek settlers who promptly assimilated the native religion and worship of a fertility goddess whom they identified with Artemis, the virgin huntress (also called Diana by the Romans). Around 560 BC a magnificent temple was built to Artemis. In 547 BC, control of the area passed to Persia and disaster struck the city in 356 BC when fire destroyed the Temple.  Alexander the Great took control of the area in 334 BC and offered to reconstruct the temple. This was declined. The temple was rebuilt, completed in 250 BC and became known as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Control of the area passed to one of Alexander’s generals from 301 to 281 BC. City walls were built and a new harbor was constructed.  The Seleucids gained control from 281 to 189 BC, when the Romans defeated them and the city was given to the king of nearby Pergamum as a reward for his military assistance. When the last Pergamum king died in 133 BC, the city came under direct Roman control, under which it thrived, reaching its pinnacle of greatness during the 1^st and 2^nd centuries AD. When Paul wrote this letter, Ephesus was probably the fourth largest city in the world with a population of about 250,000. Its grandeur is evident in the archeological remains, including the ruins of the temple to Artemis, the civic agora, the temple of Domitian, gymnasiums, public baths, a theater with seating for 24,000, a library and the commercial agora. There was also found a partial statue of a colossus of the emperor Domitian. Today, the Turkish town of Seljuk occupies the ancient site of Ephesus.

I thought about moving on to Ephesus as Acts does, but Corinth is, I think, an extremely important church in the history of the early Church, so we need to pause a moment to consider it more closely.

Paul spent about 18 months in Corinth on his second missionary journey. He had time to develop relationships while he was there. He wrote both the letters to the Thessalonians and probably Romans during this time. In other words, Corinth is where most of our theology was penned. What was special about Corinth?

First, it was a thoroughly pagan city, though it did have a synagogue where Paul ministered for about three months before opposition caused him to move next door. It had an agora – a marketplace, where Paul could support himself as a tentmaker. We know that this was Priscilla and Aquila’s trade as well. We don’t know what Timothy and Silas were trained to do beyond preach the gospel, but all young men in Grecian Jewish society were trained in some sort of trade, so it is reasonable to assume that they were able to make a living. This allowed them to support Paul in full time ministry.

Corinth, though it had an ancient past, was a relatively new city because the ancient city had been destroyed and abandoned, then rebuilt by the Romans only about 100 years before. I suspect it was like many American cities, unbound from tradition that Paul had encountered in many other cities. The individuals in Corinth were less likely to fall back on “this is how we’ve done it for generations” because nothing in their lives was how they had done it for generations.

Because Corinth was a port city at a major four-way crossroads, it was an ideal location for a gospel headquarters. Paul didn’t have to travel to spread the gospel from here. He only had to meet people in Corinth, win them to the Lord and they would become missionaries to wherever.

On the flip side, Corinth was a thoroughly pagan city, known for its licentiousness. Its residents made a lot of money off the shipping trade that rolled (quite literally) through the city from the two ports on either side of the isthmus. Like sailors in every part of the world and in every time, the mariners who passed through Corinth were looking for a bit of debauchery. Corinth was more than willing to supply. In addition to a temple to Athena that would have employed full time sex workers, the merchants probably also ran several brothels. And, as merchants in everywhere and every time are wont to do in cities where the customers are just passing through, we can be assured there was a fair amount of business cheating going on – improperly weighted scales, for example. Moreover, Corinth was a Roman city with its party politics and “rule of law” which led to division and law suits.

We know a great deal about the Corinthian church because of Paul’s letters back to this troubled church. Having an apostle spend more than a year of his life establishing your church is no guarantee that the church will stay a steady course. The Corinthian Christians brought their baggage with them – the sexually loose standards of their society, their political divisions, their social clichés and their lawsuits. Corinth had all the potential of other churches to be strong and healthy and certainly the wealth to surpass other localities, but the members failure to rid themselves of their past lifestyle choices hindered the church.

That was indeed tragic for the individuals within the Corinthian church. Make no mistake, they have to stand before the Lord someday to account for their sins. However, for the modern church, the unfortunate tendency of the Corinthians to resist sanctification provides us with a rich treasure of Christian life application. We can, through Paul’s letters (and Clement’s later one) see a church that continued to grow and learn from its mistakes, while making new ones and revisiting some old ones. Is that not so much like our own life course as Christians?

We should not seek to emulate the Corinthian Christians, but we can certainly learn from them. Although I am not going to revisit the Corinth letters here, I think it would be a good idea to keep them in mind. The Corinth church was an ancient Las Vegas, with all the problems in its membership that such a community will face. As modern Christians, we should look closely at how Paul advised these Christians to grow closer to Jesus, because we are, to a large measure, Corinth Christians.