The Love One Another Podcast | Episode 01 - Paul Plants the Church in Corinth

This is the Love One Another podcast from Beach Point Church.

Together, we're exploring the first letter to the Corinthians with the hope that we will be formed by the way of the cross and the love of the one who bore it, admitting, as this letter says, that we are nothing without love.

Love empowered by the Spirit through the work of Jesus is an unstoppable force.

It invites each of us to join God in the work of redeeming all things back to God.

With that in mind, let's open our hearts to God's Word today.

Today's reading is Acts 18, 1-17.

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

There he met a Jew named Achilla, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome.

Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.

Every Sabbath, he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.

But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them,"'Your blood be on your own heads.

"'I am innocent of it.'" From now on, I will go to the Gentiles.

Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God.

Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household believed in the Lord, and many of the Corinthians who had heard Paul believed and were baptized.

One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision.

Do not be afraid.

Keep on speaking.

Do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one is going to attack you and harm you, because I have many people in this city.

So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

While Galio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews of Corinth made a united attack on Paul and brought him to the place of judgment.

This man, they charged, is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.

Just as Paul was about to speak, Galio said to them, if you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you.

But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law, settle the matter yourselves.

I will not be a judge of such things.

So he drove them off.

Then the crowd there turned on Sosthenes, the synagogue leader, and beat him in front of the proconsul.

And Gallio showed no concern, whatever.

The church in Corinth started with problems.

Priscilla and Aquila were only in the city at the time of Paul's arrival because the emperor Claudius' decision to expel every Jewish person from the city of Rome, likely around 49 CE.

The Roman historian Suetonius wrote, since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Christus, he, the emperor Claudius, expelled them from Rome.

Most scholars believe the reference to Christus was a reference to Jesus and the growing conflict between the Jewish community and the growing Jewish Christian movement.

These same tensions played out in Acts 18, as Paul found opposition among the Jewish community that drove him to say, from now on I will go to the Gentiles.

These same tensions continue to play out as Thosthenes became the target of a violent mob after the dismissal of the charges against Paul.

The church in Corinth started with problems, yet God worked through them all.

As we spend the next 10 weeks in Paul's first letter to this church in Corinth, we are going to see all sorts of problems.

Problems with leadership, problems with behavior, problems with inequality, problems with worship.

If you thought the earliest churches were free of problems, we've got bad news for you.

The earliest churches started with problems, and yet God worked through them all.

1 Corinthians was a letter written to and written by the same people we see make their initial appearances here in Acts 18, facing all sorts of problems.

1 Corinthians 1 opens with Paul's greeting.

Paul and his brother in Christ Sosthenes, who together had faced the problem of conflict between the Jewish community and the fledgling followers of Jesus, who together had faced the problem of outright persecution and violence, now wrote to the church in Corinth together.

And our letter closed with a final greeting.

The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings.

Achilla and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house.

All the brothers and sisters here send you greetings.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

Priscilla and Aquila, who had suffered the injustice of being expelled from Rome for their religion and their ethnicity, who encountered the Apostle Paul because they only shared the same trade as tent makers, now hosted a church in their new home in Asia Minor.

The church in Corinth started with problems, but God didn't allow those problems to have the final say.

Instead, God worked through them.

As we look at many of the problems the church in Corinth faced over these next 10 weeks, we will be challenged by the problems we face.

Our failures and struggles as broken people attempting to follow Jesus to the best of our ability in broken communities.

But through it all, be encouraged that God will not allow our problems to have the final stay.

Instead, God will work through them.

As you begin this journey through 1 Corinthians, where do you most need encouragement to believe that God works through broken people and broken communities, including you?

Spend a few minutes in prayer sharing your answer to the first question with God.

Ask for guidance as to who you might be able to reach out to and ask for support in this season.

Thank you for taking intentional time to align yourself with God's love and the call to love one another.

You can find the Love One Another sermon series and other resources at beachpointchurch.com or on the Beach Point Church app.

May you carry the love of God into every encounter you have today.