Will you please turn to the book of Acts?
Acts 18, beginning with verse 1.
And after these things he departed from Athens, and came to Corinth.
And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome: and he came unto them;
and because he was of the same trade, he abode with them, and they wrought, for by their trade they were tentmakers.
And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks.
And when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was constrained by the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.
And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook out his raiment and said unto them, “Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.”
And he departed thence, and went into the house of a certain man named Titus Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.
And Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.
And the Lord said unto Paul in the night by a vision, “Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee: for I have much people in this city.”
And he dwelt there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
Will you please turn to 1 Corinthians 2, the first five verses?
And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Perhaps we will also read 2 Corinthians 13, from verses 11 through 14.
Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfected; be comforted; be of the same mind; live in peace: and the God of love and peace shall be with you.
Salute one another with a holy kiss. All the saints salute you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
May we commit His word to Him.
Heavenly Father, we do want to thank Thee once again for the privilege of remembering Thy Son at Thy table. Lord, we can never understand why Thou dost love us so much.
Lord, we thank Thee because we are tokens of Thy love. And as we continue in Thy presence and read Thy word, we ask, Lord, that Thou wilt, through Thy Holy Spirit, speak to us through Thy word.
Lord, do build us up in Thyself, that we may be unto the praise of Thy glory. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have been considering together, from time to time, this matter of the life of the church, the body of Christ.
When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He lived in a physical body, and in that physical body He taught and He worked.
After His death, resurrection, and ascension, He took upon Himself on this earth a mystical body—a body that is made up of all those who believe in Him. It is the church, the body of Christ.
And in this mystical body, He continued to do and to teach.
So our interest is to see how our Lord Jesus, the risen Head, lives in and through this mystical body, the body of Christ.
We find in the book of Acts this mystical body, the church, as it is established from city to city, starting from Jerusalem, through all Judea, Samaria, and even to the end of the earth. According to the understanding of that time, the end of the earth was Rome.
And in Acts we find that it came to Rome. But, of course, we know that the book of Acts has no ending, because this life of the church, the body of Christ, continues on even to our days, until the return of the Head, our Lord Jesus.
Now we find that whatever is recorded in the word of God is for our edification and for our admonition.
So we believe, as we read the story of how the churches in different places lived and witnessed for the Lord, that this is more than just the history of the first-century church. We believe that God put these things in the word for us to read, that we may learn lessons from them.
There are pitfalls; there are problems. Pitfalls we should avoid, problems we should know how to solve, and ways that we should learn how to follow.
So, in our fellowship on these churches of the first century, our desire is not just to know some historical facts. Our desire is to learn from our brothers and sisters: How did Christ live through them, that we may know how to allow Him to live through us corporately?
Now we have covered the church in Jerusalem, the church in Antioch, the churches in Galatia, the church in Philippi, and the church in Thessalonica. So this morning, we are coming to the church in Corinth.
Now we know that during the second missionary journey of the apostle Paul, the Spirit of God did not allow him to remain in Asia, but he was led to cross the Aegean into Europe.
So the gospel began to spread from Asia to Europe: first to Philippi, then Thessalonica. And in Acts 18, we are told that after Paul left Athens, he came to Corinth.
This second missionary trip covered about three years, from AD 50 to AD 53. Corinth, at that time, was the capital of Achaia.
It was a commercial city. It was very beautifully situated, and it was a very wealthy city because of commerce and also of the Isthmian games. That was before the Olympic Games, and for these two reasons that city was rather famous.
But here was a city—civilized, but very corrupt. It was very immoral, and drinking was a big problem in that city.
Strangely, you find this city was famous at that time for two things. One was its dissipated living. Sometimes there was a saying, “He lives like a Corinthian.” In other words, he lived a very corrupt moral life.
Yet, on the other hand, there was another thing: the speech of the Corinthians. The Corinthians were very famous for their eloquence. They could put things in a very logical and appealing way.
So, on the one hand, they lived a very corrupt life. On the other hand, they talked very eloquently. Now that was the situation in the city of Corinth at that time.
Now before Paul came into that city, as he viewed that city from afar, he made a determination. We are told in 1 Corinthians 2 that he determined, when he arrived in Corinth, what he should do with the Corinthians and how he should approach them with salvation.
He said he was determined that in their midst he would know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
In other words, he determined not to match eloquence with eloquence, intelligence with intelligence, because he saw that what the Corinthians really needed was Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So that was his determination before he entered into that city.
When he first arrived, he was all by himself, because Timothy was sent to Thessalonica and Silas was still behind. He was all by himself.
But he found that there was a couple, a Christian couple, in that city: Aquila and Priscilla.
Now they had just come from Rome because Caesar Claudius decreed that all Jews must leave Rome.
We are told in history that the reason Claudius gave that decree, that all Jews must leave Rome, was because there was trouble among the Jews in Rome because of Chrestus. Now, Chrestus, we know, means Christ.
So evidently, the gospel of Jesus Christ had been brought to Rome by some people, and that caused a tumult among the Jews. Because of the turmoil, all Jews were ordered out.
Aquila and Priscilla were Christians. Now, we do not know how they became Christians, but we are told probably they were among those who attended Pentecost.
They were there at Pentecost in Jerusalem. They were among the three thousand that were saved. So they were early Christians.
And after they were saved, they returned back to Rome. Probably they were among those who spread the good news and caused the tumult among the Jews. All the Jews were ordered out of Rome, so they came to Corinth.
So Paul went and stayed with them because they were not only fellow Christians—and probably Christians before Paul was—but they had the same trade.
You know, among the Jews, their education was not only to study, but also every man must learn a trade. It so happened that Paul had learned the trade of tentmaking, and Aquila also was a tentmaker. So Paul went and stayed with them, and they worked together with their hands.
On the Sabbath, Paul, Aquila, and Priscilla would go to the synagogue, and Paul began to reason with the Jews there about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But mainly, you find Paul spent his days working with his hands. Only on the Sabbath did he go to the synagogue to reason with the Jews.
But after Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, something happened. You know, Paul’s heart was stirred. He was pressed, constrained, by the word of God.
So he began to preach the gospel even more frequently and fervently—not only on the Sabbath in the synagogue, but he began to spread the good news in a more zealous way.
And when he was doing that, he had opposition from the Jews. Because the Jews opposed the gospel of Jesus Christ and spoke injuriously against Christ, Paul said, “Well, since you refuse to accept the Messiah, Christ, then I will go to the Gentiles. I will go to the nations.”
So he went to the house of Justus, which adjoined the synagogue, and there he continued preaching the good news of Jesus Christ.
Even Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, came, and his whole family came to the Lord. But mostly they were Gentiles.
There was opposition—fierce opposition. So evidently Paul was a little hesitant whether he should stay there. He had been driven out from city after city, and he was wondering whether he should stay on or whether he should leave.
And in the night, in a vision, the Lord appeared to him and said, “Paul, stay here. Do not be silent. I am with you. No one can set his hand upon you. I have many people in this city.”
When Paul heard this in the vision, he stayed in Corinth a year and six months.
So we find that the apostle Paul stayed in Corinth a whole year and six months. Not until afterwards, when Gallio became proconsul and the Jews took Paul to the judgment seat of Gallio and accused him, did Paul leave. Gallio said, in effect, “It is your law; I will not be troubled by that.” Paul afterwards stayed there many days before he left.
So that was how the church in Corinth began.
Now, brothers and sisters, we would like to see who those people were that composed the church in Corinth. If you turn to 1 Corinthians 1, Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians, said—we should read a little more, from verse 22.
Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom:
but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness;
but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For behold your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
but God chose the foolish things of the world, that He might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that He might put to shame the things that are strong;
and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that He might bring to nought the things that are:
that no flesh should glory before God.
So we know that those believers in Corinth were mostly common people—not wise, but foolish; not of high position, but lowly; not powerful, but weak. In other words, most of them were nobodies.
But even though they were nobodies, if you turn to 1 Corinthians 6, you find something there. Let us read from verse 9.
Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men,
nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.
So you find these nobodies—actually, some of them were really quite notorious, great sinners. And yet, by the grace of God, when the gospel was preached to these people, they were washed, they were sanctified, they were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
So when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, you find he addressed them as sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints.
Now think of that. These nobodies, these notorious sinful people, living wicked lives—and when the gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ and Him crucified, was preached to them, what grace had come upon them!
They became sanctified; that is to say, set apart from the world. They were justified. They were called saints—not called to be saints, but called saints.
Sinners before; saints now. Separated from the world unto God. Now that was what happened. That was the power of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And not only that, but when Paul continued to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified to them, you find these people were enriched in Christ Jesus. They were rich in the word of God, and they were not behind anyone in gifts.
They had a good beginning, a very promising beginning. And Paul had great hope toward them, because Paul said they were waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye be unreproveable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, we are all called. What is our calling? What are we called to?
In 1 Corinthians 1:9, we are told that we are called into the fellowship—into a sharing together—of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now think of that. In this universe, there is a divine fellowship, a fellowship that is different from all the other fellowships in the world. It is the fellowship of the Father and of the Son in the Spirit. In other words, it is the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
God’s Son, Jesus Christ, has fellowship with His Father, sharing everything together in the Spirit, in love, in perfect harmony, in one mind, with one purpose—everything sharing together. It is a close fellowship, an intimate fellowship, the sweetest fellowship that is ever in the universe.
And into that fellowship, God has called the Corinthians to join. God has called us to come in.
This fellowship can only be joined by you. There is no other way to join that fellowship. You have to be born into the fellowship. You have to receive the life of God in order to be in that fellowship.
There the Son will share everything that He has with the Father with us. Or, to put it another way, the Son will share His Father with us, and the Father will share His Son with us.
It is such a rich fellowship, such a glorious, wonderful fellowship that we are called into. Brothers and sisters, just think of that.
Once we belonged to the world—wicked, perverse, corrupt, fading.
And now we are called out of the world and into the fellowship.