We begin II Corinthians for Beginners.
This is lesson number 1 and we're going to start with a review. In order to understand II Corinthians it is assumed that everyone has read I
Corinthians, but you can't make those assumptions always since there's no
guarantee for this and being familiar with I Corinthians is
really necessary to understand II Corinthians we're going to begin
this class with a short review of Paul's first letter to this particular church.
So just some background information some introductory material this morning and
then as we go on we'll go into the text. So let's talk about the
the city itself: city of Corinth in 146 BC the Roman general Lucius Mummius crushed
a Greek bid for independence from Rome by completely destroying the city of
Corinth. So we begin our look at Corinth by remembering when it was
completely destroyed by the Romans. A hundred years later Julius Caesar sent a
colony of veterans and descendants of freedmen to rebuild the city and in
time the city of Corinth grew to great importance, it eventually became the
fourth largest city in the Roman Empire, it had a population of about 600,000
people and for that time that was an enormous city to have that
many people, it was also a city well suited for trade and commerce because of
its three seaports and its location on the isthmus between northern and
southern Greece. It became eventually the Roman capital of the Greek district of
Achaiah so because of its location it drew a mixed population of Greeks and Romans,
Egyptians and Jews who all came there to to trade, to do business. Corinth was a
wealthy city given to commerce and art and entertainment. The Isthmus, that's
hard word to say, I want to tell you, the Isthmus Games were held here, these were second only to the Olympic Games. The winners
received a wreath or a crown made of leaves actually two kinds either celery
leaves or pine tree leaves. Paul refers to this practice in I Corinthians
chapter 9 verse 24 to 27 when he says, "Everyone who competes in the games
exercise self-control in all things." So writing to the Corinthians, when he's
talking about the games they understood he was talking about the Isthmus Games. He says, "They then do it to receive a perishable wreath," the wreath we just
saw, "but we an imperishable." And so he's talking here about
Christians competing for a crown that is imperishable of course meaning the
crown of eternal life. But that's that reference that famous passage based
on the experience of the Corinthians and the sport games that
they had at that time. The people there held to many pagan gods
and there were many temples and pagan practices that went on; the two main gods
Poseidon who was the god of the sea I think I've got a slide
for him there we go and so they had many different gods
Poseidon as I mentioned. It was also the center for worship for Venus the goddess
of love and there were a thousand temple prostitutes free to strangers. The Corinthians did not know the meaning of morality
or chastity or purity they were an extremely immoral society. The term to
corinthianize meant to prostitute or to desecrate something so common in the
vernacular you know or rather their behavior was so well known that it
became common in the vernacular of the day to use their name when we wanted to
refer to something that was not good or or immoral. The Greek writers of that
period said that if even a Corinthian were portrayed in a play he was always
shown as being drunk, they never had positive image of Corinthians in any of
the literature. So the church there was established in Corinth in about 50-51
AD by Paul when he was on his second missionary journey, he was assisted by
Priscilla and Aquila, a couple of Christians who had fled Rome and settled
in Corinth. Paul also traveled with Timothy and Silas. You can say Priscilla
and Aquila, Aquila and Priscilla, Aquila was the man Priscilla the woman. Another
worker who helped build the early church there was Apollos who has taught the
gospel more perfectly if we remember in the book of Acts by Aquila and Priscilla.
So the story of the establishment of the church is found in Acts chapter 18 and
instead of summarizing it it's a pretty good summary so I thought we'd just read
it, "After these things" he meaning Paul, "after these things he left Athens and
went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila,
a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla,
because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them, and
because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they were working,
for by trade they were tent-makers. And he was reasoning in the
synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. But when
Silas and Timothy came down for Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself
completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was
the Christ. But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and
said to them, 'your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go
to the Gentiles.' Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue.
Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all of his
household, and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being
baptized. And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, 'Do not be afraid
any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man
will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.' And he
settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. But
while Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against
Paul and brought him before the judgment seat, saying, 'This man persuades men to
worship God contrary to the law.' But when Paul was about to open his mouth,
Gallio said to the Jews, 'If it were a matter of wrong or a vicious crime, O
Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you; but if there are
questions about words and names and your own law, look after it yourselves; I am
unwilling to be judge of these matters.' And he drove them away from the judgment
seat. And they all took hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and began
beating him in front of the judgment seat. But Gallio was not concerned about
any of these things. Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the
brethren and put out to sea for Syria, and with him were Priscilla and Aquila.
In Cenchrea a he had his hair cut, for he was keeping a vow. They came to
Ephesus, and he left them there. Now he himself entered the synagogue and
reasoned with the Jews." A couple of more verses, "When they asked
him to stay for a longer time, he did not consent, but taking leave of them and
saying, 'I will return to you again if God wills,' he set sail from Ephesus. When he
had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church, and went
down to Antioch." So Paul establishes the church there in
Corinth made up of Jews who have left the synagogue but who face anonymity
from or animosity rather from their Jewish countrymen for leaving. Everyone
in the early church had somebody against them; there was a price
to pay. It wasn't just, now I'm a, I used to believe this
over here which nobody cared about anyways and now I believe this over here
which nobody cares about anyways. Which is kind of like what happens to us many
times, we don't really believe anything we're not firmly
attached to something in particular and then for some reason begin to read the
Bible, someone shares the gospel with us, we become interested in Christianity, we
follow through, repent, baptized we begin our growth in Christ. But I mean
nobody burns our house down, we don't lose our jobs because we've become a
Christian, if we go to our our of work mates at work and during a
lunch break so what's going on and somebody will say well I was baptized on
Sunday I became a Christian, well what do you think the reaction will
be, you think people will take their trays and get up and walk away? Well no, they'll go that's nice, good for you,
or really why did you do that and make kind of or someone say well I oh yeah
you were baptized I was baptized as a young boy you know and this church or
that sure it's not going to be shaking the world. But these people in
in first century they had somebody against them every group had something.
The Jews their Jewish family and their Jewish friends and their fellow
believers rejected them, they abandoned not only their religion, in a sense they
were abandoning their own culture and I'll tell you something for many
people it's much more difficult to be rejected culturally than religiously. Religiously it's
up here it's in here. Culturally it's how you eat, who you talk
to, the holidays that you keep going over to I remember when Lise and I first
became Christians both of our families they always planned stuff on Sunday
mornings, on Sunday morning we're all going to go over here well before
we used to go but a Sunday morning it's we had services Sunday morning
and we were polite and excused ourselves, we'll catch up you guys later,
but her mom dad lived like 40-50 miles from our house with the four kids and we never made it for the lunch. Easter Sunday, Easter Sunday in the
morning we roll the eggs at lunchtime the big lunch
everybody's over yeah they didn't understand why I as a minister couldn't
drop everything on Sunday morning and go roll the eggs and be there for dinner
after all the family was all there why can't you be there? And believe me that's
just the small thing in comparison to some of these the people here in the
Corinthian church. The Jews suffered terribly for having abandoned their
religion and for many it seemed their own culture, very difficult. The Greeks
had a background in sexual immorality and paganism, for them it was very
difficult to complete, to change, at least for the Jews they're moral standing was similar. As they became Christians they
didn't have to become more or less moral as Christians the standards
is what I'm trying to at the standard for morality and
personal conduct as a Jew was similar to the standard of personal conduct and
morality for a Christian. But for a Greek oh boy that was a real life change
because of the lifestyle. Most of the people were poor and were from the lower
ranks of society, Paul talks about that in I Corinthians chapter 1 verse 26. So
there were great social, cultural and religious differences,
nevermind between the Christians and what they had left behind but between
the Christians themselves. If you had grown up as a Jew your whole life you
had been taught not to associate with Gentiles, in its most extreme form you
know if a Gentile was coming your way you would cross the street so their
shadow would not intersect with your shadow, and now what were you supposed to
do? You were sitting right next to them, they were touching you, you were breaking
the loaf and you were eating from the same loaf at communion, you were calling
each other brother, sister. We read in Romans where Paul says greet
each other with a holy kiss right. Of course in those days that meant the
women kissed the women, the men kissed the men there was no the men kiss the
women as many times we do hear in a greeting in a friendly greeting. But can
you imagine a Jew who had grown up in a Jewish religion greet each other with a
holy kiss, oh I have to demonstrate physical affection to the one that. So they had a great challenge in these
churches especially first Corinthians as a model church. Paul, as Acts tells us,
supported himself in his work by working with Aquila and Priscilla they were
tent-making. Little research if you dig down deep tent making not necessarily
the canvas but they made the leather, there was a leather spot there in the
tent where the loop would go through to tie it down, they were kind of leather
workers okay. So he worked with them and this is an important point to remember
that he worked with them, that he earned his own living for a time, that's
important to remember when we get into the text of II Corinthians. The Greeks
had great pride in their intellectualism and their oratory powers they also
were argumentative and clannish. All information we get from I Corinthians
1 and 2. I corinthians doesn't describe the Jews much, but we already
know how self-righteous and legalistic and bigoted they were, so this church
faced serious unity problems; putting all these people in the same church. We also
know that they usually met in homes, public halls or schools whenever it was
safe to do so usually in secret. Church buildings that were erected
strictly for church meetings, that doesn't happen till around the 2nd
century. So we don't know how big the church was, interesting isn't it,
we know how large the church was in Jerusalem at the beginning thousands and
thousands of people Luke writes about the church in Acts
3,000 and 5,000 so and so forth. But after those numbers there isn't any
church where we're given their number. We have no idea how big the church at
Ephesus was, we have no idea how big the church at Corinth was,
we have no ideas we get no numbers, they could have been a thousand or they could
have been a hundred. So the letter of I Corinthians was probably written
in the winter of 54 to 57 AD, roughly three to five years after the church in
Corinth was established. Paul had been with them initially for about eighteen
months, which was a long time for him. He didn't usually stay that long in one
place, so this means that he's now been away from, in other words if it was
written three to five years after the church was established it means he was
there for about eighteen months or so and he's been gone for several years. So
at the time of writing Paul was in Ephesus, we know that I Corinthians
16:15-18. And several events moved Paul to write this letter to this
particular church. First of all he had received a report about the affairs of
the church from close family who were members of the church, he had also
received a letter from the church asking him questions. That's why I
Corinthians such a great epistle because it answers so many questions about normal church activity well normal and abnormal church activity. He had
urged Apollos to go and help them resolve their problems but Apollos
had declined. I always find that so fascinating here's a servant of the
church Apollos, spoken well of by Paul and others, and Paul says you know
I'd like for you to go there and do this and he says you know what I'm busy, I'm
busy he said I can't do it. Isn't that like real life, doesn't that happen in
ministry, it's not a fairy tale, people are busy, people have stuff to do, even 'ministers.' He was busy, not now he said, I'll go but not now. He had received
news Paul did had received news from several brethren from Corinth who
had brought him a gift from that particular congregation. A gift for his
birthday? No, a gift, he had to eat, he needed support like many many
missionaries they raise support so that they can continue working, same thing
here. A couple of interesting facts about I Corinthians, next to Romans it is
Paul's longest letter, it's also the most varied in content a lot of the
letters that you read from Paul have a kind of one particular theme.
Colossians for example that Jesus Christ is God, He is the divine
Savior and that letter really focuses. I Corinthians is lots of
different subjects in it. The letter also contains the strongest rebukes against
individuals and groups, and this was a Corinthians now, here you have to kind of
have some mind games to hold all of this in, this was actually the second letter that
he had written to them we learned that in I Corinthians chapter 5 verse 9 but
the first letter was lost and we have no record of it, so we're reading a letter
entitled I Corinthians and we find out that I Corinthians is actually the
second letter that Paul had written to these people the first one being lost, so
I Corinthians is actually the second letter, II Corinthians
actually the third letter. Alright so try to keep that in mind.
I Corinthian probably gives us the the clearest picture of life and
problems of the local church in the Gentile world in the first century. Best
letter to give us a view of this. The concern of I Corinthians
was not doctrine or theology: who is God?, or the nature of salvation or when will
the end of the world come or what will happen at the end,
it's not concerned with doctrine, it's concerned with
pastoral theology: how should Christians act? How should we treat one another, how
should we conduct ourselves to make a good witness. These people here
were weak, immature, divisive Christians who needed a mature leader to show them
how and why to lead a Christian life in the proper way. The complication
was that they were also a very gifted church, they had powerful spiritual
gifts well some in the congregation had powerful spiritual gifts but they were
using them improperly so the letter is divided into a discussion of nine vital
concerns for this church and Paul tacks on an introduction. So you've
got the introduction and then the vital concerns that he talks about
remember I said varied topics so concerning division, concerning
leadership, concerning immorality, concerning marriage, concerning freedom,
worship, concerning gifts, the proper use of gifts, concerning resurrection, and
then concerning the collection financial support of the church. This is I
Corinthians. So like a good elder he shepherds the confused and the
disobedient, this church had plenty of both, by teaching them what the Lord
requires in different areas of Christian life, what does Jesus, people
used to wear that yellow band there: what would Jesus do? Well this is almost like
a what would Jesus do letter, what would Jesus do if he had the spiritual gift,
well if you know with the spiritual gift what would Jesus do to worship, how would
He worship, so on and so forth. Now there's no absolute agreement about the
order of these events but something resembling this occurred between
the writing of the first letter, I corinthians we're talking about
here and the second one that Paul writes to these brethren. So the Corinthians
received the first letter okay this letter here we're talking about I
Corinthians, they received this letter and they take care of most of the
problems that are mentioned in this letter. Now certain Jews come into the
church and they begin to stir up trouble which makes necessary Paul's visit that
he talks about in chapter 2 verse 1. This would now be his third visit to these
people. These people were doing several things, these people when I'm talking
about these people I'm not talking about the Corinthians I'm talking about the
Jews, Jewish Christians who had come into the church and began teaching and
stirring up trouble. And the type of things that they were doing for example
they were presenting themselves as Apostles, like Peter was an Apostle or
Paul was an Apostle or they were presenting themselves as Apostles. They
were stirring up strife and division in the church, they were criticizing Paul
and they were challenging his authority. If you want to divide a church don't go
to the members and stir them up I mean that helps, no no go straight to the top
start with a division among the elders, you have two elders get those two elders
to argue with each other you have five elders get three of them to really begin
a campaign or a war against the other two elders, if you can
divide the eldership dividing the congregation well that's easy after
that. So that's what they were doing they were going not after the leaders in
the local congregation they were going after Paul, the one who had planted that
church and they were questioning his authority, his teaching, really this Paul
really you're listening to him you're not even here. They tried to build
up a following for themselves among established churches but they were not
evangelistic. They taught circumcision was necessary for salvation, they also
had to keep ceremonial laws, in other words they weren't going out to try to
convert people who didn't know the gospel, no no they were coming in to
people who are already Christians and trying to get them to follow their
personal leadership. And they also criticized Paul for receiving money for
his work, you know that gift that the Corinthians sent this was a subject of
their criticism and in the church people very sensitive about money, how it's
spent, who gets it, how much they get. So this is important to note because Paul
refers to all of these accusations in II Corinthians. So the problems were
resolved, Jewish teachers come in begins stirring up trouble, Paul
had written I Corinthians from Ephesus and then he left Ephesus to
travel to Macedonia in order to collect money for the churches there, we read
about that in chapter 2 chapter 8. During this trip he falls ill, so what I'm
giving you here is a timeline of events and these are important if you're going
to understand the accusations and the arguments in II corinthians. So he falls
ill, during this time Titus arrives in Macedonia and gives Paul a report of
the effect of his first letter to the Corinthians. So he's traveling, Titus
comes, that hey you know that letter you sent I Corinthians, that letter let
me tell you how the church reacted to that. On hearing of new problems, what were the
new problem, well the new problems were the Jews coming in, it wasn't bad
enough that they were using their spiritual gifts improperly, it wasn't bad
enough that a man was having sex with his mother his stepmother, that
wasn't bad enough those things were taking place that he had written about
in I Corinthians, no no now these these Jews come in and start causing
trouble and this is what Titus tells him. So he writes II Corinthians and he
gives it to Titus and says all right go on back bring this letter back to them. Later
Paul will visit Corinth again for a few months and during this time will write
the letter to the Romans and perhaps also the one to the Galatians. we know
about that in Acts chapter 20 verse 2 and 3. And then his stay at Corinth will
be short-lived as a plot will be formed against him and he will have to escape
by changing his plans. Now this is church stuff going on not just a plot to
denounce him or to undermine his teaching, no these guys they
played hardball, we don't like you we want to get rid of you we want to take
over your position so we're going to kill you.
Not enough to destroy your reputation no no we just want to take you out. So
during this time we see Paul's work as an Apostle include the very real
tasks of caring for the needy, the collection that he was
taking he was gathering money to help the needy in different churches, he was
also teaching in person and through his epistles, he was mentoring and training
Titus for example mentoring and training that young evangelist,
he was resolving disputes and divisions, II Corinthians was written for
that purpose, and he was preaching and planting churches: Macedonia and Corinth.
So II Corinthians is an epistle that talks about the life of an
Apostle, whereas I Corinthians is aimed at the members and would we
study I Corinthians what we're studying is similar
problems that we have today: division, pride, immoral behavior, that stuff keeps
going generation after generation and so I Corinthians is very helpful because
it addresses the same problems that continue from generation to
generation. II Corinthians however is fascinating because it gives you insight
into the Apostle the work of the Apostle what is it like or what was it like to
be one of Jesus' Apostles in the first century. So II Corinthians is a
subjective book unlike I Corinthians. I Corinthians teaches the church how
to do things and what to think about things and how to conduct yourself and
so on and so forth, II Corinthians reveals what it is like to be an Apostle.
So the book is centered around Paul's experience as an Apostle and II
Corinthians can be outlined in the following way: there's a brief
introduction and then it's all about being an Apostle, the apostolic
experience, the apostolic explanation, the apostolic ministry, the apostolic
fellowship, and then apostolic defense, defense of his apostleship, imagine what it's like to have seen Jesus, heard Jesus,
to have been called in a miraculous way to have performed miracles, to have
written material given to you by God, to have been beaten and flogged and
imprisoned and robbed and you know all manner of trial and difficulty in your
life, having given everything to your ministry imagine and then people come
along and say well you're no apostle, prove to us that you're an apostle, who
says, could you imagine? I mean I think I would just melt in rage
if it were me I would just melt just like butter in the microwave and yet we
see the true apostolic spirit in II Corinthians. A fascinating fascinating
very personal epistle, more personal than any other epistle that he wrote,
there are always sections in different epistles where Paul reveals himself
talks about himself a little bit but II Corinthians is really an appeal to
understand what it's like to be an apostle. Okay so there's our little
introduction so we have some background material. I'll give you the dreaded
assignment read I Corinthians, if you're a daily Bible reader put
up your schedule there if you can manage it put that aside or add to it
read through I Corinthians, get familiar with the scene and then II
Corinthians chapter 1 verses 1 to 11 that's the material we're going to be
covering next Sunday. So I thank you for your attention and if you have any
questions let me know. All right God bless you, we'll see you next time.
