Paul’s Corinthian Context: Why the “Foolishness” of the Cross Shook a Worldly City
The Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:17-18—“For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God”—were not written in a vacuum. They were penned to a specific church in a specific city at a specific moment in history. To grasp the full power of that old rugged cross on “a hill far away,” we must step back into first-century Corinth and feel the cultural winds Paul faced head-on. Only then does the radical simplicity of his message shine. A Prosperous, Pagan, Party City on the Isthmus Corinth was no sleepy village. By the time Paul arrived around A.D. 50–52 during his second missionary journey, it was the thriving capital of the Roman province of Achaia (southern Greece). Strategically perched on the narrow isthmus connecting the Peloponnese to mainland Greece, the city ...