cross of
Christ. Benediction.

THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS

+The Church at Corinth+ was founded during Paul's
second missionary journey (Acts 18:1-18). When the
Apostle came to Corinth he found a home with Aquila
and Priscilla and worked with them at his trade as a
tent-maker. He preached in Corinth for over a year and a
half. Although Paul was the means of converting
Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, and his family, he had no
large success with the Jews and consequently turned to
the Gentiles. The Gentiles gladly heard him and there
was a great ingathering into the church.

Paul's sole purpose was to preach Christ for he says,
"I determined not to know anything among you, save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2).

+The City of Corinth+ was the largest and most
important city of Greece. The commerce of the world flowed
through its two harbours. The population consisted of
Greeks, Jews, Italians, and a mixed multitude; it was
excitable, pleasure loving, and mercurial. In this city
was held a perpetual vanity fair. The vices of the east
and west met and clasped hands in the work of human
degradation. The Greek goddess Aphrodite had a
magnificent temple in which a thousand priestesses ministered
to a base worship. While it was a center of wealth and
fashion it was a city of gilded vice. In the philosophical
schools there was an endless discussion about words and
non-essentials and a strong tendency to set intellectual
above moral distinctions.

THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS

+Occasion and Purpose.+-It was natural that the
pressure of heathen customs and practices should be very great
upon this young church. It was also to be expected that
parties and divisions would arise. The immediate cause
of this Epistle was that strifes and divisions had arisen in
the church. It was the reporting of these matters to
Paul by those "of the house of Chloe" (1 Cor. 1:11)
that led him to write in the way in which he did. To
settle the strifes of this church and to define the relations
which Christians should assume towards the political,
religious, and domestic institutions of the heathen was a
matter of no little delicacy and difficulty. The mastery
of Paul is shown in the laying down of principles, in
accordance with the gospel of Christ, that were effective
not only for the Corinthian church but which are applicable
to-day to all such church difficulties and the conduct
of Chri