The Gospel in Vanity Fair, Part 1
Acts 18:1-8
Acts chapter 18, and this morning, we're going to begin our study and consider what really is one total message through verse 18. But we'll just go through verse 8 this morning. Paul gave some great advice to the Thessalonians. And he wrote to the Thessalonians through the City of Corinth. In fact, he wrote this advice right while he was experiencing right what we're going to study this morning. And this is what he said, "Let ye brethren be not weary in well doing."
As he wrote that to the Thessalonians from Corinth, he was really writing out of his own experience. Because as he arrived in the City of Corinth, he was weary. And I don't suppose there's anybody at our service that doesn't get to that place. I don't suppose there's any Christian who could say, "I've never been discouraged," or "I've never been disheartened." We've all been there, and maybe we've all been weary in well doing.
But God is in the business of encouragement, and we're going to see in verses 1 through 18 how God encourages a weary servant. And at the same time, preaches the Gospel in Vanity Fair, which is just a term to describe the City of Corinth.
Now, Paul, when he arrived in Corinth, had really had it. He'd been chased halfway around the world. He started out in Antioch of Syria on a simple missionary journey with Silas; confirmed some churches in the area over here; Syria, and went through Galatia, confirmed the saints there, took off, continued west and pursued the courses. He was driven by the Holy Spirit. He finally crossed over from Troas and entered into Philippi, and there he preached, and there he was hassled. And there he was chased out of town.
And he arrived in Thessalonica, and there he was persecuted terribly; had to run for his life. And he got to Beria, and no sooner had he established the church there, than the Thessalonians arrived to chase him again. And he finally found himself all alone in the City of Athens, and he was weary there.
And the Gospel presented that Athens was clear and there wasn't any persecution. But there really wasn't any reception to speak of. It was minimal. And so he didn't stay long in Athens, and he packed up and he left Athens. And he comes in again. He's alone, and he arrives in the City of Corinth. And he's discouraged and he's despondent. And he's weak, and he may have even been physically ill.
And it's at that point that God moves in to encourage him. And it is from the Corinthian experience; he write to the Thessalonians and says, "Brethren, be not weary in well doing." And he says, "But ye brethren," indicating that maybe they couldn't actually follow his example in that case where he had been weary.
Now, when we saw him in Athens last time, in chapter 17, we saw him in the intellectual city. We saw him in a city that is the university type city. A city of culture. A city of information, of learning, of astuteness. And he's gone from Athens to Corinth. And if Athens is the city of learning, Corinth is sin city. At best, we could probably name it that. It was the most debouched and debased city in that world of that day. In fact, the actual name Corinth became a common term. And "Corinthian" meant immoral.
If you said, "Joe over there is a Corinthian kind of guy, you meant he was immoral." The name became synonymous with vice. To say that that woman is a Corinthian woman meant she was a prostitute, because that's what the women did in Corinth. And the verb, to Corinthianize, meant to go a-whoring. That's exactly what the common use of Corinthianize was.
Now, Corinth was vial to the very core. It wasn't just the slaves or the middle class; it was the upper crust. The whole city was debased, and there were some reasons for that. It was the center of trade and travel, and sailors were going through it all the time, and caravans. And it was a fitting place for entertainment of lust.
The position of Corinth, which I just want to simply illustrate for you in a very brief way, is very interesting and put it in a position to be involved in many interesting things. This entire area in the gray or black represents the area of Greece. This is the northern part of Greece. This is the southern part of Greece.
Now, you'll notice that the two parts are connected by a simple little strait there, and that's only five miles wide, and it was precisely the center of that the City of Corinth existed some 50 miles from Athens. Now, Paul, all alone, finds himself in Corinth Now notice anybody at all from northern Greece to southern Greece, or vice versa, any north-south traffic, had to go through Corinth.
So the trade was constantly trafficking through City of Corinth. Another interesting thing is that it was called The Bridge of Greece, not only because of its north-south traffic, but because of its east-west traffic. Ships wanting to go, say, from the western shore of Greece to the eastern shore would not sail clear around. They would shortcut it through here.
In fact, this was known as the Cape of Malaya, and it was sort of like sailing around the Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. It was a very treacherous journey. The Greeks used to say, "Any man who sails around the Cape might well write his will before he leaves." Very treacherous, and in the _____ all kinds of vessels they had in those days, man didn't even want to attempt it.
It was also a 200-mile shortcut to go this way. You say, "Well, what did they do when they got to land?" Well, very often, they would unload their entire cargo. They would carry it across on the backs of slaves, or pull it in some kind of apparatus, and they would lower it onto a different ship here. So the ships would just run half circuits going both ways.
In fact, it was such an advantage to go across there that many ships were placed on rollers, and the whole ship was rolled five miles across the land, and dumped back in the water to continue the journey east, or vice versa, to the west.
Now, this area here, was a very important gulf, the Suranic Gulf, and this is the Corinthian Gulf. And there were two very important cities; Sencria and Lakeum on the shore. And from those cities, everything went to Corinth. So Corinth held a very strategic location. You might say to yourself, "Why didn't somebody build a canal?" Well, Julius Caesar had the idea, and Nero started it, and it was finished in 1893. So it took a while, but there's one there now.
Now, the result of this particular location was the fact that there was a tremendous amount of traffic there. And as I said, it became a place where all kinds of activities went on, mostly to entertain the traffic, and so it lent itself greatly to the kind of immorality that became common and synonymous with its name.
Now, Corinth was also a familiar city to many because of the fact that it had what was called the Isthmian Games, which were second only to the Olympics. So it was a center of sports. The people in Corinth were characterized all around the world as vial people.
You know, the Greeks used to love stage plays. They used to put on all kinds of plays, morality plays, and all kinds of things, Greek tragedies, the whole thing. And whenever a Corinthian was in a play, he was always depicted drunk just because of the character of Corinth. If you were from Corinth, you were drunk and immoral.
Now, in the City of Corinth, there was a giant hill that dominated like a bog fortress, and it was a pretty impregnable hill. It is called the Acropolis, and some of you may have heard of it. But the Acropolis was more than just a fortress, it was more than just a hill. It was a temple. And on the top of the Acropolis was built a massive temple to the goddess Aphrodite, who was sort of the goddess of sexual activity.
Now ministering, and I use the word loosely, in Aphrodite's temple, were a thousand priestesses, and their particular ministry was the ministry of prostitution. And so every evening, these thousand priestesses descended from the Acropolis, and infiltrated the City of Corinth and plied their trade. And so it was a wide-open carnival atmosphere. The whole city was nothing but a great big hustling territory for professional prostitutes.
Now, if you think Paul had a rough time in a city of intellectuals, you can imagine the change when he got into this place. If Athens glorified the mind, Corinth glorified the body. And its an exciting thing to see a man who is not only courageous, but who is adaptable, and who can meet anything on its own ground and come out on top.
Now, Corinth was important politically. Corinth was really the county seat, although you might all it the provincial capital. It was to Greece what Washington D.C. is to America in a sense. It was a provincial capital, which meant that the proconsul of Rome stayed there, and the headquarters were there.
It has been said by some writers that Corinth was the vanity fair of the Roman Empire. It was at one the worst of ferris and the worst of London put together. That was Corinth. And so we say that when Paul went to Corinth, it was the Gospel in Vanity Fair.
Now when wanting to describe somebody, if you really wanted to degrade somebody; if you were really upset with somebody and you wanted to really let them have the lowest blow you could possibly give, you would say, "Oh, that individual lives like a Corinthian." And that was absolute desecration to speak like that.
Now, if you'd like a description of how the Corinthians lived, there are many found. You can read 1 and 2 Corinthians, and you can find how the crud of Corinth seeped into the church. You know, just to show you how bad the city was, the church had certain members, certain Christian members, who were celebrating the fact that they were having sex relations with their parents.
Now, when the church gets that in it, you can imagine what must be going on in the world around the church. William Ramsey said that characteristically, churches take on the characteristics of the environment in which they exist culturally. And he's right to a great extent. And the Corinthian church really had a tough time ______ up the holes to keep the garbage of the city from leaking in.
And Paul had to write two letters to straighten them out. And over and over again telling them shape up and purify themselves, and cleanse themselves, and you shouldn't act like that because you're washed and you're clean. Cut that out and so forth. And here comes the Apostle Paul, and he's going to come there and God is going to choose out some believers. And if I can give a vivid metaphor, it would be like looking for jewels in a cesspool. That's vivid, right? And that's exactly what evangelism in Corinth was like. And Paul had to go there and try to find these individuals.
Now, look at verse 10 as an interesting little footnote. The end of verse 1- says, and the Lord speaks to Paul, "I have many people in this city. I have many jewels hidden in this cesspool, and Paul, you're my man to pull them out." Now this was God's elect. These were sovereignly chosen ones, and they were in that city, and they were not yet saved, but they were about to be as Paul came with the Gospel.
They were prepared hearts, seeking hearts, ready hearts, in the midst of that cesspool of Corinth, and Paul was going to reach them with the Gospel. And it's exciting to realize that God cannot always do a lot with intellectuals, but boy he can always do a lot with rotten sinners. Paul didn't stay long in Athens, but he stayed long in Corinth, and Corinth became almost a base of operation for the Gospel.
You know, it was from the City of Corinth that he wrote 1 Thessalonians, that he wrote 2 Thessalonians, that he wrote Romans. And it was back to the Christians at Corinth that he wrote 1 and 2 Corinthians. So the Church in Corinth became a very important base of operations for New Testament, first century Christianity.
Now, when Paul arrived there, he was really discouraged. And as I said at the very beginning, he was at the point where he was weary. I mean let's face it: You get chased halfway around the world and hated by everybody, and hassled by everybody, and frustrated. And you arrive at the next city, and it looks like the worst thing you've ever seen yet? That could get a little old. And he was discouraged.
You know, God is god of encouragement. I'm not going to take the time to take you through the Psalms and show you all the places where the Psalms reflect on God as a god of encouragement; how many times you can study, even in the new testament, where Jesus said, "Be of good cheer." Or where you think in John 16:33 Jesus said, "In this world, you shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world." God has always, throughout all of Revelation, been concerned with the encouragement of his own.
Now, if you believe Philippians 4 is true: My God shall supply what? All your needs. And if a believer needs to be encouraged, what will God do? He'll encourage them. I don't think there's ever been a time when I can say I've lived a whole long period of time without being discouraged. I get discouraged all the time. Discouragement is just a part of life because you have hopes and dreams and desires for people's lives, and they don't come off. Or maybe you spend yourself, and there's an ungrateful heart or a criticism that's unjust, which attempts to impugn your motives whatever. Or maybe you're discouraged with your lot in life,