Acts 18. 1-17: Mission like Jesus

 Acts 18. 1-17: Mission like Jesus

Here's a wee puzzle.  Why would Paul only spend a few weeks in Athens (remember – the “Edinburgh” of ancient Greece? A city of education, culture, refinement.  A city with the reputation for being the smartest university in the Roman world) and spend over a year and a half in  vulgar, promiscuous, brassy, commercial Corinth?  Even the Jews in Athens hadn't given Paul much bother.  

The Place.
For a start, Corinth was the capital of the Roman province of Achaia (Southern Greece).  It was a port,  with a suburb called Lechaeum facing west towards Rome, and 5 miles away the East-facing harbour of Cenchrea.  And there was a paved road between the two harbours allowing cargo –  and sometimes whole ships – to be pulled from one side to the other avoiding the stormy southern tip of Greece.  Quite a place.  So it was a strategic place for mission.  A lively, healthy Christian community in Corinth could be a hub for sending the gospel all the way to Rome.  People were always passing through; as they did so, they could hear about Jesus.

And Corinth was a place of challenge. It was "Sin City" As a port, with a constantly moving population, lots of people without roots there, lots of money to be made, and spent, Corinth developed a reputation for wild, drunken, promiscuous lifestyle.  In fact the Greeks (who were not famed for being quiet, sober, clean-living types) had a word for being particularity debauched: Korinthiazein “to behave like a Corinthian”...  When he went to Corinth and settled there, Paul was being like Jesus, who was known as “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Lk 7. 34) and who welcomed,  and received the kisses and perfume of a weeping prostitute (Lk 7. 36-39).  Being grace-bearers, out of our comfort zone, among the last, the lost and the least, is the Jesus way to approach mission.

And it seems as if the people Paul connected with at Corinth were the poorer, weaker, less able ones. In fact Paul wrote later to the Corinthians, “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.”  (1 Cor 1. 26f)...  Corinth was a place of Simplicity.  Paul wrote more letters to Corinth than to any other church: four letters in all.  They got in such a  mess about sex, about Communion, about food laws, about taking each other to court, about who was the best preacher, about the gifts of the Spirit.   Their great tendency to get things wrong was the down-side of their simplicity.  The more positive side was that they were able to have a very simple faith.  So Paul had come to them, not with clever words but, like Jesus, “with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Cor 2. 4)

The People
At Corinth, Paul made two new, special friends: Priscilla and Aquila, fellow Jews and tent-makers, and probably already believers when they met Paul (although I like the idea of Paul sharing life with them before they trusted Jesus for themselves!).  They were refugees from Rome, where Claudius had ejected the Jews recently – incidentally, because of a disturbance among the Roman Jews about Christianity.  These comparatively new, previously unknown Christians, then, were Paul's team, his support group in the earliest days in Corinth. Together they worked at their trade, kept open home, talked about Jesus.  It is the natural thing to share resources, spend time and learn together with brothers and sisters. Paul received from them and imparted something to them. They eventually moved on with Paul when he left town: could it be that they caught the “mission bug” from Paul?

Then, when Silas and Timothy arrived, bringing gifts from the Macedonian Churches (2 Cor 11. 9; Phil 4. 15), Paul was able to give up making tents and focus all his energy on preaching the Gospel.  Last week we had BMS Sunday; and this week we have had news from Andrew and Maria.  I was really challenged by what we heard last Sunday: God is doing amazing things through the BMS worldwide; we have mission partners who are wonderful men and women of faith. They are our brothers and sisters, our family – as are those who trust in Jesus and work with them in Tunisia, or Iraq.  Supporting “overseas mission” is not about giving money to some “organisation” that does stuff on our behalf.  It is a people thing.  It telescopes our life as a Church, out in our case into the Arab world,,, and blessings come back to us as a result.  Let's engage with the people who are out there.  They are part of us.

This “people” thing is fundamentally, inseparably part of what it means to be church.  Church was never intended to be a “religious organisation”.  The Church is people.  It is humanity, in shared relationship to god.  From that “Sonship” we become “family” with each other. As “Family” we share our lives, share our resources, with each other, support each other, build each other up.
 
The pain
The Jews:  it seemed like “same old same old...”  it had happened before in Thessalonica and Berea.   Only in Corinth there seems to be a particularly nasty edge: “became abusive” is literally “Blasphemed” .  Now it could be that there were many Jews in Corinth who had already been part of the trouble in Rome: like the terrorism in Syria, these things have a habit of spreading. It may be there was a certain fear in response to growing anti-Semitism of the Empire. To i9llustrate that, about fifteen years later, Nero came to power, and decided to build a canal across the Corinthian isthmus – using 6000 Jewish slaves.) There may have been resentment as many Jews were turning to Jesus.  Whatever sharpened the opposition in Corinth, it was painful, and Paul (again like Jesus) “shook out his clothes” as he left the synagogue, to preach to the gentiles.  But Paul did not do this lightly. He knew that he, too, had been a blasphemer (1 Timothy 1:13).  It's kind of too easy to say “these people are hard... we've tried and failed to give them the Gospel; so lee’s give up trying.”    So Paul left the Synagogue, but the Jews continued to cause trouble, trying to bring the Christians to court.  There is pain in “trying and failing”; there is pain in seeing someone make the same mistakes you have made; there is pain in being misunderstood and misrepresented. 

The possibilities...  
It isn't all bad.  When Paul moved his meetings to Titius Justus' house, the synagogue rules, Crispus, comes along with all his family and and trusted in Jesus.  God is at work!  God is on the case!

Now Paul admitted that when he came to Corinth he was “in great fear and trembling” (1 Cor 2. 3).  He needed all the encouragement he could get.  So God encouraged him: Paul saw a vision of Jesus, who promised protection and success: “I have many people in this city” implies “they are not yet believers but I am on their case!”  The Jesus Way is fundamentally about immediacy, about relationship.  As well as being about walking with each other, it is about walking with God.  It is about a God who speaks; it is about a God who sends his Spirit; it is about a God who intervenes, who is always present.   That doesn't mean we have a God who will always give us an easy time.  When he speaks, he challenges and stirs; when he moves, he calls us to move, too; to be active as His people.  He looks on us with love, but he is looking for fruit!  However,  he is at work; he sends his Spirit; he speaks.  He has many people in this garden City – they are not yet believers; but he is on the case!

And at the end of the story, after the Jews have tried to get Paul arrested, and Governor Gallio has sent them packing, the new synagogue leader, Sosthenes, got beaten up.  It's difficult to tell who did this: it may have been an anti-Semitic attack; more likely the synagogue turned on him for not persuading Gallio to arrest Paul.  Was Sosthenes at variance with the majority in the synagogue because he thinking about becoming a Christian?  I don’t know.  But in 1 Cor 1.1 Paul mentions his “brother Sosthenes” and  Sosthenes is not a common Greek name; it's almost certain this same Sosthenes who was leader of the Synagogue, also trusted in Jesus.  So in the midst of confusion and pain, God's Spirit is at work.  God is on the case!

So, at Corinth, Paul's mission was strategic, people-centred, generous, compassionate, courageous, supernatural. Very much like Jesus!  We finish, as we  started, with a question.  “In our mission, who are we like?”

© Gilmour Lilly July  2014