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had a small crowd tonight but that's hopefully all other folks will join us father we do thank you for this evening for the cooler weather for your word and we pray that you would bless
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your word to our minds and our hearts tonight as we look at the church at Corinth we pray that you would give us a greater understanding of the situation there and
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the words that Paul used in rebuking and guiding exhorting and admonishing that church
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and we pray that we might see reflected in Paul's letters to the Corinthians that Corinthians that the truths that apply 20 centuries later
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in our own day we ask that you would guide our thoughts and our conversation that it might be edifying and that it might be pleasing in your sight
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so tonight we're going to be looking at a little case study been talking about the age in which we live and we're going to start moving into applying much of what Paul writes
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to the church in the world today and Corinth actually presents a remarkable a remarkable parallel to our to our own time
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and I want to talk some about Corinth Corinth is an ancient Greek city I had written up on the board it was caught between a rock and a hard place
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it was pretty much halfway between Athens and Sparta
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two ancient Greek city-states that spent most of the time at each other's throats other's throats when they weren't combined to fight the Persians but even when they were combined they tended to fight different
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areas Athens on the sea Sparta of course the great 300 at Thermopylae they were more of a land Force but totally different cultures Athens much more
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Mercantile and Cosmopolitan Sparta much more urban feudal Spar or Athens was a republic Sparta was a dual monarchy
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Athens prided itself on its Friedman Sparta held most of that territory under bondage to the the Spartan families so
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totally different and Corinth is in between and so Corinth uh from very early on is a is a highly politicized environment because of these two major Greek
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city-states it's so much so that they instigated Wars between Athens and Sparta they changed sides depending on who seemed to be winning eventually they
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cause so much trouble that in 146 BC after the Romans had already come in and cleaned up everything on in in the that Peninsula
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so we have just a brief history in 146 BC the City was destroyed by the Roman Council
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mainly because it was filled with troublemakers and they were tired of it so 146 Corinth
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destroyed by the Romans but in 44 BC it was rebuilt on the command of Julius
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Caesar and it was rebuilt to be a city for retired legionaries but also Friedman former slaves who had either purchased or had been granted their freedom Rome
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was getting quite crowded by that time and Friedman often caused trouble because they they would demand their rights but they were still
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remembered to have been slaves so there was a lot of social friction so Julius Caesar rebuilds the city
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because he wanted a colony in a highly traveled commercial region and so he was looking for uh he was looking for a place to tax
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so you would send your freedmen and your and your retired legionaries and of course the Greek citizens who were still around there and then of course you would tax them and that would bring Revenue back into Rome and it worked
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marvelously one of the few times that it did um it was a center of Commerce because of its location there is uh it's called the Isthmus of
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Corinth but it connects the main body of Greece as we know it to the lower part that's called the peloponnese but that's where Sparta was Athens was up on the
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North side of this Isthmus and Sparta was down in that in that little almost looks like an island off the South a large island but it is connected by this little strip of land
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and there was a a very navigable sea on both sides a sea that was calm year round sheltered
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from the winter much safer than the Mediterranean and so that's where the ships would go they would go in from the West they would Harbor on the western side
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which is where Corinth is and then their goods would be transported along the road just a few miles to the Eastern side where they would be
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re-embarked and go off to the Middle East or the other way around so it became a major thoroughfare for ancient
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how do you spell thoroughfare not that way but way but is it o-u-g-h whatever Rome and the near East
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again it was just safer because if you look at that whole territory you see that all of Greece turkey and all the way up into the
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Dardanelles is littered with Islands okay we read in acts when when of course when Paul was Shipwrecked their ship was broken up against it's very treacherous
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water because there are islands but then there are also reefs or islands that are not visible so going through Corinth was a much safer uh way of travel and so
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they they got incredibly wealthy the uh first century BC geographer actually A.D excuse me um strebow who we looked at on an
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earlier session because he gives a very interesting account of Tarsus which gives us an interesting background on Saul's Hometown and his upbringing
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but he says this Corinth is called wealthy because of its Commerce since it is situated on the ithmus and it's is master of Two Harbors of which one leads straight to Asia and
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the other to Italy and it makes the easy the exchange of merchandise from both countries that are so far distant from each other so it's kind of right in the middle between Rome and and Jerusalem for
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example or Rome and Egypt and so the ships that would bring grain from Egypt to Italy would go this way okay they would often go up this way especially in the winter when the waters in the
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Mediterranean even more treacherous also um from all of this
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Corinth was the host of the second most famous of the ancient games and the reason nobody knows about it now is because the the first most famous have been revived I think the beginning
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of the 20th or late 19th century the Olympics but second to the Olympics on the on the Greek calendar were the isthmian games isthmian games and Corinth was the host City for for
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these games and so it was very very well known in the in the ancient Greek world and then in the Roman world but all of this comes together because of its place as a harbor Center
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of Commerce a Greek city destroyed and rebuilt by Romans the culture in Corinth was extremely
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pluralistic so here's where the similarity comes in between or starts to come in that
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um heterogeneous of the ancient cities Jerusalem of course would have been predominantly Jewish predominantly Jewish Antioch would have been predominantly
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Syrian Rome of course was predominantly Roman or Italian or Italian although there would certainly be other provincials there but Corinth because of its unique location and its history was
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the most pluralistic of the first century Mediterranean world
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it also obviously is the one that causes Paul the most trouble when you read Paul's letters to the Corinthians you you wonder what were these people doing um far far worse in their behavior than
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any other letter indicates as far as the churches that Paul wrote In fact an ancient Greek historian coined the the
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pardon me creating no it didn't stick around as long as gretton did or the cretan but to act like a Corinthian meant sexual promiscuity
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so that that was the implication was um sexual immorality
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it was a very libertarian City a very promiscuous and um you know it's it's fame or infamy was renowned among the ancient writers ancient writers and so Paul plants the church or the
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Holy Spirit through Paul plants a church in Corinth in Corinth and and and and um shortly thereafter the city is in trouble
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Corinthians are among the earlier or mid-range letters of Paul's Corpus so it wasn't long wasn't long after his having been there and he spent
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I think 18 months Luke tells us in Corinth but in spite of that he hears from Chloe's people
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that there are factions among the Corinthians and so you know one of the things that we do as reading the Bible and of course
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in our commentaries is try to figure out what what was the problem to which Paul is addressing in in his letters to the Colossians or to the
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Galatians some are easier than others like the Galatians it's fairly simple to understand that there were
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Christians who were trying to get the galatian Gentile believers Gentile believers to not only be circumcised but to bring themselves under the law the laws of the
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Mosaic code that's fairly evident Romans we've talked about on Sunday mornings that that wasn't a church that Paul had founded and he's not really addressing
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any major doctrinal or interpersonal problems in Rome he's really setting him is more of an introductory resume setting up for his own visit to Rome
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hopefully on on his path to Spain eventually that's what he says um Ephesians Philippians everybody seems fine in Philippians but Corinthians
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but Corinthians there's division faction and you begin the the letter in chapter one and then chapter three
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so if we talk about the problem the problem is factionalism or schism or schism and that's the word he actually uses in
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the Greek schismos um phrase that is apparently just simply
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copying what the Corinthians were then saying is I am of Paul
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and another says I am of cephas or Peter and another says I am of
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now for a long time when I when I looked at that you know it seems that what we're dealing with here is that everybody has their favorite preacher the problem with that view is that these three men were not in Corinth
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they did not reside in Corinth for for a very long time we have no evidence for example that Peter spent a great deal of time in Corinth or that Apollos was actually in Corinth for any length of
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time and Paul certainly wasn't when he was writing the letters you have your favorite California or whatever yeah
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yeah it it well actually it I maybe one of the reasons that I interpreted it this way is because over the years having a plurality of
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Elders sharing the pulpit our particular congregation exposes itself to that kind of factionalism and it has happened people would come
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when one Elder was preaching and then stop coming when another Elder was preaching and you know you could at least turn to Corinthians and say that that's not right
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even though that's not that was not the issue in Corinth when they were saying I am of Paul well Paul wasn't even there anymore and his letters made clear I'm not there
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okay and I'm not sure when I'm going to be back be back um again we have no external evidence at least no biblical or external evidence that Peter spent a great deal of time
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I'm not sure we have any evidence that Peter was ever in Corinth but what Peter was was the head apostle
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he was the the first among equals among the original Apostles and that reputation spread reputation spread with the other Jewish Believers as they would go around the Mediterranean World
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they would they would be they would be from Peter just as we read in Galatians that some came down from Antioch from James you know they were coming from
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James um Apollos we know what we know about him is that he was eloquent he was a powerful speaker and he was in Corinth because I think
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that's where that's where Corinth is where Priscilla and Aquila take him aside and show him the the gospel more perfectly I'm pretty sure that was in Corinth that that took place
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so we we have obviously Paul was in Corinth it appears Apollos was in Corinth but we have no evidence in from either of the letters or anything else in Acts or otherwise than any of these
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three men were in Corinth for any length of time of time in other words these men were not leading the factions they were not the head of these divisions in Corinth
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these factions were raised in the names of these three men but these three men now first of all we can't say these three men were in any
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way responsible way responsible for the factions that were being raised in their name and secondly we cannot imagine that any of the three men would have approved of it
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okay so on the face of it it might look like these three men are set at odds but Paul is very quick to say that he in Apollos and by extension cephas are fellow workers servants on behalf of the
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Believers at Corinth gardeners and workers in the in the field and in the building of God okay so Paul does not set any animosity between these three
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names simply says that who is who is Apollos who is Paul you know I'm glad I did not baptize any of you because you might say I was baptized into Paul so he he absolutely
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diminishes any diminishes any type of of division up in the apostolic ranks what's happening is is something that's
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far more cultural and and endemic to Corinth but probably also especially in other Roman cities than uh then then maybe the Greek and
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certainly the Jewish cities and that is that the factions were arising
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in a parallel social situation with that which prevailed in Corinth as a Roman Colony but also in Rome and in Philippi and this is the system of
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patronage and even the terminology that that Paul uses as he's quoting the Corinthians it was the terminology of the client Patron relationship
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Patron relationship that we know very much about because that was the way men made it up the course of of honor the cursus honoram the latter from ideal to quester to
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well the follow is not even there it's better the way it's what Paul writes it is I am of you know it's not even I follow it's I am of it's D it's closer than I follow
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okay it's my identity is tied with this man okay I'm I'm um I'm a cephasite
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yeah not not quite I I don't think it ever went that's a good point um it never went to the to the sun ship to kinship that was something completely different and you could be adopted into a Roman
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family and be fully legally as if you were born naturally but that was a completely different and very much Limited pool of individuals whereas it was it
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was the goal of every ambitious man to have as many clients as possible to be the patron as many as possible and that had a lot to do with the way things were
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voted because in the in the lower classes their votes only counted in groups of a hundred so a hundred of them would count for one vote whereas one Patrician was one vote
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so if you wanted to defeat somebody for office you need to have a lot of clients you almost had to count by hundreds
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no there's there's no I mean I haven't looked at the archeology and even the archeology is suspect as to its date you know when we're looking at for example the catacombs we know they're ancient but we don't know what decade so we
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can't say that in the 50s there were X number of number of Christians in Rome um I think we can surmise that they were
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if we read Paul's letters and especially Luke they were enough in these cities to cause social disturbance so for example in Ephesus the golds or
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the coppersmiths are are rising up against them because they're cutting into their their little market on Athenian or whoever she was um Artemis uh the the trade in in little
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idols and whatnot so they're they're they're enough to cause a disturbance maybe not yet enough to be a political
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Force yet okay again this is very very early but we know that in Jerusalem on Pentecost 3 000 were added to the church
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so it's it's not Beyond Reason to surmise that the gospel that we were looking at what we might call a true Revival that the gospel was was calling in the
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elect of God and in many of these cities we have every reason to to think from from acts that for the most part the reception was was quite good so we may
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be looking at several thousand okay um or maybe hundreds okay I think it's definitely more than dozens
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you know I think I think we're looking at and and I think what we're dealing with here in Corinth is um a social situation within the
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community that was beginning to mirror the social hierarchy of the unbelieving community okay so when we look at these factions
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one thing that we we need to um to understand that these factions were not
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for the most part the letters first and second Corinthians um as far as we can tell might actually be second and fourth Corinthians because of obviously there's a letter he
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he speaks in each of the letter of former Communications that the in second Corinthians does not seem to be First Corinthians so we can imply or infer a First Corinthians and a third Corinthian
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that we don't have but this was a church that he spent a long time with but what's interesting about these two letters is there's a relatively small amount of actual doctrinal
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discussion polemic about the only thing that really jumps out is his Treatise on the resurrection the resurrection in chapter 15 of First Corinthians so
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you might say other than and this is not to diminish the resurrection in fact Paul makes it very clear that
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you can't diminish the importance I mean you can but you you must not diminish the importance of the Resurrection other than that there's no real Treatise on justification uh on on Grace on the
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law the things that you read in Romans and in Galatians you just don't see in Corinthians so Corinthians so these factions that are claiming Paul and Peter and Apollos as their heads or
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the better word I think would be Patron are not aligning into a Pauline versus a petrine theology
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petrine theology there's no evidence of any disagreement of soteriology or ecclesiology or really in the books in the letters
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so when we look at these factions we you know we think okay um one but but who would be the false teacher among them you know the the fact that the names all
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three names are names of honorable men where there's no biblical reason to suspect the doctrine of any of the three
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so we have to go down a different path in trying to understand the the situation in life of Corinth and thereby better understand what Paul is writing to the Corinthians to some extent we have to rebuild the
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history of that era Now understand that that's got to always be provisional just like any history but more and more there is Extant
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extra Biblical history I mean this was the midst of the Roman Empire you know Augustus had come and it's come and gone and now the the glory of the Roman Empire is is reaching its apex
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and so there's there's a lot of documentation to be able to learn what's going on or at least how these people live and maybe not particularly Corinth but knowing that Corinth was
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specifically a Roman Colony a Roman City it is not a stretch to read about the system of patronage in
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Rome and realize that that's the same social in all of the different Roman cities throughout the Roman Empire including
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London anywhere Spain Gaul the Danube anywhere Philippi these would have been patronage based social structures and
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the phrase I am of is the same phrase that would be used for example during Cicero's life where he was going up the curses honoram
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and what's interesting about Cicero is that he was called a new man because he was not a patrician he could not Trace his Heritage through
27:33
either parent back to the founding families of Rome as far as we can tell his family grew chickpeas which is what kikaro is a
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chickpea I imagine that was really good in his political campaigns to have a name chickpea okay and it's like hand handed to your opponents just give it
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rap he went by garbanzo yes yeah they just shortened that the Bonzo um but he made it all the way to the top he became Consul in fact wasn't he canceled twice
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canceled twice I know at least once but I thought maybe um chose the wrong side in the last Civil War and was put to death by Octavian but yeah whatever he met he had a good run
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while he made it and he factors in here because um because of how he made it and that ties in very much with uh with what we
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read in Paul's letter to the Corinthians um the quote the quote why do I have it on 139
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okay yeah Gordon fee in his commentary on Corinthians First Corinthians he spent some time in the beginning as most commentaries do trying to give the physical and historical background to
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the city itself and he writes although they were Christian the Christian church in Corinth in Corinth he says an inordinate amount of Corinth was yet in them emerging in a number of attitudes and
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behaviors that required radical surgery without killing the patient this is what First Corinthians attempts to do
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okay um so you have you have a lot of problems fee doesn't I don't think he actually picks up and goes into the depth of what the problems are of course we have the problems of
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sin in chapter 5 of First Corinthians but what is remarkable in most of Paul's letters when he encounters specific
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sins his approach to it while dealing with the problem the problem his approach to it is is actually more rhetorical and you read the phrase in Romans and
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Corinthians and Galatians do you not know a phrase that implies you do know you do know that what you're doing
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or what you're being taught by these other judaizers or or whatever you do know that that is not in accordance Romans 6 we've been looking at that in
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the Sunday morning and do you not know that all who are baptized into death in Christ are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized into his death do you not know
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well he says the same thing here do you not know not know that you are the Temple of the Living God okay so do you not know when you read
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that in Paul's letters that's very significant because it is it's rhetorical he's not giving him a quiz
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them they should know because if they're believers they have the Holy Spirit so whenever you read that phrase do you not know
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I guess the first thing to do is to ask yourself the question do I not know because what he's about to do is give you a truth that you ought to already know
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okay and that knowledge should already should already have convicted you that either your behavior
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or the teaching that you're hearing is false to your identity and and it is fairly remarkable that
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even in Corinth again going back to that that word Uh current diazzo you might expect more of chapter five
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and that sordid situation but in fact that's the only mention of that type of behavior in both letters
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it's almost remarkable and yet both letters are fully recognizable as a church that's got a lot of problems so the problems aren't doctrinal
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and the problems don't appear to be moral I guess that's my point that there isn't a great deal of moral admonition
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moral admonition Now by that of course I I mean moral everything in obedience to God everything is moral but I mean there doesn't appear to be Behavior that is recognizably as Paul says in
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First Corinthians 5 not even the Gentiles do this and you might think that eating food sacrifice to Idols is moral but actually the way Paul treats that is
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very even-handed isn't it his primary concern is that you not cause your brother to stumble he's not terribly concerned with this
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concept of meat sacrifice to Idols except in as much as it might cause a weaker brother same with Romans 14. so his concern is more with the harmony
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and the unity of the body than it is the particular activity of which he is speaking so only really we'll see in First Corinthians 6 he gets
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really hot under the collar about the lawsuits but that actually plays very much into this analysis of Corinth the lawsuits
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who took whom to law in Rome could anybody just take anybody to the Law Court could a Slave
33:38
chapter one he reminds us that most of the Corinthian congregation Corinthian congregation were of the lower classes there's not many among you Noble right not not many among you wise
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or of noble birth in fact most of them were probably slaves or freedmen but of the lower classes so when brother is taking brother to
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court these are the faction leaders these are the men who would be able to take one another to court
34:13
and in fact if you if you read a good biography on Cicero you realize that in the Roman system the Law Court was the way of advancement
34:27
because the Law Court was the Forum to practice your oratory the law courts were done outside and in public they were the public
34:39
entertainment the Law Courts had to do with a particular case but only tangentially what they often had to do with is this order versus that orator
34:50
vying for the next election okay kind of like the Lincoln Douglas debates yeah there was there was an issue at hand but what were these two men doing they were vying for the senate seat from
35:02
Illinois in 1858. there was a political reason they weren't just oh this is a major issue let's travel around the state and talk about it no they were both running for office and that's what
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Cicero was he was he learned rhetoric he was very very good and he gained his renown by representing clients
35:25
businessmen or Friedman or you know somebody who had been wronged and he would take their case but what he was primarily doing was making a name for
35:37
himself through his oratory obviously if he won that'd be great he didn't have to win as long as you scored points you know as as long as you got the better of your opponent in terms of your
35:49
rhetoric you won even if your client lost right not that that happens anymore um so the idea even even behind chapter six
35:59
we tend to read that in light of the 21st century United States When anybody can sue anybody right but that's not the way it was in the
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first century first century so you realize that there are certain people within the Corinthian community of believers who were taking one another to court not every believer
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and then if you look at the bigger picture the the court cases were basically the IMO versus the I am of I am of a versus I am of B
36:32
now in Roman society this often led to violence and even bloodshed in terms of the gangs fighting one another in the name of their Patron
36:44
their Patron Cicero would have a bodyguard a detail that would actually surround him as he left his home and went down to the Forum the Forum for fear of being accosted and injured
36:55
by the next the other opponents group and there were violence and there were deaths in this system we don't know that anything like that happened in the Corinthian believing Community
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but I don't know that it would have been far from Paul's imagination to consider that what they were doing was already a form of murder
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like a pastor or someone like Paul wouldn't even stick with them or us even calling them Christians yes and I want to touch upon that it's difficult for us to imagine a church like Corinth in
37:38
today's world and and just to give away a bit of the punch line one of the reasons for that is we just become different churches now the I am of's are now individual pastors
37:49
who are the head of individual congregations but I remember years ago Mark you might remember this um article about a Church in Spartanburg in Spartanburg that was having a relatively violent
38:01
disagreement about some policy and the article was somewhat humorous because it talked about the previous Sunday the Deacon seized the offering you just kind of picture
38:11
well what did that mean okay but they were they were actually some some altercations in the church over some disagreement but the reality in the modern West in
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evangelicalism is if we have a disagreement we're not I am of this or I am of that we are I am out the door and I am a new denomination or I am a
38:33
new church new church so the Iams are not in the same Community anymore but they still exist okay and I think that's where the application of Corinthians is still very
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current because the spirit that that was behind the factionalism is still within evangelicalism today
38:55
evangelicalism today it's the spirit of political advancement or political agenda and the terminology that Paul uses is is remarkably political I'm going to just
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look at a few of the words um well just just to go you know make sure we we understand what we're does anybody have any questions about the patronage system
39:31
no I why didn't they just split off I think because they they probably were not numerous enough first of all um even within the factionalism
39:42
there was still a greater Security in numbers because they were by this time as Gentiles they would have been considered prohibited as a secret society which was
39:54
illegal under the Roman laws so um you know we're not we we were talking about how many were
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there um there there probably weren't tens of thousands of Christians in Corinth that this yet at this point um now
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um now the Christianity was illegal because it was it was growing to that point as it became more and more Gentile it could no longer hide under the legality of the Jewish religion which it had up for the
40:27
first decades because Judaism was legal and Judaism had multiple different sects the essenes the qumran community the Pharisees the sagacy sex that the Romans neither understood nor care to
40:38
understand either they were Jewish we didn't like them but they're legal but as the church becomes more and more Gentile well they can't hide they you know they can't hide under that umbrella anymore
40:50
and because they did not as we talked about last week they did not apply for permission to be a private cult which would have made them legal as long
41:01
as they didn't take it public they could do whatever they wanted to do to whatever god or goddess they wanted to worship the Romans didn't care as long as you didn't proselytize or
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make any public disturbances well the Christians never did that they never applied for that legality so yes they were they were moving into a realm of of
41:21
illegality with each passing decade another reason why they they would have stayed together rather and even after Constantine they would have stayed together because
41:31
the emperor would have made them stay together first before the emperor they would stay together because there's some safety in numbers and then afterward there was no freedom really even during the period of
41:44
the reformation and up into the 18th century there wasn't much freedom to just say I'm going to be my own thing look at John Bunyan you know you know 60 or 16 years
41:58
yeah because he would not preach from the book of common prayer and so he spent a total of some like 16 years in prison you know yeah right so right so um and and George Whitfield you know he
42:10
he was he was kicked out of the Anglican church so even up into the 17th century 18th century 18th century there wasn't a great deal of freedom to Simply go and form your own church the
42:21
authorities the authorities would prevent that
42:32
States yeah which was the incubator for many libertarian philosophical ideas that were fomenting in France and England but they were too close to the monarchy to
42:44
be able to until the French Revolution and then he just blew everything up but over here this was somewhat of a of a nursery of these ideas the idea of separation of church and state the idea
42:55
of freedom of conscience born or at least germinated in the Reformation but not allowed to develop there yeah you look at the anabaptists you
43:11
yep Geneva was fine as long as you towed the line if you were anabaptist out okay so so so so we live in a in an era where we have the freedom now to do what the Corinthians
43:22
did not have the freedom to do and that was to Simply form our own sect our own church and therefore the I am of is just one person the senior pastor
43:44
Society I think that's the same you would have been closer to what African tribal was tribal was well I
43:55
didn't work yeah and and most of them if if they were in fact mostly of the lower classes even if they had been Friedman they didn't have a great deal of of
44:06
um flexibility um flexibility in terms of where they lived and what they did this person especially if they were slaves so they they couldn't just simply well I'm going to move to Ephesus because I hear they have a good church
44:16
there you know no they couldn't do that so that I think that's one of the important things about understanding and trying to understand history is to realize that you know God
44:27
providentially chose this era for the Advent of his son and also the propagation of his truth we can't take the culture out of the
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message and still pretend to understand the message what we're doing then is we're simply manipulating the word of God to fit our circumstance
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rather than under this is called the historical grammatical method and this is something that that's been around for quite some time but you don't just understand the grammar of the text
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you need to understand the history of it one of the most egregious examples of of letting go of the history happened early in the church within the
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first few centuries and that is divorcing Paul divorcing Paul from his Jewish heritage Luther was was the kind of the for the
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Protestant side he basically saw Paul as rejecting Judaism completely and that became the the standard Paradigm for understanding Paul from
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that time to this time realizing you know just saying he gave up on Judaism Judaism was not working for him he was anxious about his eternal
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Destiny and Judaism gave him no comfort no he was advancing in Judaism beyond all of his compatriots and he was quite proud of that you know so history is is really really
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still very important understanding then that Corinth was a city of patrons we begin to understand better the words that Paul was using now in this case you
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know a good commentary is really very helpful because we may we may recognize for example most of you will recognize
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letters and what does it mean Schism okay so since so many of our words are Greek rooted we can understand the words but we're
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not going to spend the time researching how it was used in the culture so Paul's writing letters to a Greek
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City that is now a rebuilt Roman City he's writing about a social Dynamic that that it that mirrors what we know about Roman culture the patronage system
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and he's using words that had legal and political meaning in that day that day and and good commentaries will bring
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this out and that's why I have the footnotes because you know this is not my knowledge for example a fellow by the name of Larry Welborn who's a professor at Fordham University
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interesting article entitled on the Discord in Corinth First Corinthians 1 through 4 and ancient politics ancient politics he exeges several significant terms that
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Paul uses with regard to the problems within the Corinthian Church words like skisma of course we get the word as I said Schism he writes a schizma is a rift a
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tear as in a garment it is used metaphorically of a cleft in political consciousness so for example when the the first
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triumvirate of Julius Caesar and Pompey and Marcus Crassus broke apart Crassus being killed in in the his attempt to gain military glory to go
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along with his incredible wealth like he wasn't satisfied with just being wealthy um he's killed in battle or not captured and killed I guess he was
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there was a schizma between Caesar and Pompey especially when especially when Caesar's daughter who was pompey's wife which is kind of weird since Pompey was six years older than
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Caesar but you know they were apparently in love she died and so that tie that brought them together was broken see this is the word that
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would be used to indicate a Breaking of political alliances or a tear within the political Consciousness into parties
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in our history would say that we would say there was a Schism between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson within Washington's Administration and in spite of all the protestation of
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our founding fathers that parties were were bad things two parties were formed and have essentially continued in our history our political history that was a
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schizma okay so the words that are that are being used here are really right in the midst of this patronage social structure the imovs but
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again I think again we really need to remind ourselves that the men who were being claimed as patrons almost undoubtedly had nothing to do
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with what was going on in Corinth that the use of their names I think Paul is trying to make clear was a smoke screen
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to say that I am of cephas and therefore I'm justified in causing division within the church body Paul would say no Peter would never agree with anything like
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the way from the first chapter to the 15th and every chapter hits it and what's going on in chapter 11 with the with the feasts some are showing up and getting drunk and eating all the food and others
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okay this is this is the kind of behavior that you would see between different patronage groups again sometimes descending into riots
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so the behavior I think it fits now I do have to say that this is there's a measure of conjecture here you know Paul does not actually use the
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word Patron or pater although he does say later that you you do not have many fathers but I am your father in the Lord
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from the Early Middle Ages and that as the Roman Empire breaks apart this patronage system that all Society was based on based on fell apart too but Saints it could be a Saint Paul St Peter
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that's kind of interesting considering that growing up Catholic you you learned who the patron saint of such and such the miners or
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no I think I think you're right I think it is a it's a major issue within the culture of that day and and then once you've seen and researched and looked into that you I
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think that's a very interesting I'd like to read up on that because that's a very interesting Theory because much of the post-roman world from the 5th Century on 6th Century on was an attempt to somehow
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regain the stability that Rome did provide for much of the Mediterranean world for so many centuries really A Thousand Years Thousand Years um and even within the church the church
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became the chief Patron took taking the place of the Roman magistrates especially the bishop of Rome which would eventually of course lead to the pope and what is that well he's he's
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the pater I mean he's the Holy Father so the idea of the families were very much that way the father had complete control over the destiny of his wife and
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children legally even to the point of life or death although apparently that wasn't exercised all that often it was a very patriarchal society but
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not just within the family within the society itself your your political your ambitious political men would rise race the ladder go up the ladder of office by
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amassing to themselves more and more clients and that seems to be what's going on in Corinth at the very beginning when Paul receives a letter from Chloe's people
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um Wellborn in his article points out that that phrase itself Chloe's people indicates that she was probably the matron of one of the factions okay and that perhaps what she was doing was
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trying to enlist Paul's support toward her faction I don't think she would have ended up satisfied with his answer for I have
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been informed by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you the word quarrels means a hot dispute an emotional flame that ignites whenever
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rivalry becomes intolerable it's a term that's used by Plutarch to describe the emotional condition in Rome when news arrived that Julius Caesar had
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crossed the Rubicon okay which you weren't supposed to do with your Legions that was an act of of civil war that was an act of
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um what's the word overthrowing the government it was a political action and it it threw the city of Rome into complete
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chaos where the supporters of Caesar and his detractors actually went to physical blows the just the emotional environment was
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such um Calvin writes in his commentary he says um I am therefore quite sure that they did not openly detract from the substance of the Gospel in any respect so he's he's
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echoing what we said earlier this is not a doctrinal dispute there there's none of that um I wish they would emasculate themselves it was none of that none of that false gospel that he's dealing with
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in in Galatians but there is as as Calvin says but since they were burning with misguided and passionate desire for prominence I think
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that they devised a new method of teaching that was not consistent with the Simplicity of Christ and they hoped that it would make them the object of people's admiration
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people's admiration okay now that's that leads us to what was the primary instrument of patronage
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famous the one way is the way Julius Caesar took and that is go off and win battles but that's a dangerous way as I mentioned just a few minutes ago
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Crassus tried that route and the reason he did so was because wealth was actually despised and he was a Despicable rich man okay among rich men he was one of the
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most despicable most despicable but he gained no public honor from his wealth and so middle-aged desperate to to
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have a Fame of his own at this point his political career political career is tied to two men whom he basically does not like Julius Caesar and ganias
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Pompeii okay but he knows that without them politically he's nothing he's just a rich man he can always put his man in office but never himself
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so he goes off to war he takes that route and he's killed so it didn't work the other way was rhetoric rhetoric was the way most men took
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for two reasons one there weren't always Wars to fight and two they could stay in Rome now that was a danger that Julius Caesar realized when he went off to Gaul was
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out of sight out of mind which is why we have today the Caesar's Gaelic Wars that all Latin students have to study okay even 2000 years later and the
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reason he wrote them was for propaganda he had an entire delivery system set up of relay Runners and translators and Publishers in Rome so that every time he
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won a battle the next day as it were it's in the news it's up on the all of the all the common squares in Rome celebrating the great Julius Caesar and his victories for the glory of Rome now
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remind that he picked the battle he picked the fight you know that he's he's actually violating laws in fact he's being he's being indicted and prosecuted
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by the Roman senate because he's breaking laws breaking laws they weren't supposed to go out and pick fights with the with the people of the of Europe and that's what he was doing but he was
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keeping his face in his name in front of the people the people Cicero didn't have that kind of ability he was never a military man he was a speaker he was an auditor and
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this would be the case for a long long time centuries Augustine was a rhetorician he made his living by speaking now he by that time it's more teaching than it is legal but in the
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Roman Republic and and the late Republic early Empire early Empire The Forum was the Law Court the Public Law Court uh they didn't go on Stump speeches or or
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um uh you know railroad tours or anything like that they would go out and they would represent somebody and their soaring rhetoric where they would mock their opponents even though they had
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nothing to do with the case that would gain them Renown as Calvin says it would make them the object of people's admiration
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well listen to what I've already talked about First Corinthians 6 and taking one another to court but listen to how Paul begins his letter
