Seeing God in Greece: Corinth
Second of a series

The once powerful and beautiful city of Corinth is now ruins. Partially restored buildings dot the city square where Paul once shared the good news about Jesus. A football field from the square are the ruins of the large fountain that watered the city. On a hill peering over the square are the remnants of a magnificent temple for Apollo. Down the main street is a huge Roman. But there is also a mountain of column pieces and broken blocks scattered wily-nilly across the 40 acres of the excavation.

Today only a small village inhabits the area. In New Testament times, however, Corinth boasted 250,000 free persons, plus 40,000 slaves.

The city's former vitality had everything to do with its location. Corinth rests on a narrow strip of land (about 12.5 miles) between two sea ports. One seaport accesses the Aegean Sea to the east; the other accesses the Ionian Sea to the West. Corinth controlled passage between mainland Greece and the southern Grecian peninsula, the Peloponnese.

Ancient captains insisted that their ships hug the coast whenever they braved the seas. That meant that docking on one side of the Corinthian isthmus, portaging cargoes to the other side, and reloading them on another ship was both faster and safer than sailing around the Peloponnese. That also meant that the Corinth of Paul's day was awash in travelers from all over the Mediterranean.

Cultures clashed, mingled, and homogenized on her streets. Sailors, salesmen, and slave traders bellied up to the bars, worked out business deals, ogled the girls, and found comfort among the more than 1,000 temple prostitutes. Freed from the peer pressure they would have encountered at home, the men passing through Corinth gave this highbrow city a lowbrow reputation.

Herds of adulterers, cheats, and money-worshipers wandered through the streets of Corinth. Other Christian leaders may have been repelled by the stench of sin. Paul saw souls drowning in the septic tank of their own immorality. And because he worked with the gospel's power, Paul envisioned a way to reach and transform people from all over the Mediterranean by staying in this one spot. The world traveled through Corinth and then back home again. At Corinth the Spirit could send the world home with the best news anyone ever heard.

Think of the people who traipse through your life. Not the nice ones. Not the Christian folks who are easy to like and love. Think of the foul-mouthed, the God-haters, the amoral and immoral. The streets of your city, the hallways of your school, the aisles of your malls -- like ancient Corinth -- are the roads on which the Spirit brings into our lives souls who need Jesus.

We can find them repulsive, people not at all like us. But they are souls Jesus died for and has forgiven. They are souls to whom Jesus sends us to share him. No wonder Paul urged the Corinthians -- as God urges us -- "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us" (2 Corinthians 5:20).

Consider what it means that we are to be Pauls in our own cities by clicking here and going on to Deeper Thoughts.

Move over the links to change pictures. Click links for a full-size view.
1. City Square 2. Roman bath house 3. Apollo's Temple