{"id":12664,"date":"2016-08-17T01:37:31","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T06:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/a-corinthian-vanity-fair\/"},"modified":"2016-08-17T01:37:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T06:37:31","slug":"a-corinthian-vanity-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/a-corinthian-vanity-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"A CORINTHIAN VANITY FAIR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><b>ACTS 18:1\u201317<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><i>After these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><i>(Acts 18:1).<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians from Ephesus during his third missionary journey, a.d. 53\u201357 (16:8). Various indications found in Acts narrow the date of this letter to approximately a.d. 55 to 57, about five years after his first visit to Corinth.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>The apostle founded the church of Corinth during his second missionary journey. He arrived at the bustling city alone, but with the help of a wealthy Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, soon began a rapidly growing church. While in Corinth, Paul earned a living as a tent-maker, going to the synagogues every day to preach until the Jews refused to listen any longer, forcing him to turn from his own people and proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles, who responded with great fervor.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>Corinth looked much like New York City or Bunyan\u2019s Vanity Fair. It was one of the greatest of all Grecian cities, a melting pot of cultures, known for its wealth and depravity. \u201cThe supremacy enjoyed by the one Grecian State after another, had at last fallen to the lot of Corinth,\u201d Hodge wrote. \u201cIt became the chief city of Greece, not only in authority, but in wealth, magnificence, literature, the arts, and in luxury.\u2026 Of all the cities of the ancient world it was most notorious for licentiousness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>The church of Corinth had allowed the vices of the city to penetrate its sacred walls. Its growing worldliness\u2014church politics, moral decadence, disorderly worship, and theological problems\u2014created division and strife. If Paul\u2019s letter seems to bounce from subject to subject, it is because he had so many problems to deal with. Distressed by the sins of the Corinthian church, the apostle wrote a letter in which he sounds more like a scolding father than a great evangelist. Urging them to put on the ways of Christ, he confronted every issue directly and compassionately.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>It is not difficult to see why the Corinthian epistles are relevant today. The same sins of worldliness and corruption that threatened to rip apart the Corinthian church can be found festering in the church today. But just as God spoke to His people in Corinth, He speaks to us today through Paul\u2019s letters, that we might put away all ungodliness and be conformed to Christ in holiness and purity.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'><b>CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'>Genesis 3\u20135<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'>Matthew 2<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:   18.0pt;line-height:normal'>Read Acts 18:1\u201317. Why would God need to tell Paul   not to be afraid (v. 9\u201311)? How did God comfort him? Do you become easily   discouraged that more people are not coming to Christ? Are you depressed by   the depravity of the world? If so, meditate on what God told Paul. Find   comfort in His sovereignty over the hearts of people.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:   normal'><i>For   further study: Acts 17:16\u201334; 18:18\u201328; 19:1\u201320<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'>wednesday<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'>january<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ACTS 18:1\u201317 After these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth (Acts 18:1). Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians from Ephesus during his third missionary journey, a.d. 53\u201357 (16:8). Various indications found in Acts narrow the date of this letter to approximately a.d. 55 to 57, about five years after his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/a-corinthian-vanity-fair\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A CORINTHIAN VANITY FAIR&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}