Corinth was a city in the Roman providence of Achaia located on an isthmus between the Aegean and Adriatic Seas. Modern day Corinth, three miles northeast of where the ancient city was located, was established in 1858 after the old city was destroyed by an earthquake. The Corinth of Paul’s day was extremely pagan with temples, shrines and altars to false gods or idols dotting the city. “A thousand sacred prostitutes made themselves available at the temple of the Greek goddess Aphrodite.” (Robert H. Gundy, A Survey of the New Testament, pg. 263). Immorality was so rampant in the city that its name was used synonymously with gross immorality. “She had a reputation for commercial prosperity, but she was also a byword for evil living. The very word korinthiazesthai, to live like a Corinthian, had become part of the Greek language, and meant to live with drunken and immoral debauchery” (The Letters to the Corinthians, William Barclay, pg. 2).
Paul visited Corinth on his second missionary journey (50-52 A.D.), and later wrote this epistle to them on his third missionary journey while in Ephesus (54-55 A.D.). Most of the material found in 1 Corinthians is related to concerns, problems, or situations existing in the church at Corinth. The problems included division in the church (1:10), the church’s failure to deal with immorality (1Cor. 5), church members taking each other to court (1 Cor. 6), improper conduct at the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11), ignorance concerning spiritual gifts (12:1) and the fact that some among the Corinthians denied the resurrection (1 Cor. 15).
Given the immorality of Corinth and the inroads it made into the church there, this epistle certainly has much to say to today’s church.