1st century Corinth has a lot in common with our experiences in 21st century Edinburgh.  Corinth was a university city, with some of the greatest minds in the world resident.  It was also a hub of cultural activity, business, and an important outpost for international trading by land and sea.  However, in ancient times Corinth had a reputation as the Sin City of its day.  Its religious life was cut from the same cloth with the local worship center being the Temple of Aphrodite, the Playboy Mansion of its day, once housing over 1000 temple prostitutes. Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that the popular phrase "to play the Corinthian" or "Corinthian girl" described a drunkard or prostitute.  In short, this was the most unlikely place for any Christian church to be born and to thrive.  However, you can read the story of how the gospel came to Corinth and began to make a transforming difference in that great city in Acts 18.

       

       

The church in Corinth was one of the most troubled and messy churches in the Bible.  There were many threats from within (pride, factions, social and gender divisions, moral and sexual failure, legal dispute, riotous worship, and selfishness) and from without (false teaching, temptations to sin, ungodly cultural and idolatrous influences).  It's not as if we would struggle with similar problems today, is it?!?!  Paul, as the spiritual founder of this church and as a loving father to these young, immature Christians writes to help them through their troubles and confusions, and answer their many questions.  He gives them answers to many of the hot topics and controversial issues that we still grapple with today in the 21st century.
 

Ultimately, we'll see how Paul continually exhorts us to keep our eyes on Jesus so we can grow up into mature, wise and useful Christians.  We can only survive and make a difference in the world today if we remember that we are Christians and no longer 'Corinthians'.  We may live in 'Corinth,' but more importantly we are in Christ!  In Christ, we are new people, with a new identity, a new hope and a new power to live in newness of life.

       

This is what we'll be studying this year through relevant, dynamic bible teaching and interactive small group bible studies: