Blinkers for a cause- Thursday, 6th Week in Easter- Acts 18:1-8

Paul arrives in the Greek city of Corinth after a rather lukewarm response in Athens. It is here (verse eleven) that he will spend the next one and half year ministering to the Corinthians. Sometimes the ministry of a year and a half spans just seventeen verses as  it does in this chapter and hence we look at 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 to understand the challenges that this mission field faced.

Paul is joined by his companions Silas and Timothy who have joined him after the persecutions broke out in Beroea.  His mission is also greatly strengthened by his acquaintance with a couple who have had to flee Rome due to the expulsion of Jews by the Emperor Claudius.

Aquila and his wife Priscilla will  then go on,  not only become Paul’s business partners, for they shared the same trade of making tents ( verse 3) but will also become his lifelong friends. We see that Paul sends his regards to this couple in two different letters that he will later write.

Paul’s trade is not to be trivialised as some childish pastime.  Tent s were important to those who lived in this part of the world and one can safely say that Paul was in the ‘real estate business’.  In another letter he will use the analogy of trading in a tent for a permanent structure in reference to the reality of death.

However, Paul’s trade does not distract him from his principal mission and that is to proclaim the word of God (verse5) a task that mostly met with stiff opposition or indifference.  The Corinthian community was a challenge for Paul both internally and externally. As we will read, the external challenges were predictable; persecution, accusations, beatings and false trials. But from                    1 Corinthians we also know that on departing Corinth, the community began to greatly disagree with one another on practically every issue from Baptism to leadership.

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