Papyrus Stationery

1 Corinthians 12:1-11
There is a place for everyone

"Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be ignorant ... I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says" Jesus be cursed! " And no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit the words of Paul to the Corinthians, 1st letter, chapter 12, 12 -. 16 in fact!

This is the first time we have examined the correspondence of Paul to the Corinthians for a while, and you might find it strange that we do today, jumping such a long way in such a long letter! Frankly, I find it odd that Paul wrote these letters long!

I do not know about you, but when I write a letter to someone, this is rarely more than half a page long, and I talk about email. I guess when you write on papyrus or (more likely) on clay tablets, which you try to keep your letters even shorter. This does not seem to be a problem for St. Paul.

I guess the guy who signs the letter to Corinth. Someone postal service rocks up and says: "I have a letter for you from a ... St. Paul. " The guy at church said, 'Yeah, this is the place. Is it under your arm? The guy said, "Yeah, but there are still 12 pills to him in the car! Can you give me a hand?

Evidently Paul felt he had much to say to the Corinthians, and why would it not, Corinth was a pretty unique kind of place.

Once one of the richest cities and ports throughout Greece, and leader of the Achaean League, Corinth resisted the takeover bid until 146 BC Roman Mumius consul Lucius leveled the city. Having completely destroyed the city, Mumius ordered the execution of all adult males survive in Corinth and then sold all the women and children into slavery. Thus ended the rebellion Corinthian.

The city and remained uninhabited for 102 years, until Julius Caesar decided to repopulate with Italian, Greek, Syrian, Egyptian and Judean freed slaves.

This means that when Paul reached Corinth, he was a young city - only about 100 years. One thinks of a parallel with Israel, where some families have lived for over a generation or two, and where many people are probably aware that they live on land that no longer belonged to another family and perhaps in a house they have built.

In the case of Israel, of course, many former owners of these houses are still there, and bring the keys to their homes around their necks, still hoping to return. In the case of Corinth, the people of Paul's time need not have had such concerns. The original residents were never going to be reviewed.

The other thing that was remarkable about Corinth was the temple of Aphrodite. Apparently, the cult of Aphrodite was so strong at Corinth by the time of St. Paul that the temple had over 1000 slaves - men and women - used as temple prostitutes.

The women of the temple, in particular, had such a reputation in the ancient world that the sailors had a saying: "not for every man, journey to Corinth" This meant that, religiously speaking, the church had some competition rather steep.

I do not know if all the Corinthian church developed a marketing strategy, highlighting the many benefits of being a member of the Corinthian church, but it would have been difficult. On the one hand, you had 1000 women have been waiting for you at great temple of Aphrodite. On the other hand, the church was offering ... some tea in the morning great!

Maybe they are people like our Fay making her amazing apple slic.