Let me set the scene. Corinth was one of the great cities of the ancient world. It sat on a narrow strip of land that linked mainland Greece to the Peloponnese — every ship, every caravan, every traveler passing between east and west came through Corinth. It was wealthy, multicultural, and — let us be honest about it — appetite-driven. The city’s chief deity was Aphrodite, the goddess of erotic love, and her temple on the Acrocorinth featured ritual prostitution. So notorious was Corinthian sexual immorality that, in Paul’s day, the Greek verb korinthiazomai — “to Corinthianize” — simply meant “to live shamefully.” That is a unique distinction in human history: a city that became a verb for sin.

And it was in that city that the Apostle Paul, during his second missionary journey, planted a Christian church. He stayed eighteen months. He left it as a working congregation. And then, from a distance, he wrote them this letter — the first of two we have — to answer their questions and correct what had gone wrong.