The City of Beauty

First Corinthians 3:1–2

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat.

Corinth. Hitchcock: «which is satisfied; ornament; beauty.» Paul stays eighteen months (Acts 18:11) — longer than anywhere on his journeys so far. A full church takes root in the satisfied, beautiful city. And it is a deeply troubled church.

Corinth was one of the wealthiest cities in the Roman world. Its reputation for indulgence was so notorious that the Greeks coined a verb from its name: korinthiazomai — to live like a Corinthian, meaning to live in excess. The city of beauty was also the city of flesh. And the church Paul plants there will reflect both qualities: beautiful in its gifts, fleshly in its divisions.

It is here that Paul meets Aquila and Priscilla — Akylas (G207), meaning «an eagle,» and Priskilla (G4252), meaning «ancient, venerable.» An eagle and an ancient one. They are tentmakers, like Paul (Acts 18:3), and they become his closest co-workers in Corinth. The eagle and the venerable one ground the small one in the city of beauty. They will follow him to Ephesus and remain there, teaching Apollos «the way of God more perfectly» (Acts 18:26).

And Apollos — Apollōs (G625), whose name Hitchcock defines as «one who destroys; destroyer.» He arrives in Corinth after Paul leaves, «mighty in the scriptures» (Acts 18:24), and the Corinthians divide over him: «I am of Paul; and I of Apollos» (1 Corinthians 1:12). The destroyer — not of the gospel, but of unity. His gifts become the occasion for faction. Beauty divides when it is admired rather than shared.

And so Paul writes them a letter. Two letters, in fact — 1 and 2 Corinthians — and they are among the most searching, most personal, most anguished epistles in the New Testament. To the satisfied city, Paul writes about dissatisfaction: «I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal» (1 Corinthians 3:2–3). The satisfied are not ready for substance. The beautiful are still carnal.

Two names from the Corinthian story deserve attention. The first is Sosthenes — Sōsthenēs (G4988), which Hitchcock defines as «savior; strong; powerful.» He was the chief ruler of the synagogue who was beaten by the Greek mob after Gallio dismissed the case against Paul (Acts 18:17). The powerful savior, beaten publicly. But then, in one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the New Testament, the same name appears in the opening of Paul’s letter: «Paul… and Sosthenes our brother» (1 Corinthians 1:1). The man beaten for being associated with Paul becomes Paul’s co-author to that same city. The powerful savior was saved.

The second is Gallio himself — the Roman proconsul who refused to hear the charges. Hitchcock defines Gallio as «who sucks, or lives on milk.» And listen to what Paul writes to this same city: «I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it» (1 Corinthians 3:2). The city judged by a man named milk-drinker was still drinking milk spiritually. The names rhyme across the years.

It is to Corinth that Paul sends Titus — Titos (G5103), whose name Strong’s gives as «nurse.» Hitchcock: «pleasing.» The pleasing one, the nurse, is sent to tend the most difficult church. And Titus does what his name suggests: he brings comfort. Paul writes: «God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus» (2 Corinthians 7:6). The nurse arrives and the patient begins to heal. Titus will later be sent to Crete — the carnal place (Hitchcock) — to set things in order (Titus 1:5). The nurse keeps being sent to the sick.

One more name from the Corinthian story: when Paul finally departs, he sails from Cenchrea — Hitchcock: «millet; small pulse» — the port of tiny grain. And from that tiny-grain port, a woman named Phoebe will later carry the Epistle to the Romans to its destination (Romans 16:1–2). The greatest theological letter Paul ever wrote, carried from the smallest port by a deaconess whose name means radiant.

And yet — and this is the redemption of Corinth — it is to this church, this flawed and fractured congregation in the city of beauty, that Paul writes the greatest chapter on love ever composed. «Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal» (1 Corinthians 13:1). To the divided, he writes about unity. To the gifted, he writes that gifts without love are noise. And then, in the same letter, the most triumphant declaration of resurrection in all of Scripture:

First Corinthians 15:54–57

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is to Corinth — the satisfied, the beautiful, the carnal — that Paul delivers the word kentron in its theological form. «O death, where is thy sting?» The goad that stopped him on the Damascus road, the city of the sting at Derbe, the viper yet to come on Malta — and here, the declaration that swallows them all. The sting of death is sin, and sin has been defeated through Christ. The cross-references confirm what the text implies: the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge links 1 Corinthians 15:55 directly back to Acts 9:5 — the Damascus road. The same word, from the road to the letter.

But there is something hidden in this verse — in the Hebrew text Paul is quoting, in the Latin translation Jerome will make three centuries later — that we will not unpack until the end. For now, it is enough to say this: the most broken congregation receives the most unbreakable promise. And the word at its centre is the word that has been following Paul since the beginning.