After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth;
This church's birth deserves remembrance: Corinth was wealthy, populous, and devoted to pleasure, a hostile field where a plain, unknown man with no eloquence or power might have despaired. That Paul's desire to spread the Gospel was not swallowed up by such a gulf shows He was furnished with wonderful power of the Spirit of God. The Corinthians are the seal of his apostleship, and the glory of God appeared more plainly through such base and simple dealing than it could have through pomp.
AI summary
Paul left Athens not driven by persecution but by cold reception and little hope of fruit. He came to Corinth, that splendid city, and there worked as a tent-maker, for the Jews rightly taught their sons a trade, and an honest craft is no shame, not even for a scholar bred at Gamaliel's feet.
AI summary
Commenting on Acts 18:1-6
Corinth was the most populous and wealthy city of Greece, yet also the most profligate, the Paris of antiquity, where licentiousness was consecrated in the very temples of Venus and supported by the wealth of licentious passion. Yet Paul entered here and was eminently successful, gathering a church that would receive two epistles. The character and propensities of the Corinthians account for the general drift of his admonitions to them.
AI summary