I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind-just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you-so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 1:4-8)

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For the next few months, I will be teaching and preaching from the New Testament book titled Paul's Letter to the Newport Harbor Area. You are not familiar with that book? Well, it's about time you get to know it. It does have another name. Perhaps that one is a bit more familiar. Its other name is 1 Corinthians.

I'm not just trying to be cute. The fact is that there is not a major problem faced here in Newport Beach and our surrounding Orange County and in Southern California that is not spoken to in this twenty-centuries-old revelation breathed by the Holy Spirit into the Apostle Paul and directed to believers living in a community such as ours.

Take a look at a map of the eastern Mediterranean. Zero in on Greece. You'll quickly see how important Corinth was. This ancient city was located on the isthmus between Attica to the northeast and the great Peloponnese to the south. Only 45 miles from Athens, Corinth had controlling access to two seas, the Aegean on the east and the Ionian on the west. It was a city of strategic commercial importance and military defense. It was below the steep north side of the 1,800-foot-high fortress rock, the Acrocorinth, with its Temple of Aphrodite.

The city received shipping from Italy, Sicily, and Spain, as well as from Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Instead of going "around the Horn" at Cape Malea at the south end of the Peloponnese, many ships either docked at the isthmus and transported their cargoes by land vehicles from one sea to another, or, if the ships were small enough, they were dragged the five miles across the isthmus. Today, there is a canal running through the narrowest part of the isthmus joining these two seas.

Corinth was a rich and powerful city. At its peak, it probably had a population of 200,000 free people and an additional half million slaves in its navy and its many colonies. The city fluctuated in its importance due to the struggles among the Greek city states. The Romans finally took it over, destroying it in 146 B.C. and reestablishing it in 46 B.C. by Julius Caesar. Its celebration of the Isthmian Games at the Temple of Poseidon made a considerable contribution to Hellenic life. With the Games, there came an emphasis on luxury and profligacy, because the sanctuary of Poseidon was given over to the worship of the Corinthian goddess Aphrodite. The Temple of Aphrodite was on the Acrocorinth and had more than 1,000 female prostitutes. Many men were drawn to Corinth on account of this religious sex for hire. The city grew rich. “To live like a Corinthian” was the expression used to describe a person of sexual and material indulgence.