Acts 18:5-17

Eighteen months in Corinth (18:5-17)

Meanwhile in Corinth, Paul was having the usual trouble with the Jews. They forced him out of the synagogue, so he went and preached in the house of Titius Justus, a Gentile God-fearer who lived next door (5-7). Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, himself believed (8; cf. 1 Corinthians 1:14), and possibly the new ruler of the synagogue, Sosthenes, later believed also (see v. 17; cf. 1 Corinthians 1:1).

In spite of the constant opposition, Paul kept preaching, and during the year and a half that he stayed in Corinth the church grew (9-11). On one occasion when the Jews tried to lay a charge against Paul, the governor refused to hear them. He looked upon Paul’s party as a group within Judaism, and saw the dispute as a religious matter that the Jews would have to settle themselves (12-16). The local people, seeing that the governor was unsympathetic to the Jews, took the opportunity to express their anti-Jewish feelings by beating up one of the Jewish leaders (17).