When Paul reached Corinth, he met a Jewish couple named Aquilla and Priscilla, who were already Christian converts; they had been f, out of Rome when the Emperor Claudius had ordered Jewish Christians to leave. Paul stayed with them and they supported themselves by weaving cloth for tents. Paul began his evangelization through the Jewish community, holding discussions every Sabbath with both Jews Greek 'God-fearers'. Paul was soon joined by his co-workers, Silas Timothy, and then gave his whole time to preaching to the Jew quickly turned against his witness that Jesus was the Messiah, alt the leader of the synagogue, named Crispus, believed. Paul then t his attention to the Gentiles who had shown interest; the first Gentile convert to be named was a man with a Roman name, Titius Justus, who had been a 'God-fearer' and with whom Paul went to live. There more converts and a Christian community developed, obviously in membership, with a few Jews like Crispus, but otherwise predominantly Gentile. Corinth being what it was, a number of different nationalities may have been represented among the new Christians. Am them were women as well as men. I Corinthians 1: 11 refers to a woman with a Greek name, Chloe, who may have been quite influential. In the new Christian community there were probably some who were and I Corinthians 6:9-11 indicates that amongst the converts there some who represented Corinthian society at its worst.

By the end of his stay in Corinth, Paul had the satisfaction of s quite a large Christian community established. He left Corinth Priscilla and Aquila to return to Palestine and Syria for a time, c at the port of Ephesus in Asia Minor on the way. At Ephesus, an Alexandrian Jew named Apollos, who had already heard Christian preaching was baptized and decided to go to Corinth to continue strength the church there in Paul's absence, which he did, Acts 18:24-28. Paul's visit to Palestine and Syria, he returned to Asia Minor for long period of work which we can refer to as the third journey, and he was in Ephesus for at least two years or longer, establishing the church there from about A.D. 54-57, before he went back again to Greece. It while he was in Ephesus that he had his correspondence with the church in Corinth. We have mentioned before that there is evidence that there was quite an extensive correspondence between Paul and the church in Corinth. There was a direct sea route between Corinth and Ephesus and it would have been fairly easy to send letters between them. What we call the first letter to the Corinthians is not actually the first letter that Paul wrote to them. 1 Corinthians 5:9 says, 'In the letter I wrote you, I told you not to associate with immoral people.' The Christians in Corinth had written to Paul for advice (1 Corinthians 7: 1). This correspondence may be dated between about A.D. 55 and 57.

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