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Paul, by profession, was a tent-maker. When he got to Corinth, he found a number of Jews there. Two of them, a husband and wife, were called Aquila and Priscilla and they welcomed him and looked after him. As they were also tent-makers, he stayed at their house and worked with them, preaching in the synagogue every Sabbath.

When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself entirely to preaching, we are told, which means that he stopped making tents and just preached the word. He was preaching to the Jews, as there were a lot of them in Corinth because Claudius, the Roman leader, had ordered all of the Jews to leave Rome.

But the Jews were not at all intrested in what Paul had to say and became abusive and Paul lost his temper with them and became very angry. He told them that he had had enough of them, they could suffer for their own sins now if they would not repent, and he was going to preach to the Gentiles from now on. This would have been a great insult to the Jews, as Jews are very bitter toward anyone who is not circumcised.

As soon as Paul had made this decision, he moved out of the synagogue and did his preaching from the house of Titius Justus, who was a worshipper of God. You can tell from his name that he was a Roman. From there he converted Crispus, who was the leader of the synagogue, and all of his family, and many other Corinthian citizens believed. We know that Paul established a church here in Corinth, as he later wrote two long letters to them to help them with their questions and difficulties.

Paul was going to move on but God spoke to him in a vision one night and told him to stay. He said that no-one in this city would attack or harm him. God said that there were a lot of people in Corith waiting to be converted and he wanted Paul to stay there for quite a while to do that.

While he was doing this, the Jews made a massive attack on him and brought him to court, charging him with teaching contrary to the law. It would seem that God had been wrong, and the people were going to attack and harm him after all. In fact, Paul was about to open his mouth to make his defence, Gallio, the Roman proconsul in charge at the time, stepped in and did it for him, telling the Jews that he refused to be judge of such trivial things, and had them sent out of the court.

The work that Paul did represented a lifetime's dedication to the things of God. Although he had periods of his life when he worked in the week and only preached openly at weekends, as we have seen here, there were other times when preaching was his full time job. We should remember this when we have the opportunity to preach God's word.

This week's prayer -
(to say at the end of your lesson):

Dear Lord God in heaven, May I try to notice all the opportunities that you give me to talk to other people about your word, and use them. Amen.