After a discouraging reception in Athens, and likely running low on funds, Paul arrived in Corinth weary in Acts 18. He later described his own state of mind in that period: he came in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling, and his message rested not on plausible words of wisdom but on the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that the Corinthians’ faith might rest on God rather than on human wisdom. It is a rare and honest glimpse of the Apostle at a low ebb — still stinging, perhaps, from his mixed reception at the Areopagus.
Corinth in that era carried something of the reputation Las Vegas carries today: a city of pleasure and vice, and no easy place to preach. There Paul met a Jewish couple, Aquila and his wife Priscilla, and, sharing with them the trade of tent-making, stayed and worked at their side. Paul would later insist in his letters that he supported himself by manual labor, both to set a good example and to distinguish himself from the itinerant teachers of the day who charged fees and sought their own gain. It was, in fact, a practical trade to have in Corinth: the city hosted regional athletic games every few years, and since there were no hotels to house the crowds who came, visitors camped in a temporary tent city outside the walls.
Paul’s willingness to work with his own hands is worth pausing over. St. John Chrysostom writes that no craftsman should be ashamed of his trade — that though Paul was a mere tentmaker, a worker in skins, the angels honoured him and the demons trembled before him, and still he felt no shame in his labor. “He worked while preaching,” Chrysostom adds pointedly; “let us be ashamed, we who live idle lives.” Origen strikes a similar note, reflecting on how the apostles were transformed “from fishermen into fishers of men.” Paul, in his own way, moved from making earthly tents to building tents of heaven — souls remade into living temples of the Holy Spirit.
Once Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, likely carrying financial support from the churches there, Paul was freed from tent-making and devoted himself entirely to preaching, testifying to the Jews of Corinth that the promised Messiah was Jesus. When they turned against him, Paul shook out his garments and declared, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” The gesture echoes the prophet Ezekiel’s image of the watchman, who bears no further responsibility for his people’s fate once he has faithfully sounded the warning, whether or not they choose to listen.
That night the Lord came to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” Given how much Paul had already suffered for the Gospel by this point — beatings, expulsions, mockery — it is little wonder he needed such reassurance. A commentary on the Navarre Bible ties this consolation to St. Teresa of Ávila’s insight that God leads those he loves most by the way of trials, not because he holds contemplatives in low regard, but precisely because he calls them friends. Those most given to prayer, she suggests, often meet the greatest trials — not despite their closeness to God, but because of it.
Some of the Corinthian Jews brought Paul before the proconsul Gallio, accusing him of persuading people to worship God contrary to their law. Gallio’s answer was brief: since the matter concerned only words and names and their own religious law, he would not judge it, and dismissed the case outright. It stands in sharp contrast to the mob violence and illegal beating Paul and Silas had endured earlier in Philippi. Paul then cut his hair, having taken a vow — a small but telling sign that even as he resisted the imposition of Jewish ceremonial law on Gentile converts, he never abandoned his own Jewish piety.
Acts 18 also introduces Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, eloquent and deeply versed in the Scriptures. He spoke accurately of Jesus but knew only the baptism of John — true knowledge, yet incomplete. When Paul’s friends Priscilla and Aquila heard him preaching boldly in the synagogue, they took him aside privately and explained the Way of God to him more accurately.
Several commentators note that Priscilla’s name appears before her husband’s here, a detail suggesting she took the more active role in instructing Apollos — an early and striking sign that the Church recognized the gifts of women from the very beginning. It says much about Apollos, too: an educated and eloquent man, thoroughly grounded in Scripture, he did not consider it beneath him to be taught further by a woman. His boldness in speaking of Jesus was matched by a humility that could recognize what he still lacked — and it was precisely that eagerness to learn more that had already drawn the Holy Spirit to work through him. Notice also the tact of Priscilla and Aquila: they did not correct him publicly, which would have humiliated him, but drew him aside quietly, making the correction far easier to receive.
Apollos went on to be of great help to the believers — and in that there is a lesson in humility for us all. The ministry of the Gospel is never any one person’s own possession; it belongs to God alone. Here it was not Paul who instructed Apollos, but a tent-making couple with no title beyond their trade — a reminder that no one is indispensable. We are simply instruments through whom God chooses to work. We can be grateful that he makes use of us, but the work itself remains his, and he remains free to use whomever he chooses.
