 Okay, so I posted some stuff on Google Classroom just to share with you a little bit about what to expect in this course, some of the topics that we're going to be covering each week, different things like that. So please do go through that. And it also has guidelines for online students. So some information that will be useful for you. If you can go into that section, the class law section and look through all of that, that will help you get oriented to what all we are going to be looking at in this course. And then if you have any questions, feel free to post it on the classroom. I'm not sure how much you all get to interact with each other since you are all online, but I would really love to see that happen in this class. I think there's a lot of learning that happens when we interact with our peers in the classroom. And so we don't want to miss out on that. I would like to learn from you all and I think it'll be a good opportunity for each of us to learn from each other. So that I'm not the only one speaking and teaching, but we all get to share our insights, our learnings, things that God is revealing to us as we are looking at His Word, that we can share those things with one another. So please do use the Google Classroom option to comment and just share your learnings through the course in the classwork. Okay, so I would really like to hear from each of you, maybe just share your name and what you do and where you're from. I've also asked you all to post that on Google Classroom, but since no one has posted yet, I'd like to do that before we start today. So if you can just unmute and tell me, I can see your name, but you can still say your name is for everyone else to hear. And what you do and where you're from. Hello ma'am, this is Subhasis, can you hear me? Yes, you can go ahead. Yeah, my name is Subhasis Nengren. I actually am from Patna, serving the law. Okay, okay, and what do you do Subhasis? I'm with full time ministry ma'am. Okay, okay, thank you. I think Jefina was going to introduce herself. I'm just going to go ahead. I'm Jefina. I'm from Tamil Nadu and just doing my third year here and I have given my life for the Lord to the ministry for him. Okay, I'm John. I serve the Lord at ABC Mangalore and basically from Kerala. Thank you. Good morning ma'am. Myself? I'm Jefina. Okay, I think Rosalind you can go ahead then. I'm Rosalind from Mumbai and I serve in my law. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, good morning ma'am. I'm Julie Toli-Watza. I'm from Kohima, but I recently got married and I'm with my husband in Pune. Okay, your video has been, you moved from Kohima? Yes ma'am. I was working with ABC Kohima. Okay. Okay, welcome. Good morning. Good morning. Yeah, my name is Anok Sokseks Chukunibun. I'm from Nigeria. I'm a free time preacher. I'm going to post over calling. Welcome to my success. I'm from Nigeria. Yes. I'm a free time preacher. I'm going to post over calling. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Ruega Collin. I'm in Tigali, Rwanda, and I'm a school principal. Thank you. Welcome. Good morning. My name is Nalbaka Jamio, I'm from Nigeria. I'm a teacher. I'm a pastor. We found here. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. My name is Lyndon Philip Martin. I'm a native of Kerala, but I'm settled in Chennai. I'm a working professional and I want to be an evangelist and it's one of the reasons why I pursued this theological course. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Good morning. My name is Anita and I'm from Karwar. I'm working part-time for my church office and I'm in a part-time ministry. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The Viren had a chance to introduce themselves. So please do go back and post on Google Classroom as well. Because I've also asked you there, what are you looking forward to in this course? What are you looking forward to learning? And so I'd love to hear from you more about that. So in Google Classroom I've also shared with you a little bit about the assignments that we're going to have. So we're going to have four different assignments and I'll give you more details about what each assignment will involve in the next few weeks. But this is just some information to get you ready so we'll have an essay question that we're going to be having. We'll have a quiz. We'll have a personal reflection paper and we'll have a final paper. So there are four assessments that we have that will contribute to your final date. I think what I've mentioned there is the release date but it actually should be the due date. So I'll give you all the due dates for all of these assignments that will also be posted in Google Classroom. So let me just also introduce myself. My name is Mithana Rona. I served with APC Bangalore in a part-time position. I majored to Manohar who also serves with APC in this full-time. And we have a two-year-old daughter who kind of keeps me busy full-time. So I work with a part-time work at the moment. But I'm so excited to be teaching. I was teaching before COVID hit and then took a break for a while and now I'm back with the Bible College. So I'm still catching up with some of the online ways of teaching. But I love teaching and I feel like it's just a gift to be able to learn and share that learning with others. So I'm looking forward to what we all learn together through this semester from God's word. So let's just pray before we begin. I'll open up the thread and then we'll go into the first few things. Father, we thank you so much for the start of a new semester. We thank you for how faithfully you have carried each of these students through the last two years that they have been studying. And even as we begin this course, Lord, we just pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts and our ears to hear from you. Not that we would receive revelation that can only come through your spirit, Lord. We pray, Lord, as we look at your word, that you yourself would be teaching us that you would enable us to be able to encourage one another to pursue you and to pursue a deeper intimacy, a deeper relationship with you, Lord. Lord, we pray your blessings over today's class and teach us who are here a lot. We pray that you would receive all that you have to give to us. We pray for the blessings over every aspect of this class, Lord. Let them be fully and fully yours, fully and fully carrying your grace and your power. In Jesus' name we pray. So you all have a copy of the notes, right? It's posted again on the classroom. So we've posted both the first and second Corinthians notes. You can download it from there and use that. You can keep it open during the class if you don't find it distracting or if you find it distracting, you can just listen. So I will be sharing from the notes, but I also may add things apart from the notes. So feel free to take down your own personal notes while we are going through this book. So to begin with, we'll just look at a little background of Corinthians to understand what happened in Corinth and why Paul actually wrote this letter. We'll understand a little bit about the city of Corinth, what was the culture there, what was happening there spiritually. And a few things that will help us better understand Paul's writing in this episode. So the city of Corinth was established in 44 BC. And it was actually a colony where there were people who had fought the war during Caesar then went and settled in Corinth. And it became a very important city. It became the capital of the province of Achaea, which is basically most of Greece is called Achaea. Ancient Greece is called Achaea. And so Corinth became the capital of Achaea in 27 BC. And so there was a lot of work that happened after it became the capital. It was built and made to look like a capital. It became a place where people were coming on, merchants were coming in because it was also a port city. And it also became very developed, very urban for that context. It was known for luxury. It was known for immorality. And it was known for a place where people who wanted to seek pleasure went there for whatever sense of pleasure they were looking at. And it was also known as a place of commercialized love. So the term Corinthian girl would be used to refer to a prostitute. So immorality in terms of sexual practices was very prevalent there. And so when we see in the letter of Corinthians where Paul is addressing some of that immorality, it's not only within the church. It's actually something that was practiced in the culture that had then come into the church. So this city became so important because of where it was located geographically. So we will look at, I'll just share with you a little map that will show you where Corinth is. So you can, can you all see the map? Yeah. So you can see that little green dot which says Corinth and then you can see Athens on the other side. So there was a little piece of land that connected the larger ancient Greece to this other part, the southern part of Greece. And Corinth was right in between that important place connecting both these parts of Greece. And because it was also on the coast, a lot of merchants came in to sell and a lot of the export and import happened through there. So there were lots of people coming in from other countries. There was a lot of influence of other religions in this place because of that exchange of cultures and people coming in and going out. And so it was, it was a place where a lot was happening all the time and a lot was changing and a lot of activity. So the marketplace was buzzing with activity. And so it's very strategic when Paul goes there to plant the church. It's a very strategic place because he's going to a place that is reaching a lot of people just because of where this geographically located and also because of the kind of work that is happening there. So he goes and he goes right into the center of all of that activity going into the marketplace because he serves as a tentator. So he goes to the marketplace where all of that exchange of cultures and interaction is happening. So there in terms of religious, religiously what was happening, there were two gods that were mostly worshipped in Coral and that is Apollo and Aphrodite. So there were these two temples that were there. So we see why that is important is because we see some of the things that Paul will address later. Addressing some of those things worshipped with these gods. So Apollo is a Greek god and was associated with Sun with the life and knowledge with medicine, music, poetry, with art, with oracles, archery, plague. So there were lots of specific things that Apollo was worshipped for. And the temple of Apollo was in the lower level of Coral. So Coral had a higher level and a lower level. The higher level would be called the acropolis and the lower level would be a lower part physically closer to the water. So in its lower part was where the temple of Apollo was and in the higher part the acropolis was the temple of Aphrodite who was the Greek goddess of love. And it was in this place that there were a lot of temple prostitutes. So there were about 1000 male and female temple prostitutes. And so you can understand because Aphrodite was known as the goddess of love, prostitution is very closely connected with that temple. And so when we see that worldliness, when we see sexual sin in the church, it was some of that influence over the people who had come out of that worship into the church. So we next look at the marketplace. So Paul went in and he met with Aquilan Casila and he then started this tent making work with them. So that was they were basically working with leather making tents and selling it in the marketplace that was called the Agora. And this was just a very, very sensitive case to Coral because Coral was known for its business, for being an economic center. And so to be there and to be able to interact with the people coming into the marketplace was actually like right at the center of what the city was about. So it's very, very easy to teach it and very influential in place for Paul to be. We'll also see that that being in the marketplace was viewed by some as being something that was practiced by people for lower status. So Paul even in being there is actually reaching out to a specific group of people. So people of higher status would usually refer the philosophers, the people who would speak rhetorically would be able to present their religious views philosophically. But Paul is going to the working class. So when he goes to the marketplace and he's a tent maker, he's actually reaching out to the working class rather than the elite because the elite would not respect that word as much, would not respect tent making or manual label as much. Their preference would be for the thinkers for the philosophers. So let's just go to acts and we look at when Paul arrived in Corinth and what happened when he arrived in Corinth. So we understand how the church was established. And then from there, we can look at more about why Paul then wrote the letter to the church. So we'll leave from acts 18, 1 to 17. Is there somebody who would like to read those passages for us? Acts 18, 1 to 17. Acts 18, 1 to 17. After these things, Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth and found a certain Jew named Akilah born in Pontius. He recently came, come from Italy with his wife, Brasila, because the plateers had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome and came unto them. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them and brought forth by their occupation, they were tent makers. And he reasoned the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. And when Silas and Timothy's were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment and said to them, Your blood be upon your own heads, I am clean, and from henceforth I'll go into the Gentiles. And he departed thence and entered into a certain man's house named Justice, one that worshiped God whose house joined hard to the synagogue. And Christmas, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house and many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized. Then speak the Lord to the Paul in the night by vision, be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace. For I am with thee and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people in this city. And he continued there a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. And when Galileo was the deputy of Achaea, the Jews made an instruction with one accord against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat, saying this fellow persuaded the man to worship God contrary to the law. And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Galileo said unto the Jews, if it were a matter of wrong or wicked, leanness or ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you. But if it be a question of words and names and of your law, look ye to it, for I will be no judge of such matters. And he draped them from the judgment seat. Until 16th, right? Everything. Then all the Greeks took substance, the chief ruler of the synagogue and beat him before the judgment seat, and Galileo cared for none of these things. Can you? Sorry, I'm just trying to connect these speakers, these headphones. Okay, you can hear me. Let me just see if I can hear you, because that seems to be the issue before. If one of you can just speak a little. Just so we can hear. Okay, I still can't hear. I think it may be something to do with the settings. Okay. Okay, wait, I just realized I hadn't turned off my... Okay, the audio is better. Okay, can you just speak again? Sorry, let me just see if I can hear you. Ma'am, we hear you clearly. Okay, and I can hear you now. Okay, I think this will be better even for the recording of the video. So we'll just use this. Thank you. Thank you for being patient with that. So, yes, we read from Act 18 where Paul went to Corinth first and the kind of work that he started and how the church was established. So this is just a background for us to understand when the church was established and what happened at that time. We'll just go back to that chapter and look at a few things that happened. So we saw on the map that I shared where Athens was, right? It was on the other side of that little piece of land. Athens is on the other side. So Paul left Athens, went to Corinth, and he met Aquila and Priscilla at that time. And Aquila and Priscilla had left home because the Emperor Claudius there had asked all the Jews to leave. So because they had been asked to leave, they had arrived in Corinth and Paul had arrived in Corinth and they were all new there. They were all Jews. So they connected and they began to do the scent making work. The leather worked together. And he stayed with them and worked with them. And while he was in the marketplace during the week on the Sabbath, he would go to the synagogue and speak to the Jews in Greek and share about Jesus. Now when Silas and Timothy came, they came from Macedonia and Paul then spent most of his time preaching to the Jews. But we see that a lot of the Jews didn't receive his message. While there were some Jews who received him, there were many who rejected him. And so we see then Paul also going to the Gentiles. And Paul saved in Corinth because of the encouragement he received through the Lord in a vision, telling him to continue his work then. So he ended up staying in Corinth for a year and a half. He spent 18 months in Corinth in that initial phase, establishing the church there. And then we see the controversy with the Jews about what he's teaching and they tried to send him away. But thankfully those people are not supported by the leader there. By Galeo who is the procurator of the prayer. So that's what happened in the establishing of Corinth. And so that's how the church was established. And that was about AD 51 when Paul was traveling during his second missionary journey. This was part of his second missionary journey. And all of this happened during that time. So we see while Paul was there, there were a few people that are mentioned in this passage in Acts 18. And also later in the book of Corinthians as well in the letter of Corinthians where a few people are mentioned as people who responded to the gospel. So we see justice. It's mentioned in Acts 18. Christus who was the chief ruler of the synagogue. And then the householder of Stethnus who is, I think he's mentioned in the Corinthians is not here. Not mentioned here. And then Paul was the ruler of the synagogue. So we see that in Acts 18-17. That he's mentioned there. And also in 1 Corinthians 1 when Paul is writing the letter, he mentioned someone named Sonsenus. So we think that is the same person. And then we also see Rastus the treasurer of gravity as someone who was there. So we see some people of a higher status who responded to the gospel. But also as we read Corinthians, it's quite clear that there were many people also from the lower class that received the gospel. So we see 1 Corinthians 123. Someone should read that please. 1 Corinthians 120. Where is the 120 right now? 120. I'm your voice is not good. 120. 26. So you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. Yes, so you see your call is saying, not many of you were influential, not many of you were a global birth. So there were definitely some who were, but it was you of them who were from a higher status. The others were more lower status, which means that Paul's work in the marketplace was quite effective. That was able to reach a lot of people through that. So we see here that the church was established. And as we read Corinthians, it's quite clear that they were very spiritually vibrant church that you can see the gifts of the spirit being exercised. And that they were powerfully empowered by God to use these gifts in their services, in witnessing to others. So we'll see how those gifts were being used and what is it kind of teaching that Paul gets with regard to spiritual gifts and how it is to be used in the church. So as we come to the end of that verse 17 verses in Act 18, we see that Paul then leads Corrin and he goes to Esther. And then somebody else named Apollos comes in. So somebody can read from verse 18 to 28 of Acts 18, Acts 18, 18 to 28. And Paul after this tarried there yet a good while and then took his leave of the brethren and sailed thence to Syria. And with him Friskilla and Aquila having shown his head in century for the, for he had a vow. And he came to Ephesus and left them there, but he himself entered into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they desired him to tarry longer time with them, he consented not, but bed them farewell saying I must by all means keep this feast that come in Jerusalem. But I will return again unto you if God will and he sailed from Ephesus to 21 man. You can read till the end of the chapter. And when he had landed at Caesarea and gone up and saluted the church, he went down to Antioch. And after he had spent some time there, he departed and went over all the country of Colossia and Persia in order strengthening all the disciples. And a certain Jew named Apollos born at Alexandria and eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in the spirit. He spoke and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue whom when Aquila and Friskilla had heard, they took him unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him, who when he was come help them much which had believed through grace. For he mightily convinced the Jews and that publicly showing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ. Okay. Thank you. So we see here what happened after Paul left Corrine. He spent one and a half years or 18 months in Corrine. He reached out to a few people, a few people had responded to the gospel and then he moved on and he left Persia and then went to Ephesus. And while he was gone, there was someone named Apollos who came to Corrine and Aquila and Friskilla have the opportunity to hear him. Now Apollos is known as somebody who was very learned and he knew the scriptures really well. And he spoke with a great impact. So there was a lot of power in his preaching and also there was the right teaching about Jesus. But the only problem was that he only knew until the baptism of John. So he didn't know more about Jesus' death and resurrection. He didn't know about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And these are the things which Friskilla and Aquila teach him and help him to understand the full message of the gospel. So that he is then able to go and teach people accurately what is promised through the gospel, what is offered to them through the gospel. And so when we read in this letter of Corinthians about Apollos, it's important for us to understand what is described about him. So he was learned, he had a good knowledge of scripture, he was able to preach powerfully and he was going around teaching with great enthusiasm about Jesus. So all that he knew about Jesus, he was teaching with great enthusiasm. And so we see Friskilla's work also being reflected in this letter through the Corinthians. So after this, after Paul leaves Ephesus through Jerusalem and then we see that he begins his third missionary journey. And it is during his third missionary journey that he goes back to Ephesus and he spends about three years there. So that is from ADP when he begins his third missionary journey and he spends about three years at Ephesus. And so it is while he was at Ephesus that he writes the first letter that we have in the Bible to the Corinthians. So the first Corinthians that book is written while he is in Ephesus. So it is expected that he wrote it in those three years, AD 53 to AD 45 sometime within that timeline. Now I think in your notes it says AD 48, please make that correction. It's AD 53 to AD 55 is when he expected to have written the letter while he was in Ephesus. So we look at a little bit of what we know from this letter. Now this letter of first Corinthians actually was preceded by another letter. So there is a letter that was written before first Corinthians but we do not have a copy of it. And there what is not in the Bible. We don't have copy of that original letter. But we do know that there was a letter written because in first Corinthians 5.9 Paul refers to that letter. So he says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. So he's referring to another letter that he had written before that, before the first Corinthians. And we don't know much more about that letter. But there are three things that we can understand from what Paul says in first Corinthians. We can understand that the letter was dealing with this area of sexual immorality. We can understand that the letter was not taken very seriously based on what Paul writes in first Corinthians. And that this was written after he left Corinth. So that first letter was written after he left Corinth but before he writes first Corinthians. So there was one letter in between and then first Corinthians written based on the church's response to what he had written in his first letter and based on some oral reports that he had got from the people in the church about what was going on there. So this letter is written about three years after the church was established. And we see that Paul in these letters is addressing some of the issues that had arisen in the church, things that he felt were necessary to be addressed. So with all of that background, let's go into chapter one. Is there anything, any questions you all have so far, anything you all would like to share before we go into chapter one? It's not 58, it's 55, you mentioned 53. Could you come back here again? Yes, between 53 to 5580. Okay, thanks. Ma'am, also I can't see the notes on the class work section. Ma'am, could you unmute them? Okay, sorry. So can you see any of the content that's posted in that class work section, sister? No, ma'am. Okay. Are the rest of you able to see it? Yes. Okay. So let me just check. So you're definitely in the class because you've been able to join this class through, right? You're already, okay. How did you get this link to the join Google Meet? Where did you see the link? Did you? I'm logged in on my laptop and it's not. Okay, but how did you get the link to this class? Classroom Google.com. Okay, so I think you looked at the link on the stream tab on the top. If you go to the classwork tab, can you see that? Yeah, I went there and I can't see. You can't see anything. Okay, let's just work on that maybe during the break and we'll see. I'll try and get somebody who can help you with that. Or should I log in again? So all of this was posted a few days ago actually. So if you're not seeing it, I'm not sure if you did you open it today? Or when did you open the classroom? Okay, so all of that was posted a few days ago should already be there. But I don't see you as one of the students on classroom. I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but if you were able to join this class, that means you're able to see what's being posted in the classroom. So let me just try and work on that maybe during the break. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you, ma'am. Christina, you had a question? Yeah. Can you just give the reference of the letter that was written before first quarantine? Again, I missed it. Yeah, questions. Five, let me also just go back to make sure I'm saying the right reference. So for instance, five, nine. Okay. I think it's time for our break. So we'll just come back. Rosalind, we can figure out what the issue is. Thank you. So we'll be back at 10 o'clock.