For today, we're going to be here in Second Corinthians. If you have your Bibles open out of chapter

one, let me just give a brief background on this letter and a reminder about the city of Corinth.

If you were here for our study in First Corinthians, or it might be new information if you are

new to this study of Second Corinthians.. This letter, 2nd Corinthians,

was probably written, scholars believe, within about a year after Paul's first letter to the

Corinthian Church. So this second letter was written somewhere around 57 AD, 58 AD in that

neighborhood. Paul tells us himself when he writes this second letter that he is writing to the church

in Corinth from Macedonia.

Now, Macedonia was the northern province of Greece.

The southern province of Greece was known as Achae.

And he mentions that in this letter,

and the capital city of Akei in the south was Corinth.

So Paul is in the northern part of Greece.

He's writing this letter to the Corinthians in the southern part of Greece.

And remember from our study about the city of Corinth that it was an important port city in

Greece located on the coast of the Ionian Sea. Around 700,000 people lived in Corinth in the first

century. Of that 700,000, the vast majority, 500,000 were slaves. Remember during the Roman

Empire, they had a lot of slaves, and in fact, the slave population in Corinth was more than

double the free population. Free population of Corinth about 200,000, the slave population about 500,000.

This city of Corinth was a very immoral city. There were 12 pagan temples, because remember,

the Romans were polytheistic, they worship many gods. There were 12 temples that dotted the

landscape of Corinth. The most important one to the Romans was the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love

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