As the Apostle Paul traveled about the Roman Empire, we learn from Scripture that he was frequently accused of being crazy. People heard his testimony of his remarkable experience on the Damascus Road, they saw his dedication and his commitment to life which took him away from comforts and pleasures, etc., and they said he was crazy. In fact, one Roman governor recorded in the book of Acts, Porcius Festus, said to his face one day, &quot;Paul, you are mad; your great learning is turning you mad,&quot; (Acts 

RSV). But the apostle did not seem to mind this. Perhaps he remembered that the Gospels tell us there was an occasion when the mother and brothers of Jesus came to take him home, because, they said, &quot;'He is beside himself.' He is crazy,&quot; (Matthew 12:46-48, Mark 3:21).

The Word for this Hour  (2 Corinthians 5:18 - 6:2)

Reading through Paul's second letter to the church at Corinth makes you aware that this is the most personal and emotional of all his letters. It throbs with a sense of the glories of God's grace.

Visiting Corinth on my recent trip was a moving experience for me. There is very little left standing of the original city -- it was destroyed by the Romans shortly after Paul's visit there and has been lying in ruins ever since. Certain temple columns remain, though. as well as the market place and other public areas of the city. They can be clearly discerned, and the actual pavement of the judgment hall of the Roman proconsul is well preserved.

It wasn't hard for me to imagine the Apostle Paul as he came down from Athens into this city which was at the time a center of pleasure, a great commercial city and a city of great beauty, with many, many temples. It had gained a reputation as the center of lascivious worship -- the worship of the Goddess of Love. There were some 10,000 prostitutes attached to the temple of Aphrodite and the city lived up, or perhaps I should say, down, to its reputation as a place of sensual pleasure. It represented a sex-saturated society. You can see indications of this in Paul's letters to the church there. It was easy to imagine the apostle arriving in the dust of the road unknown and unheralded a simple tentmaker by all appearance. Finding two people of the same trade, Aquila and Priscilla, he lived and worked with them, and preached up and down the city streets and in the market places and synagogues. Thus God used him to lay the foundations of the church at Corinth.