Acts 18 describes a turning-point. Gallio, Proconsul of southern Greece, declares in Corinth that the Christian movement is an internal Jewish matter and therefore no concern of Rome. Suddenly the church could expand without fear of imperial reprisal!
Some have seen this as a moment of liberation; the two Corinthian letters never mention persecution. But what they do mention is alarming. Once the church receives official permission, people come in for all sorts of reasons, and with wildly different ideas about what following Jesus is going to mean — which Paul then has to sort out, painfully. Personality cults, moral chaos, misunderstood doctrines, factional squabbles .
We ought to recognise this problem. It’s where most western churches have been for two centuries and more. How can we simultaneously press the claim for official permission and maintain the church’s rigorous standards of belief and behaviour?
N. T. Wright is a New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian, author, and former Bishop of Durham. He is currently Research Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christianity at St. Mary’s College in the University of St. Andrews and Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.
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