Its excellent geographical position soon made it a prominent center of commerce, with a much higher standard of living than its neighbors. It was also a loose living city, rendering religious cult to the goddess Venus, a serious threat to those, Jews or Christians, who worshiped the true God. He preached the Gospel there for 1 years, aided by Silas and Timothy. Due to his remarkable zeal, quite a number of people were converted to the true faith, some of them Jews. Very soon many Jews in the city became openly hostile to the Apostle's preaching, but since they had little social influence they failed to obstruct his work.
More data are available on the social makeup of the Corinthian church than of any other.
There was a solid nucleus of Jews but many pagans. The very top and bottom of the Greco-Roman social scale are absent. Fueled by frustration, such individuals did not cease to question and explore once they had accepted Christianity, and so generated a greater diversity of problems for Paul than any other church. In particular, they welcomed other visions of Christianity and competed with one another for spiritual prestige. Saint Paul was in Ephesis when three influential Corinthians brought him a letter in which they and others asked for guidance on matters they found problematic.