Silas and Timothy had brought a gift of money to the Apostle from the Churches of Macedonia, so that he was not forced to spend so many hours at his trade, and had therefore more time for instructing and preaching. Among those people of Corinth who had been received into the Christian Church was Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue—and his entire household had also opened their minds to truth.
This made the Jews extremely angry, and they spoke so blasphemously of Christ that St. Paul could not bear to hear them. Shaking his garment with a gesture of horror and indignation, he cried, "Your blood be upon your own head; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles." And so saying he left the synagogue and went to the dwelling of Justus, who, being a pious man, allowed the Apostle to teach there.
In a vision of the night God encouraged His servant, saying to him, "Do not fear, but speak, and hold not thy peace. Because I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people in this city."
After this declaration of God's Will St. Paul remained in Corinth for another year and half.
He had already, as we have seen, written one epistle to the Thessalonians, and a few months later he wrote them a second. Some of the people of Thessalonica had fallen into a mistake.
Thinking that Christ was soon coming to judge the world, they deemed it useless to occupy themselves in their different callings.
When they left off work, like all other idle, unemployed people, they began to meddle with the concerns of their neighbours, and in his second letter St. Paul warned them that a great many things were to happen before the second coming of Christ, and he told them also the rule, "If any man will not work neither let him eat." He begged them to pray that the Word of God might bring forth much fruit among the Corinthian people, and bid them hold firmly to the traditions received from him.