<p>18:1 <em>After these things he departed from Athen</em><i>s</i> <i>and went to Corinth-</i> He had become involved in Athens with intellectual and philosophical arguments, and now Paul turns away from that and goes to pagan, working class Corinth- the very opposite ground for the Gospel. Several times he asks the Corinthians to recall the way he first arrived in Corinth and determined to only preach Christ, the raw, crucified Christ, without philosophy and intellectual argumentation. He was led to that attitude by his experiences of long philosophical debates in Athens which produced relatively few converts.</p><p>The &quot;these things&quot; may refer to some unrecorded trauma Paul suffered. Because 1 Cor. 2:1-3 is clear: &quot;I brothers, when I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling&quot;. The &quot;trembling&quot; may refer to the shakes of malaria. But it more likely refers to his trembling with fear. His &quot;weakness&quot; uses a word which refers usually to physical illness; he uses it of how his co-workers were &quot;weak&quot; or sick, and he had to work to support not only himself but them too (Acts 20:34,35). He did that perhaps recalling how he too had been weak when he came to Corinth. Perhaps he left Athens because of illness and the climate at Corinth was more conducive. See on :9 <em>Fear not.</em></p>