Hard to picture God, especially since he’s spirit!  We can picture him, though, in Jesus.  Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9, NIV).  Of course, we haven’t seen Jesus.  But it’s easier to picture a flesh-and-blood God than a spirit one.
Now here’s a higher-level of “hard”.   Picture the Lord mockingly laughing at his enemies.
Why do the nations plan rebellion?
Why do people make their useless plots?
Their kings revolt, their rulers plot together against the Lord
and against the king he chose.
“Let us free ourselves from their rule,” they say;
“let us throw off their control.”
From his throne in heaven
the Lord laughs and mocks their feeble plans.
 (Psalm 2:1-4, GNT)
Let’s go back once more to Corinth.  The Lord’s message had run into Corinth (see 2 Thessalonians 3:1 for this concept of “run” or “spread”.)  Then it ran through Corinth.  And in its wake it left the church of Jesus Christ.  Men and women, who once practiced sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, homosexuality, stealing, greed, drunkenness, reviling and swindling, were now washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, ESV).
Resistance, though, had been formidable.  It had come from the morally-corrupt, sexual-charged, pleasure-seeking populace whose practices created an evil environment.  It had come, too,  from Corinth’s Jews who  fiercely rejected Jesus as Messiah.  (See Acts 18:5-10 and https://theoldpreacher.com/welcome-to-corinth/.)
Today we come to the final act of Jewish resistance that author Luke records . . .
When Gallio was made the Roman governor of Achaia, Jews there got together, seized Paul, and took him into court   “This man,” they said, “is trying to persuade people to worship God in a way that is against the law!”  Paul was about to speak when Gallio said to the Jews, “If this were a matter of some evil crime or wrong that has been committed, it would be reasonable for me to be patient with you Jews.  But since it is an argument about words and names and your own law, you yourselves must settle it. I will not be the judge of such things!” And he drove them out of the court. They all grabbed Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the court. But that did not bother Gallio a bit (Acts 18:12-17,GNT)
A new man occupied the Roman governor’s mansion in Corinth.  For hostile-to-Jesus Jews this was a chance to silence Paul using Roman law.  The mob met to plan and plot.  Then, at the right time and place they physically grabbed Paul and dragged him to court.  “Court” was little more than a raised platform set outdoors where the governor sat to pass judgement on legal disputes.  But this judgment would have both far-reaching and laughable consequences.
The accusers speak first.  “This man is trying to persuade people to worship God in a way that is against the (Roman) law!”  Like China today (as one example), the Roman empire legalized the religions they deemed permissible.
Now the accused’s turn comes.  But before Paul can defend himself, Governor Gallio does.  He’s made his decision:  the case doesn’t merit hearing.  Paul wasn’t preaching a new (illegal) religion , but a form of (legal) Judaism.   Gallio’s decision had decade-long consequences.  Implicitly he allowed the legal spread of Christianity.  We should remember Governor Gallio was administrator, not just of Corinth, but of all Achaia province.  His verdict established case law for other judges.  Paul was free to keep spreading the Lord’s message.
If this outcome was frustrating for the Jewish mob, it became physically painful for the new synagogue president, Sostheness (the former, Crispus, had converted to Messiah Jesus).  Humiliatingly thrown out of Gallio’s court, “[t]hey all grabbed Sosthenes . . . and beat him in front of the court.”  Maybe Roman law had been Sosthene’s idea.  Maybe the mob had expected Sosthenes to influence the governor.  Or maybe they just looked for a scapegoat to beat up.  Whatever the reason, the mob bloodied their synagogue president, which troubled Governor Gallio not one bit.  
That’s when the Lord might have laughed and mocked their feeble plans.
 
Paul stayed on with the believers in Corinth for many days, then left them and sailed off with Priscilla and Aquila for Syria (Acts 18:18, GNT).
Paul stayed in Corinth “for many days”, probably to establish new believers in the faith.  Then, after nearly two years in the city, he sailed away, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. “Whoredomville” remained.  But planted beneath its morally corrupt radar was the Spirit-empowered, Jesus-exalting, God-centered church.  Far from perfect as the Corinthian correspondence will show.  But alive with the life-transforming presence of the Lord.
White Christian America and Corinth.
I’ve just begun to read The End of White Christian America.   Author Robert P. Jones reports that “the proportion of white Christians in the country, while still comprising the largest [group), has slipped below a majority to 47%.”  Among the causes?  Aging, immigration and “waning cultural influence”.  “The incursion of the Internet and national cable news . . . has made it impossible for White Christian America’s contemporary descendants to assume that their own beliefs are universal.”
Paul in Corinth reminded me of our growing minority status in the U.S.  The apostle and his team, as well as the new believers they left behind, were a tiny minority.  And one bizarrely (in their eyes) different from the sexually-charged, pleasure-seeking, idol-worshiping city.
See parallels between the Christians in Corinth and us in America?  Maybe our “shrinking” is a surprise.  But eventually we have to face the fact that the “white Christian America” we once knew is gone.  Our influence on the culture continues to wane.  We’re getting older and other ethnic groups are moving in with religions far different from Christianity.  That requires us to live faithfully to our Lord as a minority and, like Paul, engage the majority with the Lord’s message, both in word and acts.
But we must do this too:  we must remember that the gospel-believing and gospel-proclaiming Paul left Corinth having successfully planted the good news by the power of the Spirit.  And perhaps mouthing words he would later write back to this church . . .
“But thanks be to God,
who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ
and through us spreads everywhere
the fragrance of the knowledge of him.”
(2 Corinthians 2:14, GNT)
Hear the Lord laughing?