What condition were the early apostolic churches in when they were growing in the pagan world?

Les explains that when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the New Testament had not yet been written. The Gospels had not been written, and Paul's own letters had not yet gone out as the Word of God. Therefore, the early, primitive, apostolic churches were experiencing their growth and reaching out in the pagan world without the benefit of the written Word. They could not depend on the book; instead, they had to depend on gifted men. Those men had to be gifted to teach people the Pauline doctrines, not that which was still coming out of the Old Testament, or there would have been pandemonium. Paul, by inspiration, recognized that this gift to proclaim the truth of God's Word without it being in print was the most important thing the local church could have. Later, as chapter 13 indicates, that gift would fade away, because now we have the printed page and do not need men gifted to proclaim the Word without anything to go on strictly by God's power.