1 Corinthians 1:10-17
Acts 11:26 tells us, "It was
at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians." (NLT)
The word "Christian"
means "follower of Christ." In
1 Corinthians 1:7-9, the Apostle Paul shows us a little of the benefits of
being a follower of Christ when he says:
Now you
have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our
Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free
from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. God will do this,
for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership
with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
(NLT)
With every spiritual gift having
been provided and the promise that God will keep one strong, this is a
privileged relationship. One enters into
this relationship with Jesus by faith.
As we are told in John 1:12:
But to
all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of
God. (NLT)
Many other passages of Scripture address
both what it means to be a Christian and how one becomes a Christian, but the
two just quoted form a good representation.
By our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has invited us into
partnership with His Son. This
partnership with His Son involves us being called His body. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says:
For in
one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or
free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
(ESV)
We are made one in Christ. Based on this, the Apostle makes an appeal.
I
appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you
agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the
same mind and the same judgment. (1
Corinthians 1:10, ESV)
This is not a harsh scolding, but
rather a gentle, loving appeal. The
Spirit comes beside us and gently calls for us to come to unity in the faith,
reminding us of the name and character of our Lord Jesus.
1 Corinthians 1:10 literally says,
"...through the name of our Lord, Jesus the Christ..." The word name in this case refers to His
character as made known by deeds and reputation. Therefore, this appeal or admonition is based
on the tender mercies of our Lord. As
the epistle has just pointed out, we have received God's gracious gifts,
forgiveness and cleansing from our sins and partnership with Jesus. It is based on these things that we are
called to unity.
Since this is a call to unity, it
is necessary that we define what is meant by unity. The Apostle does this effectively in very few
words. First, he says, "...that you
all speak the same thing..." (1
Corinthians 1:10 literal translation)
The word used here was:
...originally,
"lay down to sleep," used later of "laying an argument to
rest," i.e. bringing a message to closure; (http://biblehub.com/greek/3004.htm)
This implies coming to agreement
on the crucial matters of faith. He
further explains this when he says, "...having been knit together in the
same mind and in the same judgment." Here, in this context, mind refers to reason
and judgment refers to knowledge or facts.
Therefore, taking in the knowledge we have, we are expected to arrive at
a reasonable conclusion that should lay the argument to rest or bring unity.
This is precisely what the Gospel
does. We all are equal at the foot of
the Cross.
In 335 and 381 A.D., the Church
crafted a statement that we all still use to summarize the basics of the faith:
We
believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all
things visible and invisible.
And in
one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father
before all worlds (æons), Light of Light, very God of
very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;
by whom
all things were made;
who for
us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the
Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, and was made man;
he was
crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the
third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
from
thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead. ;
whose
kingdom shall have no end.
And in
the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who
with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by
the prophets.
While this statement serves as a
rudimentary statement of faith for the Christian Church, the Gospel can be
summed up even more succinctly in the words of John 3:16.
For God
so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
However, this does not deal with
all matters of faith and practice. For
this reason, we hold the Bible to be the final authority in matters of faith
and practice.
Given the tremendous grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, His great love and the truth and nature of the Scriptures,
unity of the faith is both possible and necessary. However, divisions are inevitable.
Later on in the letter to the
Corinthian Church, Paul says:
But, of
course, there must be divisions among you so that you who have God's approval
will be recognized! (1 Corinthians
11:19, NLT)
We can understand this statement
more when we read passages like 2 Peter 2:1.
But
there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers
among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the
Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on
themselves. (NLT)
Necessary divisions result from
perversion of the truth of the Gospel and denying the Master, who bought
us. For example, any religion, church or
teaching that denies that Jesus is God is a perversion. 1 John 4:3 makes it clear that any teaching
that denies Jesus is from the spirit of the antichrist. Unity of the faith then involves the
exclusion or rejection of such heresies.
The appeal, then, that the Apostle
is making is for those who are true believers in Jesus Christ. Through people associated with Chloe, who
everyone in Corinth apparently knew, Paul learned of strife in the Church.
As he addresses this strife, Paul
defines the nature of the conflict. In 1
Corinthians 1:12 he says,
What I
mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or
“I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”
(ESV)
Paul is shocked by this. He gives the equivalent of a literary
shout. If this were a text message, it
would be in all CAPS! He says,
"CHRIST IS DIVIDED!" Our
translations treat this as a question, "Is Christ divided?" However, the original is a statement, a
statement of shock and dismay.
Paul then asks some important
questions. He asks:
Was
Paul crucified for you? Or were you
baptized in the name of Paul? (1
Corinthians 1:13, ESV)
The obvious answer to these
questions is "No."
Paul next spends time explaining
that he baptized only a few of them. He
stresses that Christ did not send him to baptize but to announce the Good
News. In other words, Paul was not
trying to gather a following for himself.
His entire purpose was to gather a following for Christ Jesus.
The problems that Paul points out
specifically are strife and divisions.
He addresses these more in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 when he says:
For
while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and
behaving only in a human way? For when
one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being
merely human? (1 Corinthians 3:3-4, ESV)
Strife and divisions come from our
flesh or from being human. Because of
this, the root of strife is hard to pinpoint.
Jealousy, greed, pride or malice could all be involved in the motive of
the heart. Some, wishing to gain a
following for themselves, will cause strife.
Some, wishing to cause harm to a person or ministry, will cause
strife. Some, having pride in their
superior wisdom or knowledge, will cause strife.
Whenever this happens, there must
be an intervention. Paul as an Apostle
carried both the authority and responsibility to intervene. Therefore we have the book of Corinthians. Because of our human nature, strife is
inevitable and there are battles that must be fought. However, they must be fought without wrath,
malice and all those things that characterize the flesh. Paul does not yell at
the Corinthians. He appeals to them as
brothers. In giving instructions to
Timothy on pastoral leadership he says:
Never
speak harshly to an older man, but appeal to him respectfully as you would to
your own father. Talk to younger men as you would to your own brothers. Treat
older women as you would your mother, and treat younger women with all purity
as you would your own sisters. (1
Timothy 5:1-2, NLT)
While maintaining a gentle and
humble approach, Paul makes his answer to the strife and divisions among the
Corinthians. He first points out that
his ministry was not what he calls "eloquent wisdom" or "skilled
speech."
The appeal of human wisdom is one
of the dangers that Paul spends a lot of time on both in Corinthians and in his
other letters. He spends time on the
subject in chapters 1 and 2 and then concludes chapter 3 with:
Stop
deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world's standards, you
need to become a fool to be truly wise.
(1 Corinthians 3:18, NLT)
To the Colossian Church he said:
See to
it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to
human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not
according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8,
ESV)
To the Ephesian Church he said:
Let no
one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God
comes upon the sons of disobedience.
(Ephesians 5:6, ESV)
To the Hebrews he said:
Do not
be led away by diverse and strange teachings...
(Hebrews 13:9, ESV)
Being led astray by "eloquent
wisdom" or "skilled speech" is a real danger. One of the early heresies in the Church was
that of Gnosticism. Gnostics claimed to
possess special knowledge known only to a certain few or the enlightened. They also taught that the body was entirely
evil and that the spirit was entirely good.
This is undoubtedly an oversimplification of their teachings, but it is
accurate enough to point out that "special" or "deeper"
knowledge is a dangerous thing. Paul certainly had knowledge and he used
it. He says in 1 Corinthians 2:6-7:
Yet
among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age
or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of
God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. (ESV)
In addressing the divisions, Paul
says that he avoided words of eloquent wisdom "lest the cross of Christ be
emptied..." (1 Corinthians 1:17,
ESV) The word he uses for emptied means
nullified or made nothing. To add
anything to the gospel is to make it meaningless.
The Scriptures tell us that evil
people and imposters will continue to go from bad to worse, deceiving and being
deceived. (2 Timothy 3:13, ESV) However,
we must hold onto the simple truth of the Gospel. We are not saved by special knowledge. No teacher, leader, pastor or priest can save
a single person. Only Jesus saves. We must faithfully proclaim the death, burial
and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation.
Colossians 2:3 tells us that all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. In the end, He is our one and only pursuit
and purpose. When we value anything more
than Christ, it will show itself in conflicts and strife, first internally and
then externally. Christ is, of course,
not divided. Therefore, strife is always
a symptom of a spiritual problem. We
must begin to deal with it by returning to the cross, because only the cross
has the power to heal our divisions.
We must not be like those that 2
Timothy 3:5 mentions who "...having the appearance of godliness, but
denying its power." (ESV)
Only the cross has the power to
transform lives. This is why the Apostle
Paul says:
For I
am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16