Countercultural: Unity instead of Division

Introduction/Context.

In the modern day, our cultural values are often determined at a national and even international scale. So many of our habits, values, and behaviors match up with other first world countries. This is made possible by social media and the internet, we here in Ohio consume similar content to those in Florida, Idaho, and California. Information is available everywhere, so if someone has a “good” thought in India or England it will makes its way to us before long and vice versa.

For us today, we don’t think of our culture in such a local sense:

“Well here in Milford we...” “People in Milford are known for…”

Even though there are certain distinctives of a certain city or state, these are not things that people say.

In the first century world in which Paul is writing, even just going from city to city, there were massive cultural differences. The rich history of these clashing cultures made people less accepting of cultural change, and there was very little mass sharing of information, and you certainly couldn’t have daily phone calls with your friend who lived miles away in another city. All of these things prevented the cultural blending that we experience today.

All of that to say, the Corinthian culture was a local one and they were massively affected by what was going on in their city.

There are a few facts about Corinthian culture that make a significant impact on one’s study of this book.

It was an honor-shame culture. (this may need a minute of explanation and illustration depending on the audience).

It was filled with wealthy people.

It was a city that had immense opportunity for those who moved their.

These cultural facts impacted the way the Corinthian’s behaved.

The Corinthian Church had a problem:

They were really not countercultural in the slightest.

They did not allow God’s purpose to reign in their lives.

“They were not Christians living in Corinth, they were Corinthians who went to church.”

Ramifications:

Because it was an honor-shame culture, status was a motivator in everything that a corinthian took part in.

When status becomes a motivator in our lives, every area of life will be affected.

So for the Corinthian believer, they were massively entangled in their desire for status and we literally see Paul address this head on in our passage today.

Because the city had many wealthy people. There was a stark division between rich and poor people, even in the church.

Because they lived in a place with so much opportunity, many of the people in the church at Corinth were the opportunistic pioneering type simply on a search for wealth and status.

The Corinthian Christians behaved just as the unsaved people of their day would have behaved.

This led to bad fruit in their Christian life and Paul writes to try to expose their bad fruit so that they could see that Paul’s remedies were necessary and worth following.

1 Corinthians 1:10–11 “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.”

The Corinthians were struggling with division.

(Division is the absence of unity)

Main Idea: A Countercultural Church Possesses Unity.

The word in our passage that makes it clear that we should be aiming for unity is the greek word behind “perfectly joined together”. That is one greek word and it means to be put in order/restored.

BDAG Greek-English Lexicon καταρτίζω

“perfectly joined together” - to cause to be in a condition to function well,

Paul is saying, when there is no unity in the church that we are unhealthy.

We’re broken

We need healed. (See LSJ, Vines for the medical side of this word).

Unity looks like being restored to our position of fellowship with other believers.

The Corinthians lived in a culture that was divided. Which means that in order for unity to take place in the church, they would have to go against culture and find something to unite them.

The reason that they were divided is because the church members reflected their cities values instead of God’s values.

Unity takes place when we have the same mind. - v. 10

1 Corinthians 1:10 “10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

Paul calls them brethren to remind them of the unity they have in Christ - John Phillips

Paul is Beseeching them for the purpose of getting them to all agree with each other.

For us this raises a red-flag, we know that we are not all supposed to agree in every case, disagreements happen so what does Paul mean here?

“that ye all speak the same thing” was a phrase often used in a political setting, it was used as a way of saying that people agreed with each other ideologically. (cornerstone)

The idea is that everyone needs to be on board with Jesus.

Paul is saying, “all of you need to agree on Jesus.”

So the question is, in what way does God want us to have the same mind?

Well he is trying to say that we must all have the same way of thinking.

BDAG Greek-English Lexicon νοῦς

② way of thinking, mind, attitude

The idea is simple:

We must think like Christ.

We must think about Christ.

If two people come to church and one is thinking about Jesus and they have the mindset that this is all about him and another comes in and is thinking about their comfort than those people are not going to align and they are going to be divided.

The question we all must ask ourselves is which one am I?

When our thoughts are constantly worshipful thoughts about the Bible and about Jesus, we will see the world the way that Jesus sees the world.

And when a group of believers all spend individual time with God on their minds, when they come together they will see it as an opportunity to give more glory to Jesus and this leads to unity.

This looks like all of us taking time to realize that the purpose of church is Jesus. So when we come to church instead of thinking of ourselves the way that the Corinthians did, we must think of how can we make sure that we are personally making our gatherings about Jesus.

Unity takes place when each believer chooses to make Jesus their first priority. - vv. 12-13

1 Corinthians 1:12–13 “Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?”

We have already talked about how one of the key aspects of Corinthian life is status, they wanted to achieve the highest status possible and receive honor.

The people were not so much identifying with the teachings of one teacher over another as they were claiming to have some sort of status because they were baptized by one of these great men.

The Corinthians were exalting things that are not worthy of exalting.

There were many in the Corinthian church who were concerned with status. They were using church as another tool in their pursuit of status. They identified with different leaders who had baptized them in an effort to earn status. They felt like if they were associated with the best leaders than they would be respected, liked and trusted.

Instead of focusing on status, Paul wanted them to focus on Christ.

Church is about Christ.

The Christian life is about Christ.

Church is not another place to try to gain status in.

Here nothing matters except for our association with Jesus.

When we are all associated with Jesus, we will become united.

Some may ask, “What is it that makes Jesus such a unifying person?”

Paul points them to the crucifixion and reminds them that He was the only one ever crucified for them.

Illustration, application:

This practice is countercultural because every culture has things that will prevent us from properly living the Christian life.

For the Corinthians, their culture elevated status to the premier level of important values.

We are not all that different today, one of our cultures primary concerns is comfort, and we often bring that desire into church with us. We want to be comfortable and that leads to disunity because we all have different things that make us comfortable.

Find examples of things that we value comfort in and how that can lead to division

Chairs. Some chairs are more firm and others are softer, each person has their own preference and this is something that we can divide over.

Activities. Some events or activities held by a church make us comfortable, and when those events are changed or taken away, we will fight to get them back which leads to disunity.

Heavy hitting examples that would only work in certain contexts include: music, dress, and lighting, these “issues” are rooted in comfort

Every culture has values that can seep into church and ruin it.

For the Corinthian that value was status.

Today, one of our values is comfort.

And there are many more values that can sneak into church and take away from the focus of Jesus.

Unity takes place when believers are living with the purpose God gave to them. - v. 17

1 Corinthians 1:17 “17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.”

Paul had a purpose and that purpose was to preach the gospel.

Christ sent Paul to preach, and he has commissioned us to have the a purpose driven life.

For each of us our calling may look a little different. For some our calling is to preach, for some it is to teach others, some believers are called to care, and some are called to spread the gospel.

We each have a calling in the kingdom of God and when we find that calling and do it, we will be more unified.

Whatever your calling is, it must be serve the purpose that we all have which is the purpose of helping people find and follow Jesus.

The cure to division is a common purpose given by Christ.

Conclusion

I. Are you spending time thinking about Jesus?

I. Do I think like Jesus?

II. Are we making church about Jesus?

Or is it more about our comfort?

II. Maybe for some, we struggle in the same way that the corinthians did, we are struggling with status, we go to church and we think about how we can get more attention today, or how we can get more people to like us.

II. Have you made church about status?

III. Divisions get in the way of us fulfilling God’s purpose in our lives.

III. What is your calling? Are you doing it or are you allowing other purposes to run your life?

God wants us to unite and this happens when we are thinking about Jesus, making him our priority, and fulfilling our purpose.