No Divisions Among You

Parkdale Grace Fellowship

Sunday AM, January 20, 2008

1Corinthians 1:10-17

Let us keep in mind that Paul is addressing a church that has gone badly off the tracks in many regards with many serious problems including moral failure, spiritual pride and false doctrines. However this is not a false church, for the most part these Corinthians are genuine believers, but they are new believers and still immature in their faith. As we have already noticed, the Spirit of God leads Paul to begin this letter not with rebuke but with a reminder of who God has made them to be now that they are children of God.

Vs. 10

As he begins addressing the problems Paul does not raise his voice and get really firm (if you can do that in a letter), nor does he make demands or start commanding them to change their behavior. But still under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Paul makes a passionate appeal to them. He pleads with them by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.To plead with them by the name of the Lord means this is not his own opinion that is being expressed, nor is he saying this by his own authority but rather it is the heart cry and expression of Jesus Christ that is being expressed through Paul.

Notice also that though they are behaving badly and this letter is a letter of correction Paul affectionately refers to the Corinthian Christians as “brethren”. Twice after His resurrection Jesus referred to the believers in Jerusalem as His “brethren” (Mt. 28:10; Jn. 20:17) Not only is this the voice of Paul calling them “brethren” but it is the voice of Jesus pleading through His servant Paul. In fact 39 times in this letter he refers to them as “brethren” or “brothers” which is far more frequently than he refers to any other group of believers in that way. (Romans and 1 Thessalonians contain the second most frequent occurrences of the expression at 19 times each).

These are not mere human words that we are reading but this is the word of God. For those who wrongly perceive our God as one who simply makes demands and commands it is important to recognize that is a very misleading and incomplete picture of God. Especially under the New Covenant our Lord pleads with us.

Now God, through Paul, pleads with them, by the name of Jesus Christ, by the person and the power and the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to live in unity. We often carelessly and flippantly throw around the name of Jesus in our prayers. But we do not usually understand the significance of how the name of Jesus was used in the Bible. In the Bible a person’s name always conveyed more than just a label for identifying a person as it does today. In the Bible a person’s name was synonymous with the person and it represented their character and their authority. Therefore to do something in the name of Jesus was to do something in the power and authority of Jesus and to do it in the same way and with the same character of Jesus. In other words, the expression, to do something “in the name of Jesus” means the same thing as to depend on Jesus Himself to do that thing through you.

So here in chapter one, when Paul begins addressing the problems at Corinth he appeals to the Corinthians “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Notice carefully what he is saying, not only is he revealing the source of His appeal (“I plead with you, brethren, by the authority of Jesus”), but he is also identifying the source they must depend upon in order to fulfill these instructions. (“It is by the enabling power of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all live in unity”). Paul pleads that only by trusting in the faithful power of the Lord Jesus Christ can these Corinthian believers hope to carry out the following instructions. This is the same appeal that the word of God makes to us today. Under the Law we were commanded to live up to the righteous standard of God. But under grace we are urged by God to trust in the indwelling life of His Son to enable us to live the Christian life and to give us victory over our sin.

Vs. 10b-11

Now in the second half of verse ten of all the many problems they had, the very first problem that Paul chooses to addresses in the Corinthian church is their lack of unity. There was division in the church. This is a problem that affects many churches and if not addressed results in church splits shattered ministries, and the shipwreck of many in their faith. Disunity is such a serious problem that it is the very first thing that Paul addresses with this letter. Division cannot be ignored in any body of believers.

In three different ways Paul says the same thing in verse ten: First he pleads that they all “speak the same thing” (NKJV); or “that you all agree” (ESV); Secondly “that there be no divisions among you.” Thirdly, “that you be perfectly joined together [or united] in the same mind and in the same judgment.” This does not mean that they must be completely uniform. It does not mean that they must all say the exact same thing the exact same way. Nor does it mean that they must all share exactly the same views in every detail of doctrine. Rather it means that there should be harmony and a non-competitive attitude as together they worship, fellowship and serve with a common focus and common passion, the one Lord Jesus Christ. It is like the members of an orchestra all play different parts but they are in unity playing the same song together, they are making different sounds but they are all blending together in harmony. For example, in our congregation we have represented here many different doctrinal views, many different denominational backgrounds, many different musical tastes and preferences. There is the potential here for great division. But as we have chosen to focus not on our differences but to fix our eyes on Jesus, the Lord has graciously blessed us with harmony and unity. Our church vision statement reflects this important priority. It says, “In everything keeping Christ the main thing; joyfully fixing our eyes on Jesus”.

In verse 11 Paul reveals that he has received a bad report from Chloe’s household that there are contentions in the Church at Corinth. We don’t know who Chloe’s household are. Paul is writing this letter from Ephesus and Chloe’s household are most likely believers from the church in Ephesus who have travelled to Corinth and visited the church there and have now returned to Ephesus and said, “Paul, you would not believe what was going on in the church at Corinth while we were there.”

Vs. 12

We do not know exactly what the issues were that the Corinthian believers were divided over but it seems that they were breaking into different camps depending on their preference of a particular leader’s ministry. Paul and Apollos had both given leadership in Corinth at different times. Paul had been the church founder (Acts 18:1-17) and after Paul left Apollos came and continued giving leadership to the church (Acts 18:27-19:1).

There was quite a difference in ministry style between Paul and Apollos as we can see by comparing Acts 18:24 and 28 which describe Apollos’ ministry style and Paul’s own description of his style in 1 Cor. 2:1, 3-4. According to 2 Cor. 10:10 some of the members of the church at Corinth definitely did not care for Paul’s style of ministry. “For his letters,” they say, “are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.” In addition to these two leaders it is believed that Peter (also referred to here as Cephas) had come through the area on a ministry journey and had spent some time in ministry at Corinth. So some of the Corinthians identified themselves with Peter’s ministry. And then there were others who sought to place themselves above all others in spiritual rank by claiming allegiance to no human leader but to Christ alone. This fourth group definitely had the best position but they were still divisive in their attitude of contending to be better than the others because of their more spiritual position. You can be right in your argument but still be wrong and divisive in your manner and your attitude.

What was happening within the church at Corinth was very similar to what we see today in our different denominations. Those who stress their particular denomination may consider the other denominations to be fellow Christians but they usually do not consider them to be on the same spiritual level.

Vs. 13

Paul now asks some absurd questions in order to draw attention to the foolishness of their divisions. The first question, “Is Christ divided?” refers to His relationship to His church; to the family of God. Does Christ separate Himself from some believers to take sides with other believers? It’s like asking a good mother if her loyalty or devotion is divided between her children. Does she favor one child over the other? Not if she is truly a good mother. It is like asking a child in a divorce custody battle to choose one parent over the other. “Whose side are you going to take? That would be wrong. The Lord does not take sides. His faithfulness and His love and His commitment to every child of God is equal and undivided. It would be impossible for the Lord to be divided in His loyalty and to love one child of His more than another. That would be a moral weakness and there is no weakness in God. It is impossible for the Lord to be more interested in the well-being of our church or our denomination than in the well being of another group of believers who see things a little differently than we do.

Paul now asks his second question, “Was Paul crucified for you?” Of course not! In other words why would you ever become a follower of anyone except the One who laid down His life on the cross for you? We should never become a follower of anyone but Jesus. These Corinthians all considered themselves first and foremost to be followers of Jesus, but they had developed unhealthy loyalties to the ministries of specific men. Many Christians have been deceived and misled and deeply hurt over the years by becoming devoted followers of a particular man or of his ministry. This type of devotion to a particular ministry is wrong, it is dangerous and it tends to put up barriers of division between yourself and those who don’t follow the same man that you do.

The third question is, “Were you baptized in the name of Paul?” Of course not! Baptism in the early church was most commonly done in the name of Christ (i.e., Acts 2:38; 8:16). To baptize someone in the name of Christ signified that the one being baptized agreed to come under Christ’s authority and also that the person being baptized becomes the property of Christ. (Barret, p. 47) Neither Paul nor any other man owned these Christians nor was Paul their authority or their master. Christ alone is their Lord and master. They had no business identifying themselves under any other name than the name of Christ Jesus. Neither should we ever identify ourselves with any other man than Jesus.

Vs. 14-16

Often there is an unbiblical tendency for people to establish a mystical link between the baptizer and the one being baptized. In many pagan cults and religions only a qualified priest could perform baptism or any religious rite of passage because a certain power was supposedly passed on to you by the priest performing the ritual. But this is not true of Christianity. Any believer can perform baptism; it does not have to be the pastor in order to be a legitimate baptism.

It would seem by Paul’s comments in these verses that perhaps the Corinthian believers were drawing distinctions between those who had been baptized by one man and those baptized by another. One believer would be puffed up with pride because perhaps he had been baptized by Peter who had walked with Jesus. Therefore he thought he had a spiritual advantage over the one who was baptized by just a fellow believer. Therefore, under these circumstances Paul is grateful that he made it a practice of rarely baptizing anyone himself but of letting another brother in Christ do the baptizing. It is very interesting to notice that in the Bible Jesus delegated the responsibility of baptizing to His followers rather than baptizing anyone Himself. John 4:1-2 “Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples) . . .” Peter also seemed to follow this same precedent: Acts 10:48 At Cornelius’ home we read that after preaching the Gospel to Cornelius’ household “[Peter] commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.” Rather than baptizing them himself he commanded others to baptize them. And here in Corinthians we see that Paul likewise did not usually baptize his own converts. The few names he mentions of those he did baptize were probably the first converts when he came to Corinth (certainly Crispus the synagogue leader was one of his first converts as mentioned in Acts 18:8). But once Paul had some baptized believers he seems to have turned the responsibility over to them to baptize the rest.

Paul cites this practice of getting others besides the pastor to perform the baptisms as a safeguard against this human tendency of putting the leader up on a pedestal. Everything Paul did was to turn the eyes of the people off of himself and onto Christ alone.

Vs. 17

Paul was clear about what God had called him to do and he would not allow anything to distract him from his calling. Paul was called to preach the gospel. Water baptism was a very important part of church ministry but Paul did not try to do all the most important things himself. He made room for others to share in the ministry while he kept his focus on that which God had called him to. We will spend more time on verse 17 in our next study.

Division and disunity are sure to result when we have something other than Jesus Christ as our focus. If we become followers of a particular person or a particular brand of ministry we will often find ourselves clashing with others who are following a different ministry. We must guard against lifting up any particular individual or ministry. That is a recipe for trouble. This is so important that before Paul would move on to address any other problems in the church the Lord first compelled Paul to deal with this issue. Until they got their eyes off of their favorite ministry and onto Jesus only there would be little chance of resolving the many other issues in the church.