Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. We all hate the idea of division, but struggle to be united with people different than us. Why is that? "One common species of worldliness we face today is: If I don't feel it, it isn't true." Do you agree? If so, how does that pertain to the unity of the church?
2. What are common sources of division in churches today? Have you seen this occur yourself?
3. What does it mean for us to "all agree" (1 Cor 1:10) when Paul assumes the church will not always agree on everything? (see 1 Cor 8). "In the great things of religion be of one mind; and where there is not unity of sentiment, still let there be union of affection. Agreement in the greater things should extinguish divisions about the lesser," (Matthew Henry on 1 Cor 1:10-17)
4. "It is a sight of the divine beauty of Christ, that bows the wills, and draws the hearts of men," (Jonathan Edwards). How does the "beauty of Christ" revealed in the gospel help draw us together?
What can a church divide over? A church can divide over big issues, or petty things; theological issues, or parenting philosophies. It can look like a few individuals in the church starting rumors, or it can look like a vocal majority voicing disagreement. And the splits aren’t always formal—in fact, most of the time, divisions in the church don’t result in half of the church leaving, but with everyone staying put, but the temperature in the room being lowered, cliques being formed, and the body of Christ turning into a gathering of side-eyed suspicion.
You know how this works. You are in a conversation with someone and hear them mention something that sounds off; they aren’t denying the deity of Christ or compromising the gospel, but you now sense that on some matter that is very important to you, the two of you now stand at opposite sides of an issue. You are surprised, you didn’t expect this; you assumed that all godly, intelligent, fair-minded people (like yourself) took your stance on this issue. What could possibly be motivating this person’s reasoning? Okay, now pause, and think about the last time you were in a conversation like that. Maybe it was over politics, maybe it was over schooling options, maybe it was over a theological issue. Fill in what your last experience was…now, what did you do? What should you do?
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we see him address real sinners with real grace from the real God. And the sin he is exposing today is the sin of divisiveness. And that is exactly the right word sin. Division and quarrelsomeness, believe it or not, is a sin that Paul frequently warns about, even telling the young pastor Titus to practice church discipline on those who refuse to stop stirring up divisions in the church (Titus 3:10-11).
10 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. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 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.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
- 1 Cor 1:10-17
The Problem
11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 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.” (1 Cor 1:11-12)
The Corinthian church is divided. And these are not simple divisions of one group of people not jiving with another because they have different interests or don’t like the same TV shows. The divisions in the Corinthian church are massive. In fact, one could argue that the primary problem that led Paul to write this letter are the divisions in the church.[1]
A key component of these divisions appears to center around individuals creating factions in the church around their favorite ministers; some love Paul, some Apollos, some Peter (referred to here by his Aramaic name,Cephas). But what of those who apparently claim, “to follow Christ”? Is Paul condemning that? It is hard to know for certain, but it is likely that this last clause isn’t a quotation of the Corinthians that Paul is reciting back to them (there are no quotation marks in Greek) but is something he is saying to correct their divisiveness. They are splintered into these various factions, but Paul says, “You all follow these different men, but I follow Christ.” (Tom Schreiner’s view).
Okay, so what of these men? Paul, we know; he was the one who initially brought the gospel to the Corinthians back in Acts 18. Apollos is a man we hear of in Acts 18:24-19:1 who spent time ministering in Corinth. Peter, you are likely familiar with. He is one of the original twelve, the leader of the disciples. And while we are told of a party following Peter, as we read the first four chapters we will see that the primary tension comes from the Paul and Apollos factions in the church (see 1 Cor 1:12; 3:4, 5, 6, 22; 4:6). And, just to clarify, this tension isn’t coming from Apollos stirring anything up in the Corinthians, because Paul ends the letter be explaining that he has been eager for Apollos himself to visit the Corinthians again (1 Cor 16:12), something that would make little sense of Apollos was the one fomenting this divisiveness.
Now, I have always assumed as I read and taught this passage that what Paul was describing here was the typical problem of the church preferring one teacher over the other, much in the same way today you might prefer a popular preacher that someone else in this church doesn’t share. But the more I’ve studied 1 Corinthians, the more confident I have become that this isn’t merely a division of preference, but (at least for some) this is a question of legitimacy, as in, some people in Corinth are questioning whether Paul is even really an apostle. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 9 Paul must defend his very status as an apostle and must do so repeatedly in 2 Corinthians. While there were likely many who did have stylistic preferences for Paul or Apollos, this has now soured into something much more serious.
Here are the two things that Paul’s opponents repeatedly point to for why he shouldn’t be taken seriously as an apostle: (1) Paul’s speech isn’t impressive, and (2) Paul didn’t take the Corinthians’ money when he was planting the church. Why would that make them question his apostleship? Paul’s opponents viewed this suspiciously, assuming that Paul wasn’t taking their money, perhaps because he had a guilty conscience. Maybe their pride was hurt. But it is primarily that first issue that Paul will spend most of his time addressing early in the letter, and it is likely the root of this division between him and Apollos.
Here is how the book of Acts describes Apollos: “He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures…being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus… He began to speak boldly in the synagogue…When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus,” (Acts 18:24-28). Apollos is an eloquent man. Paul is not. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he quotes some of his opponents in the church: “For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account,” (2 Cor 10:10). Paul is book-smart; He is a powerful theologian—but he has a poor stage presence, looks diminutive, and his rhetoric? Not even worth taking seriously. Surprisingly, this is an estimate that Paul himself agrees with (see 2 Cor 11:6).
Thus, the Apollos-faction, people who have been impressed with Apollos’ powerful speech, do not find Paul to be someone worth taking seriously. But what of the Paul faction? We are only given scant information, so who knows precisely what all was included in these divisions, but there seems to be something about baptism with the Paul-faction. Paul explains, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power,” (1 Cor 1:13-17).
We will return to this passage again later, but consider Paul’s argument. At first, he is making it clear that he is not Jesus, he is not their God. He wasn’t crucified for them, they aren’t baptized into his name. But then, why does he “thank God” that he didn’t baptize that many of them? And why does he say that “Christ did not send me to baptize” when some of the last words of Christ to his disciples were for them to go and baptize (Matt 28:18-20)? Does Paul think it is wrong for people to be baptized? Obviously not, because Paul tells us that he did baptize Crispus, Gaius, and the household of Stephanas. Paul himself was baptized shortly after his conversion (Acts 9:18; 22:16), and all throughout the book of Acts we read about Paul’s mission work leading to people being baptized (Acts 16:14-15, 30-33; 18:8; 19:5). In fact, Paul assumes that all Christians have been baptized in Romans 6:3-5 and Colossians 2:11-12.
Okay, what’s going on here? First, when Paul says: Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, it is revealing what Paul’s primary mission is. Paul is an apostle, not a pastor. He is a travelling, frontier missionary whose primary aim is to go into unreached places, preach the gospel where it is not yet known, and helps start a church, install leaders, and then moves on to the next place. We will explore this later, but baptism (and the Lord’s Supper) are the outward expressions of defining the local church. Baptism is the entry into the local church, and the Lord’s Supper is what re-affirms and re-emphasizes the community. Paul’s mission isn’t to stay and continue to pastor the church, but to plunge like a spear into unreached places and preach the gospel, which will lead to baptisms and the church being built.
Secondly, the reason why Paul says he is grateful that he didn’t baptize that many of the Corinthians is because he is concerned with people superstitiously attributing the significance of their baptism to who they were baptized by…I was baptized by the apostle Paul! You could see how someone may begin to think that because they were baptized by Paul, that meant that they were essentially more important in the church.
So, the Corinthian church is divided. We aren’t sure what is behind the faction that follows Peter (perhaps they know that Peter was called “the rock on which the church is built” and assumed that Peter was the only one worth following). There is a group who finds Paul’s speech and bearing to be so unimpressive—especially in light of the powerful preaching of Apollos—that they aren’t even sure Paul is worth listening to. And those people begin to look suspiciously at loyalists in the church who follow Paul, maybe even pointing out how pompous some of them who keep using their baptism as a way to throw their importance around in the church. The Pauline faction responds with equal suspicion, hurt by the attacks against their beloved apostle, and become defensive at these immature Christians who fail to see the profundity of Paul. And these tensions have now broken out into full-blown arguments, quarrelling that has become intense enough for people from Chloe’s household to send a message to Paul and ask him to weigh in on the matter (1 Cor 1:11).
Now, we don’t have the same situation today. But we have the same source that animates them: pride. Paul is going to spend the next four chapters of this letter addressing this issue and he is going to take aim primarily at the sin of pride. These factions have taken God’s gifts to the church—Paul and Apollos—and have turned them into trampolines to jump off of, so they can get more attention: Look at me! I follow the right guy! I am right! We can do the same thing, just with other things.
Here is a simple test: what causes you to look down on other people, especially fellow members of Christ? That could be big things, like views on politics or theological arguments, or more mundane, like: how clean do you keep your house? What’s your taste when it comes to art, movies, and culture? Do you read the right books?
The Ideal
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 Cor 1:10)
Three things that Paul wants and one thing he doesn’t want from the Corinthians: that they all agree, that they be united in the same mind, and united in the same judgment (or will, Calvin translates this as affection); and that there be no divisions among them.
What does Paul want? He wants the church to be united. The word for “united” is a word used to describe mending and repairing something that is broken (ex. Mark 1:19). Now think of the famous image that Paul will use later to describe the church in 1 Corinthians 12: the body. Now picture a body where everything is dislocated and contorted. Paul wants the church to repaired, to be mended back into the health of the unity of the body, each member connected and functioning properly towards each other.
The image of the body is a great picture of the kind of unity that Paul is envisioning. When Paul calls the church to unity, he isn’t calling the church to uniformity. This is entire point he will stress in chapter twelve—the body of Christ is diverse, with different giftings, and comes from different backgrounds, but all are filled with the same Spirit of Christ (1 Cor 12:1-13). In fact, later Paul is going to go to great lengths to explain that not everyone in the Corinthian church must agree on everything. There are certain matters of opinion where the church can agree to disagree and strive to honor each other’s consciences (1 Cor 8, 10). Becoming a member of a church isn’t like joining a cult where everyone has the same first name, wears the same track suit, and eats the same meal every day. We retain our personality, our individuality, our tastes, our preferences, even while remaining deeply united and connected with the other brothers and sisters in our church who may be different races, ages, have different temperaments, giftings, and even views on some things in the world and the Bible.
So what does it mean, then, for Paul to say we should all agree and be of the same mind and judgment (or will)? Here is how the puritan Matthew Henry explained it: “In the great things of religion be of one mind; and where there is not unity of sentiment, still let there be union of affection. Agreement in the greater things should extinguish divisions about the lesser,” (Matthew Henry).
Where we disagree, we should still be bound together in love (cf. Col 3:14).
And, there should be an understanding that our agreement in “greater things” should far outweigh any disagreement over “lesser” things. This is why our church practices theological triage. All Scripture is equally inspired, but it is not equally clear on all things. Peter himself explains that some of Paul’s writings are hard to understand (2 Pet 3:15-16). So we at Quinault have four categories of doctrine (I didn’t create these, but I can’t remember where I got them from): die, divide, debate, decide. We have doctrine we die for, truths that are essential to salvation (ex. Deity of Christ); doctrine we divide for, truths that are not essential to salvation but are essential to discipleship and church unity (ex. baptism); doctrine we debate, truths that are important, but we can remain in happy fellowship with one another within the same church (ex. Views on the millennium); and lastly doctrine we simply decide on, truths that are the least clear (ex. Head coverings in 1 Cor. 11). Here at Quinault, if you study our Statement of Faith, you will see what we believe are doctrines worth dying for and dividing for.
The divisions in the Corinthian church, though, don’t appear to be on formal doctrinal grounds, but are below that—they are about personalities and gifts and egos. So they are even below the “decide” category.
Here is what strikes me about what Paul didn’t do to manufacture unity in the church: he doesn’t appeal to the Paul faction! He could have spent the entire time castigating those who follow Apollos and denigrate him. He could have patted the Paul crowd on the head and thanked them for the unwavering support in these hard times. But Paul doesn’t do that. He directly undermines his own “faction” by rebuking them: Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? Paul isn’t trying to build a platform for himself, he doesn’t care about his following. He only wants the church to be united in Christ.
The Remedy
The unity of the church is a reality because of the unity of Christ. This is what lies behind Paul’s question: Is Christ divided? Answer: of course not. Jesus is not fractured. So, what is the grounds of the unity of the church? The reality of the unity of Christ. He is the head of His body and His body is not chopped into pieces, but is an integral whole. THEREFORE, church, agree together. Be united in love, and affection, and be of the same mind together…because you ARE united together, already. Let me put it another way: the unity of the Church isn’t something we create, but something we submit to and participate in.
Remember how Paul opened his letter in addressing the Corinthians: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours,” (1 Cor 1:2). The Corinthians are “in Christ Jesus” and “call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” But they are called “together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” To be in Christ, is to be together with everyone else who is also in Him. To be united to Christ is to be united to all others who are united to Him. And to call on is name is to acknowledge a fundamental unity with all others who call on His name.
Main idea: if we cannot be united with those who share the same commitment to Christ as we do, then that reveals how little we think of Jesus. And, consequently, what we have idolized instead. If Jesus is not weighty enough to draw us together, then we are worshipping a false Christ, and bowing before another god. Whatever its manifestation may be, your politics, your parenting, your education…like the Corinthians, it all flows from an exaltation of yourself. I am right, look at me, look at how great I am.
Jesus had a zealot and a tax collector as a disciple. Two men who probably would have killed each other had they been given the chance. The whole 12 were often arguing with each other about who was more important. Yet, they were united. How? Jesus held them together. And, they didn’t only serve with Jesus, but were served by Jesus. Jesus cared for them, Jesus washed their feet. It is an amazing act of humility for Jesus to wash His disciples’ feet. But it is also an incredibly humbling act to have your feet washed by your Lord and Messiah. Here is the Son of God who was enthroned in heaven…picking flecks of mud out from between toes. The incongruity of someone so holy doing something so humiliating, so defiling…what kind of interior reorientation took place in the hearts of the disciples at the moment?
If you were a disciple sitting there, watching Jesus wash your feet, what you would be thinking? You would suddenly become extremely aware of how gross your feet are. You don’t need to do that! They are my feet, I can clean them. You don’t deserve to be treated like this, think of the cost to your dignity, it will make your hands filthy, how embarrassing it must be for you. But Jesus’ words to Peter when he tried to excuse Jesus from washing his feet would be His words to us in that moment: If I do not wash you, you have no share with me, (John 13:8). Jesus is pointing to a deeper, more serious cleansing that is about to take place and saying, in effect, the only one who can clean you, is me.
And if that is true for our feet, then what runs through our heart when we consider Good Friday? There Jesus performed a much more humbling washing. There He isn’t looking at our feet, but into our very souls. There he is seeing everything, the worst things, things that you don’t even realize about yourself. And that terrifies us. We may want to run away at fear of being exposed, but Jesus doesn’t exploit us, He cleanses us. Out of His great love for us, Jesus is made wretched, made filthy, humiliated, treated like a slave, and dies. Why? Because that was the punishment our sins deserved, and Jesus took our place, so that we now can be forgiven.
There is only one place where the stubborn root of human pride and vanity can be cut—the cross. It is there that we see our sin is infinitely worse than we ever thought, and God’s love for us infinitely deeper than we ever dreamed. You are so sinful that Jesus had to die for you, but you are so loved that He wanted to. This is the double-cure that humbles us to the dust, severing our pride and ego, while lifting us up to the heavens, making us secure and at peace with Christ. This is what we need to overcome the petty human tendency to build our lives, and build factions in the church, on our vanity and pride.
“It is a sight of the divine beauty of Christ, that bows the wills, and draws the hearts of men.” (Jonathan Edwards, “Children Ought to Love the Lord Jesus Christ Above All,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 22, Sermons and Discourses).
What would a church look like who was captivated by the beauty of Christ in the gospel?
1. A church that is deeply committed to loving one another, no matter what.
2. A church that would be quick to forgive when sin ruptures unity, and quick to seek forgiveness.
3. A church that prioritizes unity in the essential doctrines of Christ and the church.
4. A church that would assume the best with those who seem to disagree with us on lesser matters.
[1] The first four chapters are devoted to this initial problem of division over leaders. But, further, some members of the church are suing each other (1 Cor 6:1-8); some members of the church think that you can do whatever you want sexually and others think that sex is entirely forbidden (1 Cor 6:12-7:5); the church is divided over whether you can eat food offered to idols (1 Cor 8); the wealthier members are not waiting to take the Lord’s Supper together with the poorer members of the church (1 Cor 11:17-22); and they are divided over spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12-14). This is a terribly fractured church.
