The honeymoon was short lived. Already in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 we begin to see what the problems were in the Church at Corinth. But even this is good news. It is a healthy reminder that even the first followers of Jesus were not perfect. If God could use them to win the Roman Empire to Christ, then maybe God can use us in our own day.
Listen for God’s word to you from 1 Corinthians 1:10-17…
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11 My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,15 so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
The Appeal
Paul begins the main body of his letter to the Church at Corinth with an appeal. And that appeal, in a way, has three parts or three aspects to it.
First, Paul appeals to the Corinthians to agree with one another in what they say. Literally, Paul says, “I beg you, brothers, through the name of the Lord of us Jesus Christ, in order that the same thing you all will say.”
There is a non-biblical saying that I heard from the rabbi in Stowe, Vermont: “Two Jews, three opinions.”
I don’t think Paul was expecting the Corinthians to agree about everything. We will see more in a minute about what kind of unity Paul expected to see in the church. And we will see much later in this letter that Paul, in fact, expected there to be a healthy diversity in the church. Later he is going to talk about how we are all members of one body. The various members of a body are not the same. A hand is not the same as a foot. A mouth is not the same as an ear. Paul expected diversity, but he also wanted to see unity in a certain way.
We get a hint of what that way is when Paul says, “I beg you, brothers, through the name of the Lord of us Jesus Christ…”
We are all brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. We are a family, and we have one Lord.
Often, when I offer to couples either marital or pre-marital counseling, I talk about the need for a love triangle. Yes, having a love triangle can be a good thing! It all depends upon who you bring into the marriage with you.
I encourage couples to bring Jesus into the marriage with them, to make Christ the third person in their relationship. If you think of each partner in a marriage being at a different point of a triangle, and Jesus being the third point of that same triangle, then, as each partner moves closer to Jesus, they will also be moving closer to each other.
The same holds true for the church, for the Christian family. The more we focus on Jesus and drawing closer to him, the closer we will also draw to one another. That is the way to achieve unity in the church.
The second part of Paul’s appeal goes along with this. He appeals to the Corinthians to avoid divisions. The word in Greek is “schismata”. From this we get our English word “schism”. The word in Greek is used to refer to a tear in a garment.
God does not want us to tear apart from one another. Rather, he wants us all to be part of the seamless garment of Christ.
That doesn’t mean that we all must belong to the same congregation or even the same denomination. Again, variety in the body of Christ can be a good thing. Jesus expects that there will be diversity in his body. But he also wants there to be unity, the kind of unity that comes about from doing things together.
Practically speaking, how do you draw closer to other Christians? You do it when you pray together, when you read the Bible together, and even when you eat together, and worship together.
But the kind of unity that Jesus desires for his body, the church, cannot be brought about by our working at it in our own strength. Paul also appeals to the Christians in Corinth to allow God to unite them in mind and thought. The Holy Spirit is really the only one who can bring about the real unity that Christ desires in his own body.
However, there was one thing at Corinth that was standing in the way of this happening. There was one thing that was causing cliques among them.
The Problem—Party Spirit
That one thing, that one problem, was a party spirit. And by “party spirit” I don’t mean a birthday party or some other happy occasion like that. I mean the kind of party spirit where some people say: “I belong to this group, and you belong to that one. Us four and no more!”
While Paul was in Ephesus, he was informed by a member of one of the house churches in Corinth that there were quarrels going on in Corinth among the Christians there. These quarrels were of such a nature that the Christians of Corinth were divided, each claiming a different leader that they were following. Some claimed to be followers of Paul, some of Apollos, some of Cephas, that is Peter. And to crown it all, others said, “Well, we don’t know about you, but we are the true followers of Christ.”
If you have never encountered this in Christian circles, consider yourself lucky. I know I certainly have seen this party spirit. Becky and I lived in a small town for a while where we met a Christian couple who held a Bible study in their home. So far, so good. But to our knowledge this couple did not attend any church in the area, despite the fact that there were many options. Apparently, none of the churches were good enough for them. To top it all off, this couple had a particular radio preacher that they followed. Whatever question about Christianity might arise in their Bible study group, they believed Rev. So-and-So had the answer. I often wondered whether Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Christian would find something wrong with Rev. So-and-So’s church if they ever attended in person rather than just listening on the radio at a safe distance.
Well, something like that was going on in the Church at Corinth, minus the radio. People were following personalities and were focused on that rather than Christ.
One of my pastors when I was growing up was Louis Evans, Jr. He was a very charismatic preacher and a powerful personality. He was also married to Colleen Townsend Evans, a former actress from Hollywood. After serving at La Jolla Presbyterian Church in California, Louis and Coke were called to the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. One Sunday, a visitor showed up and meeting one of the associate pastors at the front door he asked, “Is this Louis Evans’ church?” The associate pastor responded, “No, this is not Dr. Evans’ church. It is the church of Jesus Christ.” I don’t know whether that visitor turned around and left or what, but you get the point. The Church of Jesus Christ does not belong to any human person or even a group of people; the church belongs to Jesus alone and we are called to follow him.
The Questions
What Paul heard about the party spirit in Corinth, led him to ask some very important rhetorical questions.
The first question was: Has Christ been divided? The obvious answer is: “No, Christ has not been divided.” Christ is one, and so the obvious implication is that Christians also should be one and undivided.
The second rhetorical question Paul asks makes it clear that he disowns the idea of anyone following him. He asks: Was Paul crucified for you? In fact, the sentence in Greek begins with an emphatic “NO!” “Not Paul was crucified on behalf of you.”
This whole thing of putting ministers on a pedestal may not have begun in Corinth, but it has certainly continued to this day. Some people put their pastors on such a high pedestal that when the same parishioners discover that their pastors are human and that their pastor sins, they are so disillusioned that they give up on church altogether.
The problem with that is that peoples’ eyes have been in the wrong place to begin with. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus and follow him, not any mere human being.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard someone say, “I don’t come to church because the church is full of hypocrites.” My answer is always, “Yes, of course. And I am a hypocrite too.” The word “hypocrite” in Greek means a play actor, and actors in those days wore masks. We all wear masks to a certain extent. We all show to others what they want to see, or what we want them to see, to a certain extent.
But Jesus was and is not like that. Jesus was not and is not a hypocrite. And I come to church to follow him, not to follow any other human being. I come to church to worship Jesus and him alone.
The third rhetorical question Paul asks is: Were you baptized in the name of Paul? The obvious answer is no. Christians are baptized into the name of Jesus. We are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The phrase is an interesting one. It uses the little Greek preposition “eis” which literally means “into”. We are all, as Christians, baptized into the name of Jesus. That means we are called to put our lives into his hands. We are called to put our faith and trust into Jesus and not anyone else.
Paul’s Perspective
Finally, let me say something about Paul’s perspective on this whole matter. He says he gives thanks that he did not baptize many people in Corinth except for Crispus and Gaius.
Each one of these names represents an interesting story. You may remember from our study of Acts a couple of weeks ago that Paul began his ministry in Corinth by preaching in the synagogue. When his fellow Jews resisted his message, Paul left the synagogue, went next door, and began teaching in the home of a man named Titius Justus who we read was a worshipper of God. That means that Titius Justus was a Gentile who attended the synagogue, worshipped the Lord, but had not gone all the way and become a full Jew by being circumcised. No sooner had Paul left the synagogue when the synagogue ruler, Crispus, and his household began attending Paul’s meetings next door. And Crispus and his household became followers of Jesus. This was the Crispus whom Paul baptized.
The second person Paul mentions who he baptized was Gaius. Gaius is also mentioned in Romans 16:23. Paul, writing to Rome from Corinth says, “Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings.”
When we put this together with Acts 18:7, we realize that Gaius is none other than the man whom Luke calls Titius Justus, Paul’s host in Corinth after he left the synagogue. Gaius Titius Justus would be a complete Roman name (praenomen, nomen gentile, cognomen).[1]
The third person mentioned, whom Paul baptized was Stephanas and his household. Paul must have forgotten that he baptized Stephanas and perhaps Stephanas reminded him. In 1 Corinthians 16:15 Paul says, “You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the Lord’s people.” Thus, Stephanas was the first convert to Christianity in Corinth.
Paul’s mention of baptism is also interesting because he refers to household baptism. The household would have included everyone in the house, not only family members but servants as well. It would have included people of all ages, even infants. Thus, we find the origin of infant baptism in the practice of the New Testament.
Nonetheless Paul makes it clear: “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel”—literally—to evangelize. Then Paul adds, “not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” Paul mentions Jesus Christ no less than 14 times in the first 17 verses of this letter. Paul, quite simply, was obsessed with Jesus.
I am no Paul, but I can tell you that I feel the same sense of calling. Christ has not called me primarily to baptize, though I do that, but to preach the gospel.
Karl Barth, one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, used to have a copy of a painting in his study. It is called the Isenheim altarpiece by Matthias Grunewald. There are many things I could call your attention to in this great work of art from the late Middle Ages. But what spoke to Barth and speaks also to me, is Jesus on the cross. Jesus is quite obviously at the center of this artwork, but there is nothing attractive about this Jesus. It is the Jesus of the cross, the body emaciated, and like many in Grunewald’s day, marked by the plague. The other thing that stands out to me in this painting is John the Baptist standing next to the cross and pointing to Jesus with his crooked finger.
That’s what I feel called to do with my life… point others to Jesus. I am an imperfect sinner, saved only by the grace of Christ. My finger may even be crooked, but I can still point others to the Savior.
[1] F. F. Bruce, The New Century Bible Commentary on I & II Corinthians, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983, p. 34.
Comments