Notes on 1. Corinthians 1:10-16

Divisions is the topic that the Bible takes us to today. From what we read in this letter it seems to have been a major issue in the church in Corinth.

Verse 10-12

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ."Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

That you all agree:
That is the exhortation. We all have to agree, and there should be no divisions among us. Pretty straightforward, so let me count to 3 and them we all agree... 1... 2...

Wait there are a few things we need to figure out first, if we're going to do this right.

First of all, what is the disagreement in the first place? In the Corinthian church Paul spends most energy on their tendency to divide up according to who was their favorite preacher. It seems they may have acted somewhat like our modern day soccer hooligans, except in stead of dressing up in the team colors and have bar-fights, they would identify spiritually with one preacher and have church-fights. I don't know which is worse. In our setting the disagreements may be different, but I'm sure we won't have to look too long and hard to find at least something that we might disagree on

Then, when we know what we disagree on, we need to figure out who we all agree with. Now, I vote that we all agree with me. Anyone who is for that raise their hands... The problem is, though, that you want everyone to agree with you. And so does everyone else. So the irony of the situation is that in order to agree we don't only need to agree to agree, but we need to agree on what to agree on. And that's a bit more difficult.

I know what you're thinking: Maybe a more spiritual approach will help... Let's figure out what God thinks of the matter, and we'll all agree with him. Well I would not think what I think if I didn't think God agreed with me, so obviously he does, and you should all agree with me. Right?

Wrong. We'll all claim God is on our team, so we really didn't solve any problem. We just moved it. From agreeing on what to agree about to agreeing on what God thinks. And we're basically still fighting about the same thing. Only now we have pulled God into our fight, imagining we're fighting on his behalf and that's a sure way to raise the temperature in any fight.

We need some more help on how to find this agreement can be achieved, because right now things are looking bleak. We're both in our separate camps, each seeing a part of the full picture, and fighting like there's no more picture outside of our field of sight.

No, I haven't gone postmodern, and I'm not saying that everything goes. I'm talking about how we treat legitimate disagreements among brethren. Such as which preacher you prefer. Or something that may be closer to our mind after the last session, the question of whether or not someone can loose their salvation. The kind of question that a reasonable, clear-headed, God-loving, Bible-reading Christian can come out on either side of.

We don't want to compromise on truth, but we need to agree. So how do we do that? The answer is right here in this verse.

That you be made complete:
Let's face it. You don't see the full picture. I don't either. The Bible says “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1Cor 13:12) This is our condition for the duration of our stay on earth. Seeing parts of a larger picture.

The full picture is much larger than anything that could ever fit into a mortal human's scope of vision, because it's a picture of God. The promise that we will one day see in full is unimaginable to us now. The little He has shown us in the Bible is already enough to blow us away. Like when we talked about his sovereignty in electing us and saving us last week. Those were deep and big thoughts that stretched our minds more than what was comfortable. Imagine all of the other things that he hasn't even bothered to try explaining to us.

The full picture is not for this life, but the prescription that Paul offered for fostering agreement and healing divisions was to be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. The Corinthians were looking at the different parts of the same picture, the revelation that God had given them of himself through the preaching of Paul and Apollos and Cefas. But they didn't understand that those were all parts of the same picture. They didn't see them together, but as competing. Paul was urging them to stop picking the gospel into pieces and setting them up against each other. They should in stead be putting them together to see the complete picture.

Verse 14-16:

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other.

Baptized in my name:
Paul had been chosen and sent by God, entrusted with the ministry of proclaiming the name of Christ. If the object of his mission was to spread the fame of Christ's name, than the greatest possible failure would be if he spread the fame of Paul's name in stead.

Idolatry was rampant all throughout Greece, and Paul has to deal much with the Corinthians' relationship to idol-worship later in this letter. We're talking literal bowing down to statues, and sacrificing meat to demons-type idolatry here. He had probably caught on to this idolatrous tendency in the Corinthians early on, and wisely chosen not to perform baptisms himself, so that he would avoid some special status being associated with that, and the divisions that would come with it.

The people he did baptize himself were some of the first people who came to Christ in Corinth. Crispus, as we remember, was the leader of the synagogue in Corinth; “Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized.” And the household of Stephanas is described as the first-fruits of Achaia in 16:15. Verse 16 seems to indicate he had a leading position in the church of Corinth; “Now I urge you, brethren (you know the household of Stephanas, that they were the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves for ministry to the saints), that you also be in subjection to such men and to everyone who helps in the work and labors.”

It seems that after those first baptisms, Paul handed over that responsibility to others. I would guess it was given to someone who did not have a preaching role in the church, so that Apollos and Cephas also would avoid that type of followers. Paul did not want to create Paulians. He wanted to create Christians.

The well-known French theologian John Calvin said “The human heart is a factory of idols...Everyone of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.” It's ironic that today, 500 years later, many will identify themselves as Calvinists rather than Christians. Now I understand that it's a short and convenient way to say that you're a Christian who hold to certain beliefs about the sovereignty of God, and I even agree with those beliefs myself. I'm not even saying it's wrong to call yourself a Calvinist. I'm saying the picture is too big to be painted with one brush. Calvin was a brush. So was any other preacher that people tend to identify with. Joseph Arminius, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon and so on. While these have all said things that were true and good, they were also humans with faults and weaknesses. There's reason to check your heart if you find yourself quarreling with those who don't have the same favorite preacher as you, or forming little exclusive cliques where you get each other all worked up over what the others are doing wrong.

I believe in Christ. As he's been proclaimed by Paul, Apollos, Cephas, Calvin and all other true preachers of Christ. The full picture, not just their individual contributions to it.