Ponderings on 1 Corinthians Chapters 1 – 4: (4)

“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? 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. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.” (1 Corinthians 1:10 – 17).

In the passage preceding the above (1:1 – 1:9), Paul affirms the work of God in the Corinthian Christians, reminding them of who God in Christ is and who they are in Christ. Paul now turns his attention to the fact that the Corinthians are not living as who they really are – the sons and daughters of God – but rather as “mere men” (3:3). This line of argument continues through Chapter Four. In these chapters Paul will take his readers to task for living as mere men, for schisms, for naturalistic reasoning, for destroying the sanctuary of God, for arrogance; concluding with a reminder that he, Paul, is their father in Christ and that the “kingdom of God does not consist in [naturalistic] word but in power.”

Is it too much to suggest that the chaos and sin that Paul deals with in the balance of this letter (chapters 4 – 16) are the result of the sin and chaos identified in chapters 1 – 4?

Pondering verse 1:10: “…that you all agree…” This phrase literally means “that you all speak the same thing.” Here is an image of a people who agree to the point that for a stranger to listen to one speak is to listen to all speak. (As Paul makes clear elsewhere (chapters 12 – 14) in this letter, this does not preclude individuality or diverse giftedness.)

The Trinity gives us the image of how we ought to live, for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit speak the same thing; indeed, as John Chapter 17 makes clear, we are called into the very koinonia of the Trinity and that koinonia is to be our fountain of life; being our fountain of life it is our fountain of unity. But how can we speak the same thing if we do not all think the same thing? If the Christ of the Cross is not our nexus of thinking and affection, if our hearts and minds are drawn elsewhere – whether to Paul or Apollos or Peter, it is not likely we will be speaking the same thing. (See also Ephesians 4:1 – 16; Philippians 1:27 – 2:18).     

“…and that there be no divisions among you…” Schism works directly against the will of God in Christ, it violates the nature of the Trinity (speaking in the natural), and it works against the prayer of Jesus (John 17). While Jesus prays that we may be “perfected into one” (John 17:23) we glory in our doctrinal and practical “distinctives”; or we glory in our own versions of Paul, Apollos, and Peter. As I once said to a coworker who was caught-up in a popular television minister to the virtual exclusion of reading the Bible, “____ didn’t die for you.”

There is tension in all of this for, as the NT makes clear, there is such a thing as false teaching, there is apostasy, there is heresy. There is doctrine that is heretical, and there are practices that are heretical – harmony at the expense of the truth of the Gospel is poison.

Nevertheless, we ought to ask ourselves, “What is our center of gravity? How do we think about the Church of Jesus Christ?” Do we think of the Church before we think of our local congregation or our denomination or tradition? Do we put the Church before the church? Are we guilty of putting our own denominational or “distinctive” houses before the House of the LORD? (See the prophet Haggai.)

Perhaps worse, are we practicing the way of Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:25 – 33) and fashioning idols for our people to worship lest they wander away from our local congregations? Naturally we will not call them idols, we would never make idols would we? Are we attracting and retaining people with a message other than the Gospel? Other than the Cross?

Again, there is a healthy tension for doctrine matters, the Nicene Creed matters, holy living matters. But…is our mission to promote unity in the Body of Christ? Are we seeking to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4)? Well, as a people we have only to look around and we’ll have our answer – there is precious little cooperation among local congregations, between pastors, between traditions and denominations – at least in the West. We cannot explain this away and excuse it. We have a fractured witness, and a fractured witness does not refract the glory of Christ. Since Jesus links our witness to the world with our love for one another and our unity you would think we’d be more concerned about the fragmented status quo…but of course we aren’t.

“…but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.” If we are to speak the same thing we must think the same thing, and here Paul exhorts the Corinthians to be made complete, or “knit together”, in the same mind and the same judgment, or way of thinking and looking at things. The Greek word for “made complete” can also be translated “knit together” and it can have the sense of something that was torn apart being knit back together to be made whole and complete. So there is hope for us, but I think it is a hope that we must intentionally lay hold of, focus on, talk about, and work to obtain.

A few months ago I read a newsletter from a friend who pastors a church in a certain region, and I was taken aback by a statement that his church was the only church of his particular tradition in that region and that it was therefore important that his readers consider supporting his ministry. I know that there are other Gospel-preaching churches in my friend’s immediate location, granted, they are not of my friend’s “tradition”, and granted they may not even be my particular cup of tea, but I know they preach the Christ of the Cross. I wondered at the “us and them” mentality – a mentality I have had myself. How can I work with others if I have such a way of thinking? Am I only interacting with pastors outside my tradition from a sense of charitableness? Am I up here and are they down there?

More often than not I don’t know my own heart, but I pray that I’ll focus on our communion (koinonia) in Christ when I meet pastors and Christians from other Gospel traditions with a high view of Scripture.

I want the people I serve to think of themselves as Christians, as disciples of Jesus, before they think of themselves as being within “this” or “that” tradition. I want our core identity to be Jesus Christ and the Church; it seems to me that any other core identity is problematic.

Jesus Christ made our unity in the Trinity a focal point of His prayer and desire. Paul confronts schism and its results in 1 Corinthians, and throughout his letters he appeals to our unity in Christ. If we cannot lament the schismatic condition of the professing church, if we cannot repent of it, if we cannot truly seek to inculcate a sense of the universal Church in the hearts and minds of our congregations…do we have much of a future in the chaos and anarchy of our world? Are we being faithful shepherds?